There was a house fire on my street last night …well… not exactly my street, but on a little, sketchy, dead-end strip of asphalt, sidewalks, weeds, and garbage that juts into my block two houses down. It was on that street. Rosewood Court, population: 12, adjusted population: 11, characterized by anonymity and boarded windows, peppered with the swift movements of fat street rats. I’ve never been that close to a real, high-energy, make-sure-to-spray-down-your-roof-with-a-hose-so-it-doesn’t-catch­ fire before. It was the least of my expectations for the evening, though I didn’t expect a crate of Peruvian bananas to fall off a cargo plane either, punching through the ceiling, littering the parking lot with damaged fruit and shingles, tearing paintings and shelves and studs from the third floor walls, and crashing into our kitchen, shattering dishes and cabinets and appliances. Since that never happened, and since neither the former nor the latter situation even crossed my mind, I’ll stick with “least of my expectations,” and bundle up with it inside that inadequate phrase whatever else may have happened that I wouldn’t have expected.



I had been reading in my living room, absently petting the long calico fur of my roommate’s cat Dory. She’s in heat, and does her best to make sure everyone knows it, parading around, *** in the air, an opera of low trilling and loud meows and deep purring. As a consequence of a steady tide of feline hormones, she’s been excessively good humored, showering me with affection, instead of her usual indifference, punctuated by occasional, self-serving shin rubs when she’s hungry. I saw the lights before I heard the trucks or the shouts of firemen or the panicked wail of sirens, spitting their warning into the night in A or A minor, but probably neither, I’m no musician. Besides, Congratulations was playing loud, flowing through the speakers in the corners of the room, connected to the record player via the receiver with the broken volume control, travelling as excited electrons down stretches of wire that are, realistically, too short, and always pull out. The song was filling the space between the speakers and the space between my ears with musings on Brian Eno, so the auditory signal that should have informed me of the trouble that was afoot was blocked out. I saw the lights, the alternating reds and whites that filled my living room, drawing shifting patterns on my walls, ceiling, floor, furniture, and shelves of books, dragging me towards the door leading outside, through the cluttered bike room, past the sleeping, black lump of oblivious fur that is usually my boisterous male kitten, and out into the bedlam I  had previously been ignorant to. I could see the smoke, it was white then gray then white, all the while lending an acrid taste to the air, but I couldn’t see where it was issuing from. The wind was blowing the smoke toward my apartment, away from Empire Mills. I tried to count the firetrucks, but there were so many. I counted six on Wilmarth Ave, one of which was the awkward-looking, heavy-duty special hazards truck. In my part of the city, the post-industrial third-wave ***** river valley, you never know if the grease fire that started with homefries in a frying pan in an old woman’s kitchen will escalate into a full-blown mill fire, the century-old wood floors so saturated with oil and kerosene and ****** and manufacturing chemicals and ghosts and god knows what other flammable **** that it lights up like a fifth of July leftover sparkler, burning and melting the hand of the community that fed it for so many decades, leaving scars that are displayed on the local news for a week and are forgotten in a few years’ time.



The night was windy, and the day had been dry, so precautions were abundant, and I counted two more trucks on Fones Ave. One had the biggest ladder I’ve ever seen. It was parked on the corner of Fones and Wilmarth, directly across from the entrance into the forgotten dead-end where the forgotten house was burning, and the ladder was lifting into the air. By now my two roommates had come outside too, to stand on our rickety, wooden staircase, and Jeff said he could see flames in the windows of one of the three abandoned houses on Rosewood, through the third floor holes where windows once were, where boards of plywood were deemed unnecessary.



“Ay! Daddy!”



My neighbor John called up to us. He serves as the eyes and ears and certainly the mouth of our block, always in everyone’s business, without being too intrusive, always aware of what’s going down and who’s involved. He proceeded to tell us the lowdown on the blaze as far as he knew it, that there were two more firetrucks and an ambulance down Rosewood, that the front and back doors to the house were blocked by something from inside, that those somethings were very heavy, that someone was screaming inside, that the fire was growing.



Val had gone inside to get his jacket, because despite the floodlights from the trucks imitating sunlight, the wind and the low temperature and the thought of a person burning alive made the night chilly. Val thought we should go around the block, to see if we could get a better view, to satisfy our congenital need to witness disaster, to see the passenger car flip over the Jersey barrier, to watch the videos of Jihadist beheadings, to stand in line to look at painted corpses in velvet, underlit parlors, and sit in silence while their family members cry. We walked down the stairs, into full floodlight, and there were first responders and police and fully equipped firefighters moving in all directions. We watched two firemen attempting to open an old, rusty fire hydrant, and it could’ve been inexperience, the stress of the situation, the condition of the hydrant, or just poor luck, but rather than opening as it was supposed to the hydrant burst open, sending the cap flying into the side of a firetruck, the water crashing into the younger of the two men’s face and torso, knocking him back on his ***. While he coughed out surprised air and water and a flood of expletives, his partner got the situation under control and got the hose attached. We turned and walked away from the fire, and as we approached the turn we’d take to cut through the rundown parking lot that would bring us to the other side of the block, two firemen hurried past, one leading the other, carrying between them a stretcher full of machines for monitoring and a shitload of wires and tubing. It was the stiff board-like kind, with handles on each end, the kind of stretcher you might expect to see circus clowns carry out, when it’s time to save their fallen, pie-faced cohort. I wondered why they were using this archaic form of patient transportation, and not one of the padded, electrical ones on wheels. We pushed past the crowd that had begun forming, walked past the Laundromat, the 7Eleven, the carwash, and took a left onto the street on the other side of the parking lot, parallel to Wilmarth. There were several older men standing on the sidewalk, facing the fire, hands either in pockets or bringing a cigarette to and from a frowning mouth. They were standing in the ideal place to witness the action, with an unobstructed view of the top two floors of the burning house, its upper windows glowing orange with internal light and vomiting putrid smoke.  We could taste the burning wires, the rugs, the insulation, the asbestos, the black mold, the trash, and the smell was so strong I had to cover my mouth with my shirt, though it provided little relief. We said hello, they grunted the same, and we all stood, watching, thinking about what we were seeing, not wanting to see what we were thinking.

Two firefighters were on the roof by this point, they were yelling to each other and to the others on the ground, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying because of the sirens from all the emergency vehicles that were arriving.  It seemed to me they sent every firetruck in the city, as well as more than a dozen police cars and a slew of ambulances, all of them arriving from every direction. I guess they expected the fire to get really out of hand, but we could already see the orange glow withdrawing into the dark of the house, steam and smoke rippling out of the stretched, wooden mouths of the rotted window frames. In a gruff, habitual smoker’s voice, we heard

                                      “Chopper called the fire depahtment

We was over at the vet’s home

                He says he saw flames in the windas

                                                                                                                                                We all thought he was shittin’ us

We couldn’t see nothin’.”

A man between fifty-five to sixty-five years old was speaking, no hair on his shiny, tanned head, old tattoos etched in bluish gray on his hands, arms, and neck, menthol smoke rising from between timeworn fingers. He brought the cigarette to his lips, drew a hearty chest full of smoke, and as he let it out he repeated

                                                “Yea, chopper called em’

Says he saw flames.”

The men on the roof were just silhouettes, backlit by the dazzling brightness of the lights on the other side.  The figure to the left of the roof pulled something large up into view, and we knew instantly by the cord pull and the sound that it was a chainsaw. He began cutting directly into the roof. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, wondered if he was scared of falling into the fire, assumed he probably was, but had at least done this before, tried to figure out if he was doing it to gain entry or release pressure or whatever. The man to the right was hacking away at the roof with an axe. It was surreal to watch, to see two men transformed from public servants into fingers of destruction, the pinkie and ring finger fighting the powerful thumb of the controlled chemical reaction eating the air below them, to watch the dark figures shrouded in ethereal light and smoke and sawdust and what must’ve been unbearable heat from below, to be viewing everything with my own home, my belongings, still visible, to know it could easily have gone up in flames as well.

I should’ve brought my jacket. I remember complaining about it, about how the wind was passing through my skin like a window screen, chilling my blood, in sharp contrast to the heat that was morphing and rippling the air above the house as it disappeared as smoke and gas up into the atmosphere from the inside out.

Ten minutes later, or maybe five, or maybe one, the men on the roof were still working diligently cutting and chopping, but we could no longer see any signs of flames, and there were figures moving around in the house, visible in the windows of the upper floors, despite the smoke. Figuring the action must be reaching its end, we decided to walk back to our apartment. We saw Ken’s brown pickup truck parked next to the Laundromat, unable to reach our parking lot due to all the emergency vehicles and people clogging our street. We came around the corner and saw the other two members of the Infamous Summers standing next to our building with the rest of the crowd that had gathered. Dosin told us the fire was out, and that they had pulled someone from inside the gutted house, but no ambulance had left yet, and his normally smiling face was flat and somber, and the beaten guitar case slung over his shoulder, and his messed up hair, and the red in his cheeks from the cold air, and the way he was moving rocks around with the toe of his shoe made him look like a lost child, chasing a dream far from home but finding a nightmare in its place, instead of the professional who never loses his cool or his direction.

The crowd all began talking at once, so I turned around, towards the dead end and the group of firefighters and EMTs that were emerging. Their faces were stoic, not a single expression on all but one of those faces, a young EMT, probably a Basic, or a Cardiac, or neither, but no older than twenty, who was silently weeping, the tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks, his eyes empty of emotion, his lips drawn tight and still. Four of them were each holding a corner of the maroon stretcher that took two to carry when I first saw it, full of equipment. They did not rush, they did not appear to be tending to a person barely holding onto life, they were just carrying the weight. As they got close gasps and cries of horror or disgust or both issued from the crowd, some turned away, some expressions didn’t change, some eyes closed and others stayed fixed on what they came to see. One woman vomited, right there on the sidewalk, splashing the shoes of those near her with the partially digested remains of her EBT dinner. I felt my own stomach start to turn, but I didn’t look away. I couldn’t.

                                                                                It was like I was seven again,

                                in the alleyway running along the side of the junior high school I lived near and would eventually attend,

looking in silent horror at what three eighth graders from my neighborhood were doing.

