She asked
"Have you ever read the Bible?"
Said Mary was the mother of all
Said the gays made her sick
Then told me about some of the guys
She met and ****** on tinder
"He was from Brazil, he was good at ***..."
Good at ***?
She dropped me off at home
There was a pause
I said "alright...have a good one..."
She stared with simple,stupid,confused eyes
I walked in the house
Sat on the bed
And I was alone again
But a little less

The morning after sunrise
Over a decimated Nagasaki
The smooth smiling
Bulletin board *****
Immortalized over
**** blood streets
You were so beautiful but your
Love was dead
You walked smooth rhythm like
Hot bullets through butter flesh
Your voice soft sweet like
House cat ripping dove's neck
And in Waterloo I watched you
Watch your father watch
Past pain fill cold beer mugs
Feel numb nothingness
Attempting to drink it all away
And you knew ALL included you
Pain passed down
Misery inherited
And when you slapped me in the snow
I knew the blow was really from
Him to you
And his wife dying of cancer
In the room across from ours
You shut our door
Poured the Carlo Rossi into
Plastic cups
Then talked about your cats
Then we ****** on the floor
But I couldn't stop thinking about
The suffering across the hall
The suffering in your grinding hips
And when I stared into your
Drunk dead eyes
I saw pain inescapable
I saw future smashed by past
I saw desperation for control through
Expendable men
I saw him
I had to look away
Outside of the window
Snow falling heavy
Bright cold delicate
It burned my eyes
You were so beautiful
But your love was dead

Inferno Arizona. 10 am.
I pick at once frozen french fries
Stare at stove with no thought.
No thoughts of no thought.
Then the phrase
"Death On A Dreary Brook"
Slips out from the subconscious.
And I am unsure of the definition of
Dreary
And I am not sure that Brook
Is really a word
I look up the definitions
Dreary:dull.bleak.lifeless.
Brook:a small stream.
Alright...
Who put those words in my head?
What wants me to know what about what?
I take a slug of hot black coffee
Rub my small hands upon my
Chewed up face
I do it all like coffee hot small face
Are real things
Like trivial mouth sounds can
Shelter me from the definite terror
Of undefinite existence
You can cling to your words
And pretend they mean something
Death on a dreary Brook.
Words mean nothing
Black crows trapped
In pitch dark caves
For eternity.

Vomiting in vulture circles
Waiting for a separate self,
A true you,
That you don't know you're
Ignoring
To jam dumb grunts and howls
Into your false face
So that you can be acknowledged
By the others
Picking the meat off rotting carcasses


I can't be like you.
Dance drunk smile
Screaming words
About things outside yourself
That are described by
Tombstone languages
Meaning nothing to what truly is
Ignoring the guillotine gleam
Of past pain and present agony
That make up the true coward within


I can't be like you.
Wandering mindlessly
Unpurposeful purpose
Pretending there is a plan
And a meaning
Thinking about
Kids
Cars
Work
Vacations
Upset by trivial inconvenience
Never pondering the finite mirror fool
That you will have to abandon
Or the immortality of Infinite
Thought bursts
That might actually be thought of
By a blue skinned 4 armed Lord
Living vicariously through the
Useless you

I can't be like you.
You aren't even real...

Veil of suffering lifted
Too hastily
Blind man thriving in
Infant comfortable darkness
Ripped into burning reality
I watch cheap wood paneled walls
Pop and fizzle: they breathe and battle
With true void of nothingness
The once familiar dullness of
All things
Now burstingburningburying
Who's manifesting all this anyway?
I wait in terror
The empty bottles of Mercy
Abandoned me like
Crisp Bible pages torn from
Leather spines
The truth of the universe is just
Too much
The immortality of non living object
And the temporary existant that is
Me
I want to escape:I beg for blindness
I wait
To become non becoming
The clock ties my hands and
Drags me by the feet
Through the stench of reality in it's truest form:
Suffering

Blistered bronze popped howling
Dragging egg shell through
The china of the parietal lobe
There will always be somewhere
To run to
As for now?
I smash my face in grey rain
Teeth broken by inhale
Softseagreenbreeze exhale
IsmileismileI
Slug knees bloodied inching
Toward eternity finish tape
I smile at that too.

Inhaling unsure
Heart screaming existence
Pounded like fightorflight
Loveorlone
Wake like the anxiety of
Dandelion fields finished
With their morning prayers
My love stands massive
Though trembling

As you drip smooth
Jagged wet blackrock
Choke index pointer with falling
Black curls
Belly empty and flattened against
Peach Egyptian cotton
$62.85
Ignoring life like
Pink flavored lip gloss
Like 60 text messages per day
(Oh how awful to have to use text message in a poem)
Throwing my head back now
****** wild eyed fanged cub of
A beast
Her twirling midnight nothing
Kicking smooth oak legs like
Drowning
On clean soft sheets
At 4 pm.....