It was about eight in the evening of a rainy,

late summer day,

and I was walking home with my older brother,

cutting through the alley like we always did.

The three older boys were standing over a small dog,

a terrier of some sort.

They had duct taped its mouth shut and its legs together,

but we could still hear its terrified whines through its clenched teeth.

One of the boys had cut off the dog’s tail.

He had it in one hand,

and was still holding the pocket knife in the other.

None of them were smiling,

or talking,

nor did they take notice of Andrew and I.

There was a garden bag standing up next to them that looked pretty full,

and there was a small pile of leaves on the ground next to it.

In slow motion I watched,

horrified,

as one of the boys,

Brian Jones-Hartlett,

picked up the shaking animal,

put it in the bag,

covered it with the leaves from the ground,

and with wide,

shining eyes,

set the bag

on fire

with a long-necked

candle

lighter.

It was too much for me then. I couldn’t control my nausea. I threw up and sat down while my head swam.

I couldn’t understand. I forgot my brother and the fact that he was older, that he should stop this,

Stop them,

There’s a dog in there,

You’re older, I’m sick,

Why can’t I stop them?

It was like

Addicted to diction,
With conflicting
Prescriptions
From competing
Physicians,
I'm dying from sickness
In the wealthcare system.
Our nutrition
Is based on
Corn-laced fiction,
Advertisement
Superstitions,
And a pill for every
Devised affliction.
We're born into life
Under welfare
Conscription,
And destined to die
From dereliction.
Make sure to vote
For the best
Infection in the
Next election,
As they raise
A toast
To their own
Reflections.

We sat,
******* the shreds
Of chicken
From our teeth,
In a cloud of smoke
From tempers flared
That burned to the quick.
The record spun,
The needle stuck
In the endless
Circle groove
At the disc's
Center, but
Neither of us
Moved.
We didn't change
The record,
We didn't
Shut the
Player off.
We sat,
And watched our
Fingers and toes
Evaporate.
We looked on
As the
Room dissolved,
We made no pleas,
Or any noise at all
As our world
Was erased.
In the eggshell light
Of our rebirth
The seasons passed,
With no attention
Paid, like
Sudanese children,
Left to collect sunlight
In the pores of their flesh,
Are ignored
By their God.
The air was a sea
Of vibrations,
Writhing and alive
In the periphery
Of our perceptions.
Do you remember
How it felt to
Be reconstructed?
Cell by cell
We came together,
Our blood vessels
And lymphatic tunnels
Wove through
Tendrils of bone
And wisps of
***** tissue,
Our nerves snaked
Their way through
The jungle of our
New-found existence,
A supercomputer
Materialized within
Each of us,
And they began
Discovering themselves
And each other.
We had arrived prematurely,
And our flames
Were snuffed out
In the claustrophobic
Incubators.
Here we now sit,
White noise
Filling the void,
Waiting for
Something we'll
Never see
Come to be,
But can't avoid.

Winter has steadily come,
And I'm not sure I can convey
How readily glum
The frost singed air
Feels as it sticks in my throat.
I might as well,
I might as well.
A pig pulled a
U-turn to warn me
Of the ghetto youths
Roaming the neighborhood,
He said to put my phone away
And be on guard,
This area is dangerous, you know,
How long have you lived here,
How long have you been alive?
My knuckles are stiff
And my toes need stretching,
And my mind keeps retching
From the smell
Of rotting leaves
Mixed with deferred dreams.
In this section of town
Named for Hughes,
I perceive the blues
He was wont
To sing,
I breathe the fluid
Inherent in the slums,
And think on why
The oil shines in
The gutter,
Why it's working in our blood,
But it's not the same as love
Why vagrants mutter
And Hope dissolves
Once the glitter of
The campaign wears off,
Left to sparkle in the dirt
With the cast-off gloves
And chunks of weave.
Oppression in the guise
Of freedom stresses
My beliefs,
And it's all I can do
To take solace in the relief
Of taking my seat on the
Bus I've been waiting for
That will drive me
Towards a different lie
And a less realistic
Metaphor;
Cleveland Park
And its expensive stores.

Let's go grab the money
Hidden in the Christmas Tree
Shoppe mason jar with the
Frosted stencil designs,
Ornate and resembling flora.

Let's take that money,
The three separate wadded
***** of once crisp
Green pieces of paper
That somehow reach the
Arbitrary total of one
Thousand, three hundred and
Twenty dollars and
Fifty lonely cents.

Let's take that 1,320.50
And go see the desolate
Stretch of sprawling
Humanity deferred between
These hiked peaks and the
Dangerous mountains
Separating the west
From the rest.

Let's go there!
Let's go there!
We'll make it across,
Be sure of that,
Be sure of nothing
But that!

Let's use the remaining
Seven fifty
To buy some
Seven Eleven sustenance
To have while
We walk backwards
Down backroads edged
With the encroachment
Of the wild back into
Negative space some
Long-ago engineer
Carved and paved.

Let's tell the driver of
This beat-up
Time-worn down
Overcast grey
Buick LeSabre
That we can pay her
Ten dollars to replace
The juice necessary to get
Us back to our sick aunt's
House in Poughkeepsie.

At the gas station
We'll tell her to stop
Real quick
And hope she leaves the
Auto to go
Pay the schlup at
The teller's booth
And jack the beater
And hope we won't
Have to bolt
Again if she doesn't.

Let's call my cousin
And find out who will give
Us four hundred dollars for
The stolen used parts store
And take that four hundred
And buy:

Two (2) greyhound tickets to get us
Back to our ****** apartment
In Stamford: 64.50 American

Three (3) damp-bunned flimsy
Beef patties glued between
Pieces of government-issue
Yellow American cheese
With all the fixins we please: 3.24 American

One (1) zip of dried out
Seeded and stemmed breaks
From the boredom of
Our own conscious
Processes: 120 American if lucky

At least eight (8) servings
Of amphetamine based
Pressed little buttons
Of confused energy: 200 American

One (1) bouquet of
Red yellow and oranges
Mixed on the petals of
Your mother's favorite
Species: whatever's left American.

You are not original
You are not unique
There is nothing special about you
You are every step taken
By every sole
Of every shoe
In the history of shoes
You are every vein
On every maple leaf
That has ever fallen
And every one that has
Grown as replacement
Everything
Everything
You are every joke
You are every stroke
Of every painbrush
Every pencil
Every pen
Every primitive crayon
Against a cave wall
You are every sightless
Creature in every cave
You are every speck of dust
Stuck to every speck of dust
In the cosmos
You are every diaphragm
Contraction
Of every laugh ever laughed
You are every
Perverted thought
In every brain,
You are every measurement
Of time
Of weight
Of temperature
Of character
You are every pressure wave
From every pair
Of clapped hands
You are every pigment
In every premature obituary
You are every hair follicle
On every bison
You are every decision
God or bad
Or wise or naive
You are every influence
Every force
Every imagined deity
Every word ever spoken
Every word you are reading
You are every sunset
On every satellite
Of every star
You are every villain
Every success story
Every tragedy
Every spark that has
Birthed a flame
You are every set
Of rolled eyes
Every kernel
On every ear of corn
Every oxidation
Every drop of alcohol
Ever consumed
You are heaven
You are every molecule of water
In every hot spring
Every strum
Of every guitar
Ever played
You are condensation
You are every witch trial
You are every frown
Every school of skipjacks
Every byte of data
On every hard drive
You are every meadowlark
You are every broken arm
From every fall
Off a bicycle
You are the way Autumn smells
The way he looks at you
The way she makes you smile
The way earthworms
Escape the mud
when it rains
You are every passing car
Every glimmer of hope
Every plane crash
Every time math fails
Every swift defeat
You are everything ugly
And everything beautiful
You are nothing
You are everything
Everything you've done
Has been done before you
You are every paradox
You are beautiful when you sleep
You are me
We are nothing.
Everything,
Everything.
We are everything
We're not.
We are nothing we are.
The snow has fallen,
Terrible is the sound.

"Don't forget,
We're in the business
Of giving debt,
Not forgiveness,
So hurry up
And get to
Paying us back
With interest,
Get fat from
Processed snacks
And a lack
Of fitness,
Get trapped in
Our system of
Inflicted sickness."

Fast food passes
For sustenance
When nutrition's offered
Based on status,
And corporate
Influence
Decides who to
Feed in
Massive batches.
Every time
A fascist
Plan hatches
A new law passes,
The steadfast
Campaign
To make our
Brains cabbage,
Our bodies
Ravaged,
Our spirits
Shattered,
A nation
So savage
And battered
We no longer
Care that
A handful
Of vultures
Are driving
The carriage.

Don't be a fool,
These puppets
Don't care
About guns
Or gay marriage,
It's just a show,
A transparent
Distraction
In the form
Debate between
Imaginary factions.

Money rules the world,
It's not just a saying
That it makes
This **** twirl,
It spins us around
And inspires
The slaying
Of entire towns,
It leads these liars
In the game
They are playing,
Telling us up
Is really down.
Well if down is
The new up
I guess I
Should stop
Laying in dirt,
And get myself
A job
Making other
People hurt,
And make a ton
Of money
And pretend
I have worth.

Catch you on the
Flipside,
From the flipside.

It’s about the American dream
To make more than you need
Through corporate greed
And pyramid schemes,
So I guess I’m not asleep
Since I eat rice and beans
In a crummy C.F.
Apartment,
Or what’s left of that
Ten by ten compartment
I can barely afford,
Like the ******
Degree that was supposed
To reward my hard effort
By leading me toward
A corner office
Or something
Like that
I should desire,
But **** it,
Let’s get higher,
I’m getting bored,
And my heart is heavy,
And I’ve been
Forsaken
By the country that
Bred me
Yet expects me
To slap on some flak
And attack
Fathers and sons and brothers
In Iraq
Over nothing
But ideological
Fluff
And political stuffing,
It’s nothing
It’s nothing
It’s nothing
It’s just not worth
The time or frustration
To engage in
This nation’s
Procreation
Of condemnation
Of logical reason,
Though reasoning
Lies not in the
Eye of the reasoner
Or that of the reasoned,
It’s gotta be easier
Than achieving
Appeasement
Through please
And leasing
Thank yous
To random
Strangers,
But if
You believe
They, like you,
Are human
Then the danger
Is fleeting,
Cuz they’re feeling
The same feelings,
The sane feelings of
The chronically
Sure,
The always right,
Everything in its
Right place,
Yea I know Tommy,
I must endure
And try to say
I should try to save
The knaves,
But life’s so easy
As a slave,
You buy your
Goods
And pave the way
For impoverished hoods
And hoodwinked
Majorities
Who’ve already
Made
The sacrifices
Necessary
For the necessary
To get paid,
Hope you did some good
With that bogus bonus
Mr. Suit and tie
And perfect life
With the plastic wife
And bank account
You’ll never drain,
No matter how many
Times you make it rain
On upscale hookers,
It runs too deep
To keep all to your
Selfish selves,
But I guess it’s our
Faults we don’t wear
The leadership caps
Cuz we should’ve pulled
Ourselves up by our
******* boot straps
And made something of
Ourselves, right?
Those that deserve
To make the big bucks
Make it happen, right?
Time for the forgotten *****
to put up a fight.

In a world full of ugly people,
A city made of hideous faces,
A phone call means everything.
It means a voice, free from
Its crooked nose, its wrinkled skin,
And its gapped, stained, crooked teeth.
It means a connection.
With another, with yourself,
And with the ability to disconnect
At the push of a button.
I take out my scratched, chipped cellphone
With its cracked face,
And call Helen.
Her voice swims through the mud
Inside my skull when she answers,
Stirring and churning
Until I'm weak and dizzy.
"How 'bout you just come
On over now, Big Fella?"
And I do.
I turn off the squawking television,
Don a pair of food-stained pants,
Drag a comb through my
Overgrown hair,
And descend the stairs to my
Waiting Oldsmobile.
The turn of the key in the ignition
Only produces a hollow click,
One click two click three click six,
Then a partial start,
But the beast fails to come alive.
I get out to replace
The fried starter fuse,
Then do this dance four more times
Before the old ***** clears her throat
And starts to idle.
It's a short ride,
Pawtucket is small,
And my only companion
On these post-midnight streets
Is the white noise
Issuing from the broken radio.
I pass the house I grew out of,
The crumbling schools
That taught me the value
Of impartial numbness,
The cemetery my father used to visit
To perpetrate the lie
He lives;
The role of a child
And the permanence
Of parents.
I pass abandoned factories
And abandoned hope
And abandoned pets
And abandoned storefronts.
In a world of full of past relics,
In a city full of ghosts,
A crumbling façade means everything.
It means bricks freed from their mortar,
Separated from their history,
Left to be picked up and thrown through plate glass windows.
Buildings are never empty,
Just quiet.
I pass the CVS at Newport and Armistice,
With its twenty four hour pharmacy,  
Dispensing the one a.m. hydrocodone,
The one thirty a.m. dextroamphetamine,
The two a.m. oxycodone,
The two thirty a.m. alprazolam,
The three a.m. dextromethorphan,
The three thirty a.m. methylphenidate,
The four a.m. eszopiclone,
The four thirty a.m. benzodiazeprine,
The five a.m. phenylpropanolamine.
I drive past the clinic in the old senior center
With its six a.m. methadone ready to go
In pre measured cups.
Buildings can be quiet, but not empty.
Helen lives on the third floor of a three story house
Built sometime in the forties,
Forgotten sometime in the eighties.
The two bottom floors are vacant,
The windows are boarded,
The driveway is choked with weeds,
And two lounging cats don’t flinch
When I walk by them
On my way to the door in the rear of the building.
The door is always unlocked,
So I let myself in
And begin the rickety climb to the top.
The higher I go,
The louder Amy Winehouse’s voice gets.
“What kind of fuckery is this?”
Seems an adequate question.
There are ****** handprints on the railings,
The walls,
Drops polka dot the stairs.
I don’t bother knocking,
I never do.
She’s seated in a La-Z-Boy in the kitchen
Facing the door,
In a cloud of cigarette smoke.
In place of exchanged pleasantries
I say I need to use the bathroom
And she nods,
Eyes locked on mine.
I take a look at my sallow image
In the mirror,
With specks of toothpaste and hairspray
Pocking my face like acne.
The toilet bowl is still streaked
With the last man’s ****.
I ****, wash my hands,
And take another look at myself.
Helen is no longer in the chair,
But I know where to find her.
She’s sprawled on the bed,
With a new cigarette in her mouth,
The toys spread out on one side,
The tools on the other.
I tell her I’ll forgive her for stabbing me the other night
If I can get a freebee now.
She shakes her head once,
Exhales a cloud,
“Not gonna happen, Champ,”
And I take what I can get.

You know how when
You put a kettle on a stove,
Maybe for tea
Or something else maybe
You get the kettle
To put on the stove
And you put water in it
From the tap
Or if you're in
The inner city
Then maybe from
A jug
From cvs
Or rite aid
I don't know which is closer
To your kettle
That you're putting the
Water in
To put on the stove
But the tap smells funny
And tastes like minerals
And artificiality
So if you have a bit of money, Maybe an on-tap
Filter or brita
You turn the little
**** on the front
Of the oven
And you hear
The distressed, hurried
Sound of a component
Desperately trying
To do its job
It seems like forever
But it's just a couple
Seconds
The spark catches
The gas
And glorious blue
Energy leaps out
And causes
Instant condensation
On the side of the
Kettle you've filled
With water
And put on the stove
And then
Primordial chemistry
As old as old
Changes ****
Around inside
No time
For a chem lesson
Just listen
And then after a few minutes
A blast of
Piping hot
Shrill
Pure energy
Explodes out of the top
In an earsplitting
Harried call
To you to let you
Know the kettle
You put on the stove
Is now ready
For you.
All that pressure,
From so much activity,
Before you even
Turned the heat on
You walked around
Gathering materials
And moving about
And all the calories
You burn thinking
About it
And then the
Thermal activity
Which is breathtaking
In its simple
But ever so complicated
Perfect order
And predictability
And all of this simply
Amazing process
Culminates
In one constant,
High energy geyser
Of released pressure.
This is equivalent
To the results
Of one thought
About you.
What a life
As a kettle.
Yea.

Your pillowcase
Is still in my closet,
Remember when you
Let me borrow it?
My fever sweat
Soaked through mine
And you were kind
Enough to let
Me use yours
So I could be comfy,
You constantly
Took care of me,
A monthly ordeal,
Ordering meals
Every night,
Every morning
The white hot light
Of mourning
Keeping me
Yawning
In my bed,
I didn't leave
For days,
Where could I go?
So confused and dazed
Watching Dazed and Confused
On infinite play
On the tube
With no attention paid,
Cuz its your favorite movie,
It got me lost
In thoughts of
Going to the premiere
At the cinema
Near
The mall where
You used to rack shirts,
They're both gone now,
Replaced with a Hertz,
Some condos
Of minimal worth,
And a David's bridal
Full of gowns
I'll never see you wear,
Cuz you disappeared
Into a habit,
A rabbit hole
Smeared
With ancient demons
That appeared resolved,
But in fact
Were the reasons
Your love dissolved,
As well as the ambition
To solve
Life's questions,
Your mission
Became
Obsessive
Injections,
Oh, my
Jesse,
I wish I
Still had
Your affection,
But the reaper
Has added
You to his
Collection
Already,
So I guess
I'll hold
Steady,
And maybe
He'll
Take me
Soon,
Cuz I'm
*******
Ready
To sail
To the
Moon.

If only my dreams
About dreaming
Could instruct
My seemingly green
Concept
Of luck
I could
Interrupt
My seemingly just
Cycle of lust
Say
-Giddy-up,
Buttercup
You want to
Get *****?
-**** Mike,
It's only
5:30.
That's ok,
Just tryin to
Be flirty,
To make ok
The fact that
You'll hurt me,
To make passe
The fact that
My birdy
Flew away
And tried to
Lure me
To fly beside her
But that's behind me
Besides,
She tried
To cure me
But my wings
Were paper,
They broke
Prematurely
So I fell
Like disorderly
Swells
Of frequencies
I yelled pink noise
I could barely
See,
Passing for
Currency
Passing in
Front of me
Passing for
Apathy;
Apathetic empathy
Or sympathetic
Tragedy
For such pathetic
Entities
Who knows?
Who wants to be
One who knows,
To know
Eventually
We all fall,
Plummet
Suddenly
Into
Black holes
Of imperfect
Symmetry,
We will enter
Simultaneously
So I'll see you
Instantly
On the other
End of this
Wormhole's
Energy,
Baby b,
So until then
Plant a
Tree all
Gold and
Green
And name
It 3
Then climb
That ****
And look
For me,
I'll be
Lying
Right where
You *******
Left
Me
Singing
For clarity,
With
Only
Echoes
Returning
Eternally.

'There's a cat in the window
Of the house of
My lover,'
But another
Never
Slept over,
Cuz he couldn't
Be bothered and
The clover
I pressed,
The four leaves
That impressed her
Are all I can try
To think about,
Like whether
She ever
Threw it out
Or if its still
On her dusty mirror,
Or if the weather
Of her fever
Washed it away
Like the mascara
Down her face
Flows in the brine,
The words were mine
That made them fall,
I never guessed she'd
Call a ride so soon
To drive her to
Hades
To be with the baby
We lost in June
Of '02,
She was never the same,
Out of tune
Like the guitar
I pawned to
Buy the crib,
The it's a boy
Balloons
That never did
Get inflated,
That whole ******* year
I insufflated my
Woes away
But they don't go away,
But she did go away,
Not yet physically
But emotionally and
Mentally,
The breaking point was
Beyond the scope
I could see,
Oh, my Emily,
How could this be?
How could I be
Without my bumblebee?
How could I be?
How could I be?
Now I can be
With you again,
The ability is
In my hand,
I'll see you soon
Baby,
And little Elliott, too,
There's just some
**** I need to do
First.