Fleeing smoke;risen
Proud and delicate
Ghosts of wild horses
What IS this?
Eyes bathe
Darkness;bliss
My soul folds into itself
Gentle now
A metropolis collapsing into
Sinkhole
Gentle now; now
What is THIS?
Bluepurples burst growglow
Then vanish
More appear
Matter cannot be created or
Destroyed?
Yeah?
That hugs me like grizzly hibernation
I am ancient
Thats it!
I have been here for centuries
I remember
Protozoa ****** in prehistoric lake
The boredom of burning stars
Massive galaxies collapsing like
Waves
Yes. I am satisfied with that.
WHAT IS THIS?
Bodies burnt back to ash
An "i guess i'll just have..."
Kind of dinner for worms
To be consumed and created anew
Againagainagain again
Yes!
No?
No...
I cant figure it out...
My heart beats
Detonation countdown
After all this
My own heart will be the one
To **** me
What is this?
I don't have much time.

Tuned to the local classical station
I dont know what has become of me
All the other mid twenties at work
Listen to new **** and love to dance
I like lou reed and tom waits myself
And now im stuck on this classical
Binge
I suppose i will always try to escape
The crowds
Whether it be beneficial or not
This string quartet #8 "Razumovsky"
Finishes up and i drink my 7th beer
And say
In my best classical DJ voice
"That was Frou Frouflau" with his "Twa de La La in B minor"
And i laugh alone
In a dim lit room
Staring at paintings of a dim lit man
Me
And I start to feel
This is the right place
But the wrong time.

The worst part seems to be
Not being able to breathe
Its unfair
Maybe it would've been best to
Not be at all
No, this is good
But wasting it is not
Drunk on a futon
Reading Goethe
Its going to be very
Hard
To let this all go
Won't it?
The worst part about it seems to be
Not being able to breathe
But as you watch the others go
Your cats, your mother, your loves
You will be ready
Young man.
Won't you?
............................................................­...........

I said "I love you too."
And she smiled and stared through
Dirt clutching eyes
Silence. Like a flesh eating black bear
Slipped in between us in the
Crumb filled sheets
"What are you thinking about?"
She asks
Why did they always ask that?
They want you to say something
Dramatic. Meaningful.
I want to leave you and sever the heads of 1000 roses from their stems
Call the moon a *******
And finally, jump from a massive
Steel bridge
"I dont know..." i say
"Are you ok babe?"
"...yea..." i say
"Whats wrong tell meeee....
What are you thinking about?"
Oh...****... And how could i say that
I was daydreaming about a
Full grown black fighting bull
Escaped from the bull rings of spain
Bloodied and running
As fast as it could in moonlight
Through wild spanish flowers
Through the rain
Through deep gulps of freedom fresh
Mist
Crying laughing dying
Only wanting to keel over and die
Tongue out and alone
In a patch of bright
Non exotic flowers....

**** caked eyes scraped open
New, tasting fresh breeze of
Some amateur mahayana meditation
I scan the room
There is a painting of a moon with
A clock's face
And a wounded bull of spain
Running through a prairie
Running home
The oil paint bursts in brilliant
Cold blues
I think,
What is this?
What is this?
Then there is a cockroach running
Wildly
Across the linoleum
I smash its head like
Bluebird egg
It's legs are kicking and it
Rotates in a small circle
Around a mess of eyes, mouth,
Antennae
The suffering in this world is
Tremendous
I finish it off
And feel instant disgust
In myself
And all of you.

50 tons of
Steel locomotive
Came crashing from the sky
Screaming through hideous
Dark purples
On the knife tip of
A lightning bolt
It stopped me dead in my tracks
The cold steel chilled my toes
I thought "huh...that's so strange."
Then i walked around the wreckage
Headed south
On my way
To see you.

Like some rusted nail
Pounded
Into rotted wood
In sleep you dream of
Holographic pastels
Of wings riding breeze
Of love flowing
Soothing lava
Then suddenly you are ripped
From lightning lit castles
Awoken by the hammer
And it is brutal and heavy
Pounding pounding pounding
You are pushed deeper into
Rotten foundation
Stuck
Assaulted
Forced
In sleep you dream
Of sour pasts
Reconciled
Blue green seas
The floors of oceans
The solitude of whales
And the hammer comes down again
Pounding pounding pounding
Until you are secured like christ
And some ordinary
Housewife
Hangs some ugly painting
Upon you
She adjusts it a few centimeters left
Then a few to the right
Takes 3 steps back
"Perfect"
And you are buried
Done

Wipe my pollen dust
From your lavender scented
Christ ****** fingers
Milk knuckles shredding
My wings
Like sunburned bible pages
Sighing much like an owl
At 2PM
Or the honey badger
Chewing frozen mice
Behind plexiglass
My heart is a massive
Black bull
Pacing the ring
Always waiting for the sword
Ah! Not anymore!
I am bored of the crawling clocks
I am bored of your necessary
Torture
Today i will call in sick
Burn my wallet
And dance naked
Until moon drown
Im taking my bright orange
Black striped
Silk dotted
Heart back

The women were only a
Distraction
From my own
Growling insanities
And the begging loneliness
I felt it all
As they lied beside me
Microwaved ham
In a hard twin bed
I knew i could never face it
Face it alone
Christ!
What i'd give
To have any one of them
Here now
Death stands behind me
Combing yellow bone fingers
Through my thick luxurious
Mexican hair
And the beer
Takes care of the rest

I am going to buy
A ******* cowboy hat
And lick the heels of suicide
For my 25th
I invited all the guys at work
Then followed with a disclaimer
" i am not responsible for any distasteful or aggressive acts i may, and am planning to, commit at this dysfunctional function"
And the kid at work said
"Ill try to make it, i gotta see this, but i made plans with my girlfriend. Im gonna try to get out of it."
"Just bring her along" i suggested
"Im not takin her anywhere near you man, your disgusting" says the kid
And i didnt mind too much
Because i have skin like a vulture
And am currently reading the
Complete works of De Sade
But i have also read Dostoyevsky's
"White Nights"
And i almost cried
But the kid doesn't need to know that
Let him know me only as the wild
Drunk
That he has heard so much about
Those stories are far more interesting
Than love and loneliness anyways.
I laughed.
"Well...let me know if you can ditch the broad man"
I walked to the break room and read
De Sade's list of different ways to eat
Human ****
He sure got creative in prison
It all made me laugh
Then the girl with the dark tangled
Burning forests hair walked in
And she smelled of the
Death of winter
Pulsating green and the sludge of
Forgotten Decembers
And i could  taste
What Justine was trying so hard
To protect
Well....anyways....
Heres to 25 down
And 25 more to go.
I am the fool
Like Ironheart.

Wildflowers
Of sun soaked orange
And blood soil red
Pale sobbing violet
Dancing gently in cold breeze
Dancing gently in hell fire
They are no doubt alive
Statued in dirt
Reaching toward rain cloud
There is just nowhere else to go
There is nothing else to do
But dance during dog **** showers
But dance during petal wilting
But dance until root rot
Wildflowers
Screaming at the fire
Trembling in moonlight
They are no doubt alive
Forcing themselves to continue
While feeling as insane as
I

25 pale blue julys
My moon floats soggy and
Dimming
Breaking apart and
Sinking
Amongst this
Acid sunshine
I am a peacock in eels skin
And i want to remember to forget
All those awful Septembers
Hack them off of my skin
But they regenerate quickly
Like stubborn tumors
I am just the dust on a napping cat
I hold the bottle up to my lips
Like a samurai sword to the throat
Except with much less honor
I pull the chain on the overhead
Light
It flickers a bit
Then decides to sleep
And the stars follow me like
Night gnats
And i put my body down
Forever or just tonight
It is not up to me
25 pale blue julys
The worm crawls up
Past the rain
Tastes the sun
And laughs

How can I explain?...
You open the 5th beer
And you are sitting alone
You let out a belch that
Tastes like the
Salty 4 AM tide mist water
You look around
And the scenery has become
Meaningless
You start to feel what Sartre
Vomited
On the page
Your surroundings become
As out of control
As they seem
When you are sober
You were right! It's real!
Your insanity starts to seem
Intellectual
You throw your left leg over
Your right knee
Turn up the Ades
Another beer cracks and hisses
Bullwhips, cobras.
When the faces arrive they
Are false, cardboard
You think about that phrase you
Think of all day
When you watch the people
"God, what HORRIFIED lives we live"
Except now you are smiling
You start to think about
How one of these days the sanity
Will drown completely
Choking on that bubbling spit
Foaming, soiled
Green tide
Yeah, that's alright
With me.