I’ll take it as a lesson
Not to play games,
Cuz this ****’s got me guessin
Whether I am or not sane,
Or whether this mess is
Because of my brain
Or because those
Doing the messing
Aren’t true to their names,
Or maybe they are,
**** it, either way
I go to the bar
To slam scotch in my veins
And watch as the cars
Circle in the drain.
These people believe they’re driving forward
But they’re going in circles,
Forever toward
The singularity.

She said it again,
So I repeated myself too,
This time with the

"What"

In "What did you say?"

With the strongest
Emphasis
I could muster.

She's saying it again,
And I still have no clue
Why she would **** in
Like Colonel Custer
Did to the Indians.

I bid her adieu,
And left her to wonder
What my answer could've been
If she didn't adjust her
Opinions based on
Her audience.

But anyway....
The fraudulents
Won't go away.

They hide behind me,
Trying to scam me,
Like I'd just walk blindly
Into a ****
Double whammy
Or something.

That thumping.
That thumping.

It's chronic,
And constantly bumping
Against this cage.

My patience is thinning
With each year I age,
Leaving me feeling
Like Greenland.

Is it so much to ask
For new beginnings?

A different page?

Anything other than
Feeling the same?

I suppose that it is,
And I just have to accept
That I'm asleep in a grave,
And all that I see,
All that I feel,
All that I know
Are all that's left.
The last static spasms
Of a decomposing mind.

I saw my sister today,
We got lunch at Union Station.
It's been years,
So I noticed the changes
In how she looks,
How she acts,
How she reacts to my
Shortcomings as a brother.

I told her to think of
Everyone she knows,
Or has known,
Or will know,
Or has seen
In person.

On a screen.

In a picture.

From a moving car.

In a dream.

I told her to think of all these people
Who have lives, and credit cards, and vacations, and stressors, and morning showers.
I told her they're all dead.
They are gone, forever,
And never coming back.

Worm food.

Spirits.

Contradictions.

I told her we are all dead,
And our imagined lives
Are just contrived efforts
To reconcile that truth
With ourselves.

All this empty time,
The moments that
Happen over and over
Every day
That we cannot pin down
Or really remember,
Except when they're happening,

Like walking up the escalator
From the subway,

Or making some *******
A ****** sandwich at work,

Or eating breakfast,

Or riding the elevator
Up to your floor,

Or taking a ****,

Or feeding the cat,

All these moments that happen so frequently and uneventfully
That it's as if they don't happen at all,
They're just static electricity
Discharging in a rotting brain.

Last ditch efforts to maintain
A sense of order,
A coping mechanism for the
Emptiness where God should be,
Filler to hide the reality
That nothing is happening,
That nothing is reality.

I told her we can
Fill that space with
Whatever we want,
That death is what you make it,
It's your death to live,
Your own make-believe
Joys and sorrows.

With a furrowed brow,
She didn't say anything
Until she asked for the check,
And said she had a bus to catch.

I said good luck with the baby,
I'll babysit when it's born,
If you want me to.

The night falls swiftly,
And yellow flashes
Of northeastern
Fireflies mark
The edges
Of the
Hedge-lined path,
And gnats
Hang in the air
Like suspended gravel
While my flats
Slap the pavement
Like a ****** rap gavel,
In repetition so
Soothing I forget
My sentence
And all that I'm losing,
And everything makes sense,
I feel connected
To the heron
Gliding above
The river
Like messenger
Pigeons follow
The street grid,
Or like a charge down
The neural pathway
That makes me grin
When I realize
I'm not defined
By what's within,
No more
And no less
Than the wilderness
Can be constrained
To the way the wind
Sings its wearisome
Twilight refrain
As the air moves
And spins
Through the spaces
Between the wooden
Masses atop
Parnassus,
I feel the humidity
Flee,
And my breath quickens
As Corycian nymphs
And the nine
Sacred women
Of creation
By man's mind
Surround me and drive
Me to place one
Ancient foot
In front of its partner,
The images they conjure
Like a Reckoner diamond
Encasing me
In a cage of
Liquid iron
While beckoning
Me forward
With 72 hymens,
But I know it's a lie,
I know why
Men fight and die,
And it's not for any
Contrived diatribe
Promoting an
Unattainable
Ultimate prize,
It's to give rise
To the feeling
Of being alive,
That's all we want,
That's all we strive
To find,
And that's why
I'm approaching
Mile five,
And breathing
The life
Inherent in night
With the scent
Of the soundscape
Still burned in
My sight.

It's cool to just sit
Here and deal with this ****,
But hey, its better
Where the pudding is thick,
Or so they tell me,
Along with
'Don't fall for tricks,'
They'll always get you
If your mind is weak,
Like the obliques
In my side
That've been hurting for weeks,
They're so sore from
The combination
Of boredom
And the conflagration
Of all the
Tinder inside my body
That hinders my
Lodi-Dodi
Outlook
On benders
That have become
Normality,
Like you've become
A malady,
A mother-may-I
Comedy
That keeps me laughing,
Keeps me guessing,
Keeps me passing
Up on
Rafting
Down that river,
But didn't you know
That ocean never comes?
So I'll keep drifting
And counting my ones,
And try to blame
The ones on the run
Instead of the ****
Doing the chasing
And erasing my luck,
While I deface my face
And wait
For this bronco
To buck
Me off
Into the muck
Of eternal loss.
It already happened?
You got it, boss.

A full day's work
Has me feeling exhausted,
But as I take hard rights
And skirt the uneven pavement
I am a machine.
I am fused to my seat,
And two spinning plates
And one fork are
Extensions of my will.
The nine point five miles
Seem so much shorter at night,
After the suits have made Their daily rushed exodus,
And the streets and avenues
sleep, quietly.
It rained all day, so the road
Is wearing a blanket of diamonds,
And the motor oil wrinkles shine.
The downpour has filled the world
With fragrance,
And as I pass through
Affluence to arrogance
To intolerance to vagrancy
On my trek across
A divided city
I'm overwhelmed.
Honeysuckle and lilac
Give way to pine and dogwood,
Then car exhaust and a polluted river
Precede wet garbage, dog ****
And marijuana.
I saw my first rat in the District tonight.
Nine months in,
And I've only seen one.
It makes me glad I grew up
Where I did,
Where all you need for
A rat in your apartment
Is a baseball bat
And a Lightning Bolt record.
I'm glad I learned how it feels
To live with two feet
Planted firm to the earth,
To feel harsh 1930s sidewalks
Haphazardly littered
With broken glass
Burn my bare feet
Every summer,
To feel the cool
Narragansett Bay sand
Sleeping just under the surface,
And to feel the sole
Of my five year shoe
Finally give up.
I'm glad I've seen success
From the underside,
So that when my arthritic hands
Finally reach up and grasp it
I'll know what to do with it.
But mostly I'm glad
I get to pull up to my building
At ten past midnight,
Sweaty and tired,
Climb three stories with a
Bike on my shoulder,
Pet my cat, and crawl into
Bed with a warm soul
Who was brought up the same,
With no clouds
For her lovely head
To get lost in.

It was easy,
The clumps and locks
Hit the floor
Like footfalls,
I stood behind you.
It had been two
Years almost to the day
Since you had stopped
Using shampoo,
And your hair was
The softest I'd ever felt.
The shrimp baking
In the oven
Overwhelmed the gentle
Scent of apple cider vinegar
I've grown accustomed to,
Snug behind you,
My nose near your scalp,
Falling asleep.
The night you let me
Cut your hair,
We fell asleep on the couch,
Watching reruns of an
Irrelevant sitcom,
And I awoke after you
Had already gone off
To work.
I rode past a cop
In shorts
On a bike
At Maryland & 9th
On my way to the office,
And he turned to ride
Behind me,
Pulling alongside
Me at Maryland & 8th.
"I just want to say thanks,
For stopping at red lights.
We're out here all the time,
And they see us go through
The lights, and
Think they can too."
"Yea, no problem.
Not trying to
Get my head knocked off."
"You tryin to be funny?"
"No, I said I'm not
Trying to get my
Head knocked off."
"Yea, I heard you,
I'm not stupid."
"I can see that.
You stopped at this red
Light, after all."
"Watch it, or
I'LL knock your
****** head off."
The light changed,
And I set off.
"Yea, get out of here,
Before I decide not
To let you."
Do you remember
How I came home?
Torn pants,
Torn shirt,
Torn skin,
Dragging my mangled
Steel frame
Up the stairs to our apartment?
You ran to me,
Dropped your plate
Of rice and beans all over
The brand new slip cover,
And grabbed my face,
Wetting your hands with my blood.
You got towels,
Got a chair,
Sat me in it,
Stood behind me,
And washed the grit
From my wounds.
My hair fell
Like raindrops
As you cut away
From the injury site.
The feel of your sewing needle
And nylon thread
Passing through
My thin, inflamed skin
Blackened my sight,
And I slipped away from consciousness.
Well,
I couldn't tell you then,
But I've never loved
You more.

I'm the spark
That started
The fire when
The retirement
Home burned alive,
I'm the guy who
Sold the quarter
To Cianci's daughter
That bought her
A place
In that lake
Of boiling water,
I'm the knife
In the mugger's hand
That ended the life
Of a family oriented
American man
For an American Made
Minivan that was
Worth less than
A single grand,
I'm the hand on the arm
That held the pen
That signed the plans
To build the bombs
That were dropped
Upon Japan,
I'm the disease
That multiplied the cells
That sent Bukowski
Swearing
His way
Down
To Hell,
I'm the wind
That fueled the fires
When the towers
Fell,
I'm the blade
That took the sight
From Oedipus
When he took delight
In his mother's kiss,
I'm the cold
Air in an
Empty grave,
I'm the corner
Of the stove
On which you always
Stub your toe,
I'm the snow
That slicked the road
And sent your brother
Into reality's
Reunion show,
I'm the smoke
That filled the throat
Of a crying infant
And choked it
Into a memory,
I'm the repititious lie
That sent the witches
To burn alive
In Salem
And Spain,
I'm the trigger
On the gun
That blew the brain
Of Kurt Cobain,
I'm to blame
For the way *******
Destroys the lives
Of the otherwise sane,
I'm the voice
That told Sam's son
To wipe the smile
From America's fat face
While satisfying
Their perverted taste
For people dying,
I'm the nails
On the fingers
That Barkovitch
Used to scratch
The long-walk-itch
When he ripped
Out his own throat,
I'm the one
Who swung the vote
To elect a bush
As dumb as a goat,
I'm the bullet
That pierced
The vest on
Kyle Joe's chest
And laid him to rest
In Exeter,
I'm the snake
That charmed
The leaf
Right off of Eve,
The way that
Hemopheliacs
Bleed
And
Bleed,
The constant
Antagonist
You seem
To need.