Lucid dreaming swans
Perched high upon
Delicate snow branches
Wide eyed, watching
Me
I spit at the roots of your sanctuary
I stand naked as the black bull
Paces
The bullring encircled by flame
He is confused and I
Am lost
He kicks the dirt
And I throw silk purple
Flowing thunderstorm rain
Mockery into his face
I twist in a beautiful
Smirk at death veronica
And I feel the breeze of ****** horn
On my neck
Yes, I am scared
Neither of us will make it out
Alive
He tastes my cape
And I choke on his dust
He stands confused
And I am lost
Why must we keep
Charging and twirling
All of our lives?
We sweat encircled in
Hell flame
Thinking about why it's all
So unfair
Then prepare for the next
Brutal goring or
Brilliant silk tornado
While the swans slumber delicately
Upon the canopies
Of brittle trees
I'd rather be here
Than up there

Mutt-swine
Slobbering madness
Squealing agony
The people are sniffing out your fear
Fur rotted wolves
And the trembling
**** soaked trees
The people are hungry for neck vain
Bathing proudly
In the mud ****
Of each other's suffering
Bald vultures
Picking flesh
Beneath the cruel laughing sun
The people are rabies ridden
Rot bull
Pit weilers
How's a man supposed to stay alive?
Here's the trick:
Find the toughest one
Gut it
Roll in its stench
And walk among the rest
Stiff jawed
Wild tailed
With a hyena smirk
And the density of an elephant
Oh,
And don't forget
To stare them all
Directly in the eye.

With hair strung down like
Arachnid spit
Sleeping lakes ripple in terror
At your feet
Jigsaws torn by frustrated agonized
Hands
Pieces that will never fit
Never did
I want to polish it like a trophy for the sun
But instead watch it spoil
Dry tangerine in a humid attic
It's just never good enough
Make like the chimera
Like the souls of iguanas
It's just never good enough
But you don't have to be
That
No, not at all

Is nothing special really
I am in my blue checkered boxers
Wearing an unbottoned green flannel
Getting ready for my fourth beer
Listening to classical that I only
Listen to when I drink and/or read
And/or write
And I keep shutting off the typewriter and picking up
James Thurber and the Goethe
And I keep thinking
Wait until spring Suarez
It means something to me today
And then I drop it all
To pick up the beer
There are grapefruits and a cactus
In a broken planter on the tile floor
There is soil and coffee grounds
Down there too
And used shaving razors and Q-tips
And old beers and bad poems
And this one should be there with all
The other trash
But it's here instead
Oh well...
The life and
The sun and
The breeze and
The lungs
Oh well...
Last week I accidentally
Smashed my bookcase while I was
Drunk
And now there are three horrifying
Stacks
Beside my bed
And I hope their dusts
Infect me with their cancer
Forever
Oh well...

I was about 14
And she told my buddy
"I don't know what it is about Ray,
He's ugly, but I think I'm in love with him. Your much more handsome but I think I'm in love with Ray, I'm sorry, but I have to follow my heart. I'm sorry."
And he told me she left him
And I couldn't understand how she could be so young and feel so
Passionate
About me
About anything
I didn't know anything about
Love
About as much as I would
Ten years later
Well, she called me a few days later
"Hey, I just wanted to get something
Off my chest. I think I'm in love with
You,
Your the funniest guy I ever met."
"Oh...ok."
I was dating this girl with giant sagging ******* and a soggy *** like a 40 year old woman
and that seemed more important.
"I'm with T, I don't think I can leave her."
"Oh! So you want to be with the ***** with the ******* but not the ***** that really loves you!?"
"I think so."
She hung up.
Where did all that fire come from?
About a month later T left me
So I called the other one up
"Hey. Ive been thinking about it. I think I AM in love with you."
"Really?"
"I think so."
"Prove it then."
"Ok...how?"
"I want you to meet me at the Taco Bell on Broadway, climb on the roof, and scream 'I LOVE A.."
"Alright."
I put on my boots and walked to the Taco Bell
It was raining
I thought "This must be what love is.
Insanity"
She was standing there and I was ready to climb the roof and make an *** of myself
Then she said "Oh, didn't you get my text?"
"No."
"Oh...look...just go home and read it, OK?"
"What about the roof thing?"
"Just go home Ray."
"Ok."
I went home and she said something
About how she was in love with another guy, she said she was sorry
I thought "****, I wish I had that much love inside of me"
I figured I might have a little bit
Cause there was a small burn in
My throat and my gut.