Or maybe you're just in a
Bad mood, and I'm still the
Same dude who sat with you
While the three day fever
Ripped through your body,
Stroking your hair and
Wiping the sour sweat from
Your forehead while you
Hallucinated demons that
Emerged from your chest,
Slightly below your left
Breast, to fly in patterns and
Synchronized formations
Through the caverns of your imagination.

Maybe I'm still the guy who
Held you through the night
Your mother died, wiping
Every tear that you cried,
Spending that hour sitting
Outside while the jewel
Encrusted air surrounded us
Like a never ending chasm of
Golden despair, splitting
Myself like a uranium atom
For you to be warmed by the
Reaction inside.

Maybe I'm still the one you
Saw from across the smoke
Filled dive saloon with a pint
Of Harpoon, who saw you as
The only shining light in a
Darkened room, who talked
To you and told you stories
And complimented the
Sundress you bought off Tobi,
Even though you
Told me really,
The weather
Wasn't quite right for it.

Maybe I'm still the one you
Wake up to in the middle of
The night, sweat sticking us
To the sheets and each other,
Because the heat's been
Broken going on seventeen
Weeks and we fell asleep
Without opening the window again.

Maybe I'm still the man who
Makes you breakfast every
Morning so you can sleep in
A little bit, so you can read
The latest Dig with your
Coffee and cig before you
Head to the ******* lab that
Makes you feel sick twelve
Hours later, the man who's
Waiting at home after to
Listen to your complaints
About the day and say the
Things you want to hear

"You're totally right,
They're completely wrong,
I love you dear,
Your hair is a song
That fills the air
And fills my ears
And fills my stomach
With warmth and light"

Maybe I'm a fool.
Maybe people don't change,

Or maybe they do, overnight,
And I'm to blame.

Either way,
I still feel
The same
As when we took
The same last name
Ten years ago
Yesterday.

You can try and try
To get what you need,
But you'll quickly see
That the vultures will feed
On your hopes and dreams
Till the bones are picked clean
And bleach in the sun,
To be found by some
Factory worker's son
Playing in the street,
He'll pick them up
And make them his,
Until he bleeds
From every cyst
And the dreams leak out.

You'll see, it'll happen forever,
Repetitive like the weather,
We're just two feathers
Carried by a breeze
That landed together
And bonded
With the ease
Of the buttons
Of your sweater.

The last drops have been swallowed,
And the last vestiges
Of post-wage labor
Libationary sorrow
Swagger slowly off
Into the night
Across cracked pavement
Like slugs after rain.
I pick up the chemtrail
Left by my father
And follow it to
A makeshift master suite
Wedged between a
Rundown groundskeeper
Shed and the unkempt
Wilderness beside the
Desolate bike path
In rural Seekonk.
The rest of this comatose
Town in this overdosed
Commonwealth
Are separated
By enough trees
And undergrowth
And small
Night creatures
Calling to each other
In the dark
That they can't hear
The nightly
Rattle of .38
Rounds my father
Sends flying into the trees.
The pistol was my
Grandfather's,
Brought over from France
In 1947.
My father cries
As he pulls the trigger
Over and over
Sporatically,
Like a Sung Tong,
His eyes wild,
Darting side to side
In milky blue trails
Back and forth
And up and down
Across the dark
Chasms of his
Eye sockets.
When the chambers
Of his firearm
Run dry he fills them
From the box
He took from my basement,
In his old house,
Where he stockpiled
Ammunition for
Twenty two years.
I've learned to stand east
Of my father when
I make the visits
Expected of children
When their parents
Are old and trapped
In the recesses of
Their insanity
Or nursing home
Or empty nest,
Because he always
Aims west.
I wait for tonight's
Box to be empty,
Then slowly walk
To where my father
Is huddled,
Clutching the pistol
Like a teddy bear.
He is breathing heavy,
And has **** himself.
He hears me coming,
Turns, and smiles
Upon recognition.
"I got em good mikey,
Got good, not taking
My land from ME
Mickey, never going
Blow south,
See it?"
I pull the pistol I've
Brought from my waistband,
The one my father,
Gregory Bishop,
Gave me on my
Eighteenth birthday.
The weight in my hand
Is deafening,
The illegal ivory
Is seamless
And cold against
My palm.
I raise my arm,
Aim,
And pull the trigger.

I try and I try
To avoid,
But I'm inundated
With that which
Is neither
Created or destroyed,
Being told what should
Matter to me
By people who know
Better than me,
Keeping me
Steadily annoyed
And readily brought
Right back to the void
In the back of the 'lac,
Like the goodfella boys,
Except I don't make noise
So they don't need to hack
Me up again.
But hack me up again,
I want to be the
Rough,
Gravely cough,
And the disgusting
Glob of
Post cigarette
Mucous
From your throat.
I want to be
The mold that
Spreads on the half
Bagel with cream
Cheese on it
That you forgot
In the back
Of your fridge
Two months ago.
I want to be the
Little puddle of
Fluid in the bottom
Of the trashcan
On the side of your place
That you've never cleaned
Out.
And then I want
You to clean me out.
Steal everything
I own, take
Until the load
Is too heavy for
Your arms, and then
Come back for more.
Break everything
That I love
And have owned
For years and years.
Take my money
Especially, it has
Spoiled my karma
For far too long.
Then we'll be even.
Then I can become
The rays of sunlight
That float in through
Your window every
Morning and catch
The floating dust in
Intricate, glowing patterns
And reach your closed
Eyelids, where I delicately
Dance until you awake,
Refreshed and thrilled
At the beautiful
Day that awaits you.
Then I can become
The buzz of your pumpkin
Spice coffee and the
Taste of your breakfast,
The wind in your hair,
The warmth of your bed,
The cool trickle
Of sweat down your hot neck
While we neck.
Then I can be your happiness
And it can be your turn
To be the slime
That coats my
Garbage disposal.
We can seesaw
Forever,
And feel complete.

Sitting at a bar
In a palace built by
Nineteenth-century slaves,
And the back of my shirt
Is soaked from the
Hundred degree weather.
I rub my neck,
Wipe the hot perspiration
From it with my hand,
Only to pick up
My glass of beer
And get it's cold sweat
All over my palm.
I ask the bartender
About the nets
Obstructing my view
Of the gold-flaked,
Hundred foot ceilings,
But he doesn't know
Why they're there,
Or just doesn't care
Enough to humor me.
Happy hour prices
Segregate me and my soul
From the charcoal
Suits shuffling past
As they head to
The trains that will
Deliver them to
Their BMWs
So they can drive to
Their wine cellars
And plastic wives.
The history of this place
Is suffocating me,
It's thick in the air,
As are the dialects
Of dozens of states,
Shouting to each other
Or to themselves
Or to god.
I pay our tab
And dive into
A red line train
Like a CVS syringe
Into a ******'s arm,
And rush away from
the city's heart
With the other cells,
Through tunnels buried
Beneath the birth and death
Of the American scream.
If I fall asleep,
I'll never wake up,
The dream will replace
The reality I've created.
The steady thrum of
The train croons to me,
But the acidic stench
Of July humanity
Keeps me locked
In this scenario.
The darkness flees
As we breach the
Border of daylight.
Jetskis on the Potomac
Remind me of what
I don't know.
Dreaded beards
On weathered sacks
Of human decay
Perched on plastic seats
Remind me of what
I've painted as real
In my underexposed brain.
I'm exhausted,
All my water has
Evaporated, risen,
And I'm a Little drunk.
My eyelids are heavy,
And move like
Hurricane barriers.
Open:
Same scene,
Different passengers.
Closed:
Spiral staircases
Of neon fibres,
A religious maven
Spitting his canon,
Fleeting images of
Hardwired memories
I've grown old
Trying to erase.
Open:
He's staring right at us.
The man in the
Periwinkle shirt
And the bronze
Kmart tie.
His sweat shines
Like young paint
On an Oldsmobile,
His double chin
Is tanned to
The color of his tie,
And he knows too much.
He knows more than I do,
More than I can take.
His eyes shine
With the knowledge,
The stupid grin
Plastered on his
Greasy face
Knocks me out.
Closed:
The sky is vast,
And unscathed by jealous clouds.
The crystal clear water holds me up,
Its pressure on my back
Is as refreshing as it is comforting.
Max and Andy splash and laugh to my left.
The pond water in my ears
Distorts their sounds,
But the mushrooms in my blood
Explain them.
Jesse is coming,
Doing well at keeping his cigarette dry,
Swimming with one arm.
I feel something unlock inside me,
Forget it's June,
That I'm floating
In this lake
For the first
And last time,
That I'm still
In Rhode Island,
That the love
Of my life
Is in Virginia,
I forget my limbs,
My hair,
My skin,
My ****,
My heartbeat,
The stellar iron in my blood,
And as the water fills my lungs,
As the shouts commence
And sight fades,
I am reborn,
I am the microbes I am swallowing,
I am the glow of the nearest star
Glinting off the rippling surface,
I am the sand beneath me,
I am the air pushing the pine needles,
I am alive,
I am open:
I am still on a train
In Washington DC
And this ******* guy
Knows too much.
His lips are wet with it.
It's written in the part
Of his thinning hair,
In the way he's thumbing
the pages
Of the book he isn't reading.
I can't contain the shout,
The burst of wasted pride,
The "*******!"
The "What do you see that's so ******* interesting?!"
I can feel Ali's hand
And the eyes of
All the passengers in the car
Fall upon me,
And the pressure
Caves in my skull.
From my sunken face:
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."

Which one's optimistic?
Find him in phrases
That are just as cryptic
As Satan's phases,
Find him stewing
In septic patients,
Incepting flashes
Of dreamy fluid,
Spewing a Druid
Cadence, history
Ripe with cages
Rising,
Built and filled
By single-filed
Homosapiens,
Defiled by aliens
And dumped in
Pools of misery
And mindless failings
In perfect time,
Devising misgivings
And listening for
Censored chimes.
Find me explaining
To a ghost
The passageways of time,
The tunnels a comatose
Mind can dig to confine
Fragile frames
Of ****** bones.
Find a savior
Burning homes
And training Holmes,
Sentimental drivel
Pouring like
Greenland ice melt
Into an ocean
Of violence,
The spittle
Flying from the
Mouths of the smelt,
Hoping their notions
Will achieve timeless
Authority.
Find yourself,
Before your
Lifeless body
Is a gory
Reminder of what
Rotting
Does to the
Smelt esteem.
Find a pacifist
In a police state,
Passing judgements
And choosing who
To hate,
Leasing friendships
And losing weight
And feeling like their
Righteousness
Makes them fake;
Makes their fate seem
All too surreal,
Catacombs full
Of people,
Voicing choices
Between ways to feel.
Find the unfound
And unbound their
Hands, their tongues,
Fill their guts with
Sacrificed lamb, ****
Their haunts with
Spiritual guns,
Toast the rain
And sink their bodies
In beds of flames,
Watch them rise,
And equate the lies
With the actualities
In a cloud of shame.
Find freedom in
Everything.
Find obscurity
Inside a name.
Find anything
That stays the same.

I bet her boyfriend
Of almost two years
Wouldn't care
For the flirting,
An open seat
On a bus to DC
Has got her skirting
The edge of
Polite conversation,
Threatening to fall
With insinuating smiles
Like private Pile,
If only he knew
How many miles
Have been spent
Laughing at jokes
And breathing the sweat
Ripe with pheromones
And flashing white teeth,
With a subtle groan
He'd pick up his phone
And give her a call
With his stomach
Feeling like a stone
Thrown in a well,
But he doesn't know,
And she won't tell,
So while he's waiting
At the bus station
For her to arrive,
She's necking with
A Haitian
And thinking of lies
To deny the fire
Between her thighs.

You see, it's like this:

Every night, right around
Beer number 4,
With the beginning
Of the Daily Show
Airing on the tv
At the foot of my bed,
I look out my window
Diagonally to the left
Out onto the street that
Is dark because the city
Hasn't fixed the streetlight
Yet, even though it's
Summer and I'd like
To think that the kids
Walking the streets
With their hoods pulled
Up could be able
To have some light
To blow their smoke by.

Anyway, I look out my
Window diagonally
To the left
Every night
And I see a 1995
Rust spotted grey
Oldsmobile 88
Pull into the driveway
Of the green
Double level house
With the ugly
Maroon shutters
And then the same
Woman climbs out
In her scratched
Half inch heels
She bought at the savers
On route 44
And this night she's
Wearing her pale blue
Conservative skirt
And a delightful
Vertical striped
Button up
Office building secretary shirt
With the mix of cool colors
And her brown hair is
Pulled back in a tight
Bun that's been tugging
At her forehead for
The eight hours she sat
At her desk and the
Six hours she waited tables
At the ****** chain sports
Bar on Branch ave
For ****** tips
And ****** looks
From ****** drunk perverts
She has to smile at
And flirt with if
She wants to make rent
At the green double
Level house with the ugly
Maroon shutters.

She checks her mail box
And with weary eyes
Scans the envelopes
Of bills and spam and third notices
No letters from friends
Or family or old school suitemates
And she goes inside
To reheat her dinner for one
And I lay here in my boxers
Cracking open beer number
Four and listening
To Jon Stewart point out the
Obvious absurdities
In our ****** up system
That everyone seems not
To notice and take as
Just jokes on a fake
News program but are
Really symptoms
Of a ******* society
That puts value in all
The wrong places
And as I sip on
Rolling rock number five
And watch the woman across
The dark street fumble with
Her keys I think about
How lonely it is here in my
One bedroom apartment
And how lonely it is there
In her one bedroom apartment
And I wish oh I wish
One of these nights I could
Stand outside and smoke
A cig and wait
And when she gets home
Ask her how work
Was and laugh when
She jokes that it was terrible
And know its not a joke
Because it was terrible
And I'll ask her if she has any
Late night plans
Knowing she will tune into
The Colbert Report
And watch until she
Falls asleep in her full
Size bed
And if she smiles and says
No I'll ask her to come over
And have a drink and if
She says yes I'll give her
An Octoberfest because
Harpoon is classier
Than rolling rock
And then maybe she'll
Want another one
And maybe she'll see
Something in me.

As I open rock number six
Every night the same thought
Breaks through the cloud,
That if I could just do
What I want to do
Maybe this bed wouldn't be
So big and maybe
This heart wouldn't hang
So heavy and maybe
The tv would have an audience
Instead of a solitary observer.

I fall asleep again
Having never learned
Her name or which high
School she went to
Or what makes her laugh
Or what sad movies she
Loves to cry along with
Or which secluded areas
She likes to go to to think
Or what she thinks about me.

Aww, how sweet,
You always knew
What to do
To make me feel like
Garbage stew,
To make me eat
The poison glue you spew,
To make me drag
My ragged feet
Wherever your
Poisoned heart
Leads you to.
With mine on my sleeve
I keep in tow
And leak from head to toe,
From every swollen pore
The saline flows and
Drips down in
Rivulets to sow
Sterile seeds
And offset
The burning scent
Of cigarettes
In the hair that keeps
Whipping my face
With the pace
Of expanding internet.
Oh well,
I'm all set
With the *******,
I'm fine with your
Sense of entitlement,
I'll get by
Without your
"Enlightenment,"
Call it what you want,
It's still just
Getting bent
Getting ******
Getting exactly what you love,
And I bet you'll recount
To me how it went,
With no regard for
What it meant to me,
But my energy is spent
So get to gettin',
Take every cent
From my memory bank,
I'll burn every brain cell
That might have lent
You the time of day
With forty two
Glasses
Of chardonnay
And a few pressed pills
I bought from Kid A,
Don't worry, just chill,
That's not the way
Out things ever play,
More likely I'd wake
up to see your face
Open its mouth
And ******* say
Some ****** up ****
To ruin my day,
But hey,
That's the cycle
I perpetuate,
Cuz Michael
Loves a sparring mate
I guess, not sure, doesn't
Really make much sense,
Especially since
A running mate
Is closer to the figure 8
On it's side that I desire,
Instead I get a cut rate
Liar who equates
Love with
****** desire,
He might make you scream,
But I'll set you on fire.
Either way it seems
You just like to perspire,
Just don't forget that I
Can make you expire
With a call down
The telephone wire
To my Styrofoam supplier,
Nah jk, just being a clown,
Just trying to acquire
Enough sounds and frowns
That I can use for
Funeral pyres
For me and all these new hires,
Unknown girls I can use
To forget her,
The higher the better.

Yesterday evening,
As I was traveling,
We hit the river styx.

The bussers got to scattering,
And a man made out of twigs
Sat next to me with a swish.

With teeth all a'chattering
Through a stutter-ridden lisp,
He blubbered and he spit
As he asked me for a kiss.

I said "that's quite flattering,
But you smell like stagnant ****,
And I don't have any patience
For this attempted tryst."

With a devilish twist
Of his knotted, wooden wrist,
He handed me a Twix,
And said "eat this piece of candy
And I'll grant your every wish."

I knew it would be handy
When I packed some liquorice,
And though he was too handsy,
His promise seemed legit.

I traded him my sweets
And I ate his offered treat,
Then I feel asleep as quick
As a widow starts to weep.

I must admit
I was shocked
To find myself a heap,

A pile of trash
Cast aside
To be swept off of the street.

Lesson learned,
Ingrained deep:
Never trust
A timber creep
You meet upon a bus,
And never eat
Offered sweets,
Or else you will get mugged.

There’s a tremor
That ripples through
This pocket of air,
The electric aura
That surrounds my hair,
The sounds are melodic,
Like the cries of scared
Spirits, calling Mladic
To make an appearance
In the lake of fire
He sent them to swim in,
But missing the point,
Missing the part of life
With a purpose,
Wishing to rise back up
To the surface
And start the slide all over again,
Start the decline down to
A black abyss where
Doors exist
Just too keep you in,
Where laws are *******
And the good guy never wins,
And I’m pretty sure
He never did,
I’ve never seen the good guy win,
Cuz if the good guy could Catch a break,
There’d be no lie to trap us in,
But either way there’s no way to escape,
Cuz the good guy never wins
And the good girl always gets *****,
So I’ll keep holding my sanity loosely,
And keep taking heed to her song,
That “every secret is juicy,
Whether it’s Ricky cheating on Lucy,
Or the world controlled by
Ancient snakes,
Either way you don’t get to say
How high the stakes of truth be,”
You don’t get paid
For being truthful,
It’s ruthless action
That’s truly
Beautiful,

Or maybe her face is too,
The one I saw peering in
Through a snow-rimmed window,
Buried in a fur-lined hood
With cheeks red with the
Sea of blood
Shifting just under
Paper skin,
The storm spawned
By the walk
Sending waves of colour
And life and vivacity
And ****** perfection
Crashing into
The softest cheeks
To ever brush mine,
The very ones I’ve wished to destroy
As the breath quickened,
The tempo rose,
And the sweat poured
Onto summer sheets
In a bed to small
And weak
To hold the tremendous weight
Of love deferred
And reignited
By a shared passion
For hurting and getting hurt.
The face in the window
Was flushed with heat,
Yet colder than the parents
That sent her out into the night,
Hoping she wouldn’t find something to eat,
And isn’t it funny how she still
found me?
Ready and willing
To be ripped apart
And devoured
For the deflowering
Of a misconceived heart.
I opened the door and let her in
So I could begin being born again.

Now that my
Parents are dead,
I guess it's okay
To tell what they did
To me as a babe.

They tore off my limbs
And they dug me a grave,
Cuz I said that I would
But I didn't behave.

They split up the parts
And dug up a ditch
In six different yards
So I couldn't restitch.

They should've guessed
I couldn't stay
In eternal rest
For more than a day.

My hands dug in the dirt
To find one another,
My feet kicked in the clay
To be with each other
Once again, to start it all over.

I reassembled
Under the moon
And slowly ambled
Up to my room
With all my stuffed animals
Waiting to be told
What they should do.

I told them my plan
To get my payback,
First we'd get Sam
And then we'd attack
His pretty wife Jan.

My lion Simba
Clawed out their eyes,
My polar bear Nimbus
Bit into their thighs
And tore off their legs
Like they had done mine.

My giraffe Mr. Skeep
Wrapped his neck around theirs
And put them to sleep
By stealing their air.

My job complete,
I walked down the stairs,
Got something to eat
Then split apart,
Said bye to my feet,
And went back to the dark
Under the streets
That my lovely parents
Intended for me.

The seats are aging
Orange leather with
Cracked faces the
Lines of wisdom
Of ninety
Thousand sitters.
Entire ecosystems
Live on the shining
Polished silver of
Handles dulled
By sweaty palms.
Sightline through
A window
A passing loco
Blurred brief
Images of
Unknown faces.
Sightline to the
Chamber behind
The metal snake
Winds down the track
A touch of vertigo
From uneven motion.
Sightline to
Cascades of light
Brown curls
Flowing over
Porcelain shoulders.
Smooth skin
Sweet as aspartame
Skii ***** neckline
Heavenly form
Yellow dress
Slight movement
To the heavenly forms
Pouring through
White earbuds.
Sightline to Sightline
Meet in the air
Muddy brown
Graced by
Kaleidoscope
Greens yellows hazels browns
Electric charge
No other passengers
Perceive.
The doubled thump
Wump
Picks up speed with a
Coy smile
A sunrise blossoming
Over Eden
The birth of an
Angel
The thirst of desert
Sands
Quenched.
Beauty erupts
From the shared gaze
Held 6 stops
Past hoyt-schermerhorn.
Immediate
Immaculate
Connection
Fire through the air
Static charge
Primal lust
Infinite joy
If I could just
Say hello
Hi
You've enraptured
My soul
The epitome of
Beauty.
I sit instead
Stuck
Deer in headlights
****
My twisting insides
The grey says
Such monstrous
Things to itself.
Her stop.
****.
Broken gaze,
Disconnected
From the maze
Of her eyes.
I lament.
Sightline back
To page:
"Those that have crossed paths are not memories
Nor is the yellowish dove that sleeps in oblivion..."
I lament some more
At the poignancy
And the loss of a stranger
Made just for me.
She probably would've
Broken my pumping
Gears anyway,
Sayonara, c'est la vie.

The other morning,
As opposed to this one,
(There was indeed
Another morning)
As I walked the
10 1/2 blocks to work,
I passed by a playground
Full of post grad
Parents who dress
Real nice
Real fashionable
And all of their
Children who are
Dressed the same, in
Non gender specific
Garb, because it’s
2011 not last century
And they run and
Scream and get
Their thrift store
Clothes all *****,
They laugh and I
Hear crying
And reprimanding
And ‘good job!’
And I can’t help but
See the future in
These kids, with
Their well adjusted
Parents adjusting
Them well to the world
And making sure
They follow all the
Advice in the hip
Parenting and child
Psychology books they
Read, and I see
Among the smiling
Innocent faces
Yet to be
Drug addicts
Wife beaters
Alcoholics
Strippers
Drunk drivers
Liars
Cheaters
Thieves
Heartbreakers
And the occasional
College grad
Who will be well
Adjusted
And will adjust
The child they have
At 34
Very well to the
New society
So that
Child can become
A date ******
Or a car thief
Or a vagrant
Or maybe a college
Grad who
Will be well adjusted
And adjust their child well.
Our children are the future.
Go to school, kids.
Adjust.

The dirt yawned
And swallowed the weather
While we sat patiently
Waiting for dawn.
The clouds were a landslide
That dragged us both down
Like synthetic feathers
In a hurricane.
We did not find OZ,
There was no other dimension,
Just cold, abusive soil,
And four billion years
Of built up tension
That unleashed upon us
A prehistoric frustration
With the lack of chaos,
And the predetermination
That replaced it.
We clutched at roots,
And ripped off our fingernails
Scratching at sandstone,
We lost our skin,
And inhaled the souls
Of a trillion decomposed
organisms.
Our bodies split
Like light through
A million prisms,
But our spirits
Kept up their plummets.
Into a chasm we fell,
Like grains of sand into
An expanding universe,
So inconceivably small,
So irreversibly without control,
So peacefully.
Our energies squirmed
In imperfect circles
Around each other
As the fall
Turned stationary
By perspective.
Other pairs joined us,
Attracted to our spin,
Until we formed
A new world,
To god's chagrin.

Repeating with
The frequency
Of apologies,
"I'm not here,
This isn't happening,"
While my head
Spins, and my
Innards lurch
Like carnival
Ride children,
"I'm not here,
This isn't happening,"
The chaos,
The orderly
Passage of red
Faced spectators
Drifting through space,
Their classic attempts
To embrace and
Disengage,
Grinning at what
Can't be erased,
"I'm not here,
This isn't happening,"
Like the sound of
Hopes cast into
The depths of hell,
Glinting tokens
You can't see
Seconds after you
Drop them in,
I'm the air,
I'm the disillusionment
That lets you know
When to be scared,
The anvil in
Your gut telling you
To stop,
I am the sweat
That drips
Like morphine
Into post-mortem
Pathways through
A needle
That needs sharpening,
"I'm not here,
This isn't happening,"
This is just a test,
As they say,
It'll all be ok
Once some obese
***** wails,
The levees are stressed
And the horsemen
Idle and wait for the fail,
For the flood
Of repentance,
Of common
Indecency,
For the blood
From Ahab's whale
To initiate
The shackling
Of the sorrowfully
Undeclared,
"I'm not here,
This isn't happening."

You should be careful,
That gator bites.

Just one mouthful
And he won't let go.

At least not without a fight,
One you don't have in you.

Tempt him,
Feel the rush.

He likes it too.
Get enough, and you'll ask him politely:

“Give us a kiss,
And I'm forever yours.

This bliss is too sweet
To ever ignore.”

He'll smooch, and the razors
In your skin will sing
Along with you.

Your choice, right?
I knew you'd be careful.

There's a good chip
On that shoulder,
Not like Utz.

Nobody ever eats just one,
And you're nobody.

By staring
I make it blend
It disappears
Into a grey
Filler my brain
Creates to
Take its place
But the light
In the window
Gets stronger
Fills more corners
The birds get
More social
They flutter
And tweet about
Louder each minute
Footsteps on the ceiling
Flooded pipework
Sounds in the walls
The thoughts keep
Racing dude,
They don't disappear
Though they blend
Not quite grey but
Mad colors I guess
It's just my
Eyes having fun
When they're shut,
They have a ball
When they're open
Too, isn't it true
That "this
Whole life is
An hallucination?"
I mean I guess so
Maybe that's
Why it makes
No ******* sense
Or maybe that's
Why parents leave
Kids to die
And why
Wives get beat
Or dogs deprived
I'm fairly
Confident that those
Things aren't necessary
For us to survive
But who could
I be kidding
Without the ****
There's no growth
Fertilizer for humanity
Pieces of filth
That sow seeds of
Contempt within
The homogeneous
So they don't emulate
Living as a ****.
I'm talking to you Manny,
You disgusting pile of
Maggot infested
Skunk guts
Rotting on
Hot tarmac
I can't wait for
The mac's tires
To splatter you.
So little and defenseless.
A monster, at best.

From atop mountains
Of debt
We tumble, like
The thrill of defeat
Dripping down
The quivering chin
Of blood-stained
America.

To quote a thunderstorm:

"All who question
The efficacy
Of God
Shall crumble
To an infinity
Of indecencies."

To quote a God:

"All who fall
Have not
Been pushed,
Those who rose
Were not all
Pulled.

"**** the heathens.
Justified are those
Who avenge the treasons
Committed unto me."

Waves of
Iridescence
Cleanse our pallettes,
And we open wide
For the next forkful
Of fermented
Excrement.
Bloodied are our knees
As we receive
The sacrement,
Trapped like rats
Cast in cement.

To quote a slave:

"Bound by prior
Engagements,
Sacrificed to
Advertisement,
The seeds of men
Wither in the soil.
Blood weeps
From poisoned skies
While YES WE CAN
Opens eyes,
And seals fate
Within fine
Print."

Wolves in
Cheap disguises
Bate their breath
Behind red grins
And finalize
The list of
Who gets in,
While in the cold
Stand the masses,
Marinating
In their own
Molasses.

From atop Parnassus,
A silver-lined horse
Watches the madness,
And snarls and spits
In shamed defiance,
While Apollo
Holds court
To form the alliance
That will interrupt
The defiling of man.

To quote a soldier:

"Cold is the mud
That cradles
The valiant.
Swift is decay
In these
Transient days,
Where passive
Observers rot
In mass graves."

Designed by the rich,
Assembled by slaves,
Our system
Keeps churning,
Rejecting all
Who misbehave.
Reflected in
Concentric waves,
The faces of children
Contemplate age,
And what it means
To be forever
Enraged,
Engaged in endeavors
That are only dreams.
They can't be saved,
And neither can we.
So it seems,
And so it should be.

Softly sleepy,
I wander briefly
Down the streets
Of my youth,
Counting teeth,
Pointing at
Beech trees
And deserving
Some truth,
Receiving only
What's hidden
Underneath.
Swiftly I switch
Between
Feeling new
And being used.
The latter feels right,
Because so far tonight
I've got nothing to lose.
So I swishily swig
My bottle
Of *****,
And slippily saunter
Back to
The News,
To see all
My boys
Sweat out
Their blues.
Strung out
And cool,
Swaggily staggering
From stool
To stool,
Nightclub girls
Can be so cruel.
I happily exhibit
My penchant
For drool,
And as it
Dribbles down
My chin,
I scream
"Baby, I've been
Drinking with
Some friends,"
And collapse
In a pool
Of cigarette
Ends.

There's an atm in my neighborhood
That gives out singles,
Or three of them,
Or seven,
And so on.
It sits next to the drywall box
Filled with EBT dinners,
Next to the numbered gas pumps.
It glows in the predawn air,
While I sit on a cement wall
Across the street.
That hunk of junk charged me $3.75 to take out $7.
Next to me a man tells his inquisitive boy
Why the police act as they do.

"They the cops, man.
Not you."

I'm watching with rapt fascination
The ten inch screen
Of some wheelchair-bound woman's
Educational tablet,
While her hand, twisted by palsy,
Taps at a magnified qwerty pad.
She's playing hangman,
And I silently,
Secretly,
Guess along with her for almost fifteen minutes.
The bus arrives, and I'm grateful
It's the doubled kind with the hinge in the middle,
Cuz maybe I won't have to stand.
I take the empty seat next to
A Salvadoreña co-worker
I sometimes ride in to work with.
Our conversations are limited,
As are her English and my Español.
We laugh at the Georgetown gringitas
lining up with their morning runners' clubs,
And lament over the cabrones pobres
Peddling to strangers for jobs
Outside the big box hardware store
That won't hire them.
The sun rises as we cross the Key bridge,
And the wounded Washington Monument,
With its scaffolding and the floodlights leaking through,
Is a diamond-studded phallace
Shining over a town draped in a shroud of humidity.
I close my eyes and try to rest
For the eleven minutes between
Me and my desk.

You need light to see
She said to me
As I turned it off
To make this seem
A little less obscene
A little less just me
Making just another scene
And a little more a combination
Of ***** chores
And confirmation
Of spent canteens
Left in the street
For the city to sweep
Away in the morning
One day every week
Like I've been
Swept downstream
By these drips of mourning
I wept down cheeks
That are red
From the heat
That replaced the cold
Till I couldn't even eat
Or brush my teeth
No matter how many
Times the hatter
Told me your matter
Was really gold
Not just gore
And blood spatter
For the reaper to reap
And serve on a platter
To all the sheep.

Out with the old,
The new comes in,
That's what I told
Those cherubim
While they unfolded
My cerebellum
And poured in cold
Lemon serum
That tasted old,
Like Nosferatu
And turned my soul
Into polished gold,
A statue,
A pillar of salt,
I had to look back
At *****
Pay for
Gomorrah's
Faults,
How could I not?
My neck is rubber,
I'm American,
Am I not?
I love to see
Who got shot,
How twisters
Twist Midwest
Cysts
Into knots,
To see congress prop
Their puppet up
Behind a podium
To condemn
*** and *****
While fueling trade
In the desert
So they can have dessert,
Expensive cakes
While we eat dirt.
Eat me, all you
Pressed pastel shirts,
The suits give you
Worth, I guess,
But worthless
Is better than
The best
You could plan
To achieve,
But hey, **** all that,
No need to sweat it,
I won't worry,
Me and Steve
Will have a chat
And figure out
Who are rats
And who to believe
And continue
To not give a ****
About anything.

Are you feeling scared?
It’s ok, we all let fear
Consume us,
We all shirk darkness
And monsters
And dripping pus,
But don’t forget
That just cuz you
Feel it, doesn’t mean
It’s there,
Tommy taught me that
When he found me
Swimming
In the near freezing
Water at the bottom
Of that pit of despair
I was left
To rot in,
He showed me where
To put the barrel,
To point it out
Instead of in,
To ******* shout
And give the firing
Pin
A reason for existing,
Solving one existential
Crisis
With the explosion of
Another into
Flesh colored
Splinters of glass
And a whisper
Sailing in
Through deaf ears,
Some *******
About grass
Being greener
Wherever one
Can get some ***
Or meaning
Or a sense of being
Wanted,
He told me it’s better
To be a wanton
Observer
Than to actively
Stir the fervor
That rages when
Thoughts of her
Spill onto the pages,
Let it happen he said,
Don’t make it,
It makes you
More often
Than pavement
Meets sky
Or angels fake it,
But whatever,
They do anyway,
It’s all a farce
After all,
Go ask Alex,
He’ll tell you all about
The empty show
For empty souls
Being perpetrated
By empty holes
In the atmosphere
That trick you into
Thinking something
Or someone’s there,
Feeling like someone cares,
But just cuz you feel it
Doesn’t mean its there,
So why even feel
If we’re nothing but
Forces and air?
Electromagnetic
Chaos
Under a bed of messed
Up hair
Is no justification
For the mask
We all must wear.
So choose yours with care,
They’re all transparent.

This act
Just keeps
Wearing me out
Like I’m an evening
Dress and
Each day is a
Different dinner
So I guess I’ll
Keep watching
My patience
Grow thinner
Along with your
Waist.

It’s a short walk,
But still I dread
The trek
Each time
I make it
I expect
I’ll keep following
These same tracks
Until my feet
Wear away
And the tips
Of my tibias
Are concrete
Splinters,
But I don’t mind
Finding out
How many winters
This doubt can last,
It’s all a game,
Just catch and pass
You’re thrown
A bone

Or driven past
As you wave your thumb
Under the overpass
Trying to get home
For the birth of your child
At Woman and Infants
But RIPTA has ******
Service, so you might
Miss it,
But that’s ok,
We all miss things
We never had
And we all wish
To never be sad
But the reality is
Reality’s a fad,
A passing craze
Of the human brain
That hasn’t evolved
To see past the rain
And realize that it
Isn’t falling
Every time we get wet,
The future is calling
But we will always forget
To pick up the phone,
Cuz we’d rather forfeit
Nirvana to sit alone
Playing with an app
That makes a cartoon cat
Play the trombone,

Technology can lead us
Out of the realm of the blind
If only we could find
A way to slow
Our swift decline
Into the self assigned
Ceasing
Of
Creativity
And
Assanine
Overabundance
Of avoidable
Stupidity.
Iphone 4s.
Cop that ****.

These kids,
They look so
Derelict,
They look so
Full of ****,
Like they could
Ever skip
The river styx
Crossing.
So rather
Than glossing
Over their eyes,
Maybe these guys
Should start
Flossing
The wrinkles
Of their brains
By tossing
Back a few
Infected grains,
It's Ergot that
Brings
What you forgot;
As in your face,
As big as
Great danes
Made of waves
Of color.
If fluorescent
Grays
Ever
Deliver me asunder....
It's so dull
Under
This counter,
My mind starts
To flounder
As I flip the
******* flounder.
Or is it
Tilapia?
I wonder,
Could I be
Happier?
Probably, but
Don't you know
I like it
Sappier?
Is that a word?
Who gives a ****?
Not this bird,
Thats why she's flying away,
Not toward
The veneer covered
Ways I say
"Come here."
"Go away."
"2 for fives two for fives,
****** got garbage around the way."
The way I pray
For acid rain
To melt my clothes,
My skin,
My muscles and veins,
My mostly drained
Trays of grease;
Popping.
Bubbling.
Please.
Please
Give my
Knees
Some ease
From their pains,
I've been begging
For weeks,
I need to sleep.

This bed is a comfort,
Much like the sounds of used water
flowing through ninety-year-old pipess,
Soothing me,
while the sounds of the city
are brooding inside of me,
and it’s the same.

It may be the pinnacle
of 1922, pre-collapse Providence,
but it’s the same.

It may be different,
but it’s just the same,
And that's just the way it is
So I cool this brain that's on the fritz
And do my best to keep sane.

The wallpaper is interactive
and there's an infinitude
of pigeons on a television screen
that is worth more than my apartment,
and it’s still the same.

The rug is soaked just the same,
the lingering odor of feet is the same,
and I can feel all the ghosts of guests
from the last century trying to,
dying to speak to me
and through me,
and it’s the same.

The way the sun rises makes me feel like
I have no cause to be awake or asleep,
but I’m awake,
and it’s the same.

The stress of lost cigarettes,
and the blame of untapped digresses into unnecessary depths
is the same.

The way I’m viewing the start
of this day that hasn't yet
is the same,

and it’s a shame.

“Nothing compares to
The way you make
Me feel”
She said with a grin
As he peeled off her skin
And dove into her soul
All the way to his heels
And she screamed with
Delighted fear
As he fought for air
And said “my dear,
I’ll love you forever.”

The cat sat in the window
As the spring flowers bloomed
And she marveled at
The cloud of doom
That had descended
On the room while
The canary lay dead
On the floor
In a beam of
Afternoon sun
Glowing red
Like the lead
That laid her to rest.

Infatuated with glitter
And dust
The lost soul
Skipped home
And passed the post-
Industrial relics
Of the past
In heaps of rust
And broken glass
And she was oblivious
To the fast moving
Motorists
And she stepped out
Just as the last
Arrived
And they all said
It was a miracle
She survived
But they couldn’t
See the demons
More alive than
Ever awakening
Inside her,
They poured out
And over
A world unprepared
For the beginning
Of the apocalypse
fueled by her love for
Feeling empowered.

God bless us all.

Thump
Thump
Thump
Thump
Thump
Thump
Break
Thump
Thump
Whump
Break
Broken...
Broken.
Goodnight, I love you.

--Kingston Rag--

It's 8 a.m. again,
And my mind reels
In memorium
As I reel up the sidewalk,
Down the street
To the emporium
To eat a ****** bagel
That costs far too much
For the taste of cadmium
That comes like a punch
As I bite into cream cheese.
How much?
Three fifteen?
I only got a dime,
Can you throw
This one to me?
It's not a crime,
I won't tell your boss.
I get tossed right out,
So I guess I'll walk
To the bench
By the bus stop
And hope it stops
To let me on.
If not I'll pawn
The watch my pops
Gave to me (it's gold),
The only thing
He bestowed
Upon his spawn
Besides pools
Of *****
On cool granite
Slabs that served
As a deck
For the wreck
Of a shack
I grew up in,
Plus drunken sins
I had to cover up
For him,
Because that schlup
Could never win.
'Drink up, drink up,
There's no more gin,
But there's mouthwash
In the cabinet,'
But he wasn't havin it,
So I got hit
And sent outside
To sleep on the bench
On which
I now reside
Waiting for this
******* bus
To give me a ride
Back to the Bucket.
**** it.