I said "****! That's probably why I haven't been laid in almost two years!"
And the guys at work laughed
Then the small long dark haired girl
Popped her smooth brown face from
Around a corner
She heard everything
"Wha? You'll find  somebody, I believe everybody has a soul mate out there. And your...a smart guy, you'll find somebody."
I thought about how much optimistic
Or
Just plain ignorant people
Really seemed to disturb me
Then she said
"My best friend use to be with all these guys in high school and I could never find a guy and I was jealous then when I found my fiance she got dumped and was alone for six years and we were like oh my god thats so weird and it's funny me and her didn't like each other when we first met but then one time...."
And I stood there nodding
And terrified
And I remembered why I hadn't
Tried all that hard
To find a women
These last 2 years

Most days I peek out through the
Kissing black curtains
And death is there
She's always there
Definite and gleaming
Lying in wait
A calm river
Glassy and sparkling
Burning beneath moonlight
What should I do?
What can I do?
To wait seems too foolish
Can't you escape it?
I suppose you can
Immortality
Painting lines on the pages
Of forever.

It was a pleasure to see you again
Bulldog jawed with that wide fat ***
I wanted to tell you that I used to
Fantasize about you
Your dark flowers covering
My chest
As I feasted like a black bee
Like a disgusting butterfly
On you hair
I feasted again at the party
Last night
There is something about you
Some kind of dumb innocence
Shining from unraped eyes
That I wish I could return
To my heart
And we talked again and I really tried
To pretend to care
And I saw you frown at me when
They said "Better take it easy on the
Beers Ray..."
"****, I'm fine, this us only the 7th...
Or 8th..."
"Wait til he gets 2 more in him,
******* crazy!!!"
"Really?" You asked
You looked down at the empty green
Glass and
I looked as well
I saw all the light in the room cram
Itself into those bottles
Then I scoughed
And decided the party was getting
Dull
I had to hijack it
Somebody said
"Ray, tell the story about when you
And your ex were at the hotel for your anniversary"
"Well...****. She said 'ooooh baby, your **** is so big!' and I said 'yeah, biggest you ever had baby?' And she said 'well...no....the biggest I ever had was like 12 inches.'
And I was sore as hell about it
So we started arguing and she started crying and I just sat there drinking a jug of Carlo Rossi all night."
And everybody at the party laughed
And you couldn't believe I would say
Something like that
Then you asked "Ray, what size shoe
Are you?"
"11"
"False advertisement" you said.
Then I started screaming
"Hey! It's A DECENT SIZE, ILL PULL MY **** OUT RIGHT NOW, I DONT GIVE A ****"
And I stood up and unbuttoned my jeans
And some laughed
and the party hosts looked concerned
And I saw a scared fascinated and
Disgusted look in your eyes
"LETS GO TO THE BATHROOM, ILL SHOW YOU, NOBODYS EVER COMPLAINED ABOUT IT"
And I rambled on and on
And cleared the whole room again
Anyways,
It was a pleasure to see you again.

I was suppose to be in Vegas right now...
Sitting at the nickle slots enjoying a
Fat cigar and free drinks
Losing more
Money,life,sanity
A flashing light, Bell ringing suicide
I even had a coke deal lined up
So I wouldn't have to sleep for
The weekend.
But life got in the way
It always does
Broken down truck,having to move
To a different **** shack
I can't afford Vegas or coke or cigars
Or life
So here I am
On "vacation"
4 days off of work
Locked in the room
Staring into the mirror and assaulting the typewriter
Sanity crawls away like a fat maggot
With a belly full of rot
I gotta get out of here...
I leash myself to Thurber's hounds
And begin to walk to the library
I pass the farmers market
Where the stench of the smiles and
Burnt pork pollutes the smog filled
Air
I look into the crowd to find a face that looks as human as
I feel
It is not there
I shoot down 9th past the 99¢ store
And there is a homeless black guy
Standing next to his bedding
And a stack of books
I look down and on top there is
Homer's Illiad and Thoreau's Walden
(For real! No ****!)
I nod and hope this man believes
His journey is not over yet
I walk into the filthy old library
Return Thurber
He reminded me how insane women
Can be
Maybe loneliness isn't that bad
I walk over to the fiction section
And pick up Dostoevsky's shorts
I was thinking about "White Nights"
In bed last night
And couldn't remember the final line
It really spoke to me
I sit at a cold wooden table
And turn to the last page of the story
"Only a moment of bliss? But isn't that sufficient for the whole of a
Man's life?"
Oh yeah....that's good.
I thumb back a few pages then
Continue reading
Christ... They even broke Dos's heart?
How cruel was she?
I put it back on the shelf and walk back home
I get caught behind an old woman
She is wearing poisoness perfume
Tight sweat pants and I can see her
Diaper
She walks with a walker
Picking through bushes of flowers
For cigarette butts. It made me sad.
I walk back into my room and lock the door
I think about all the madness that
Went on within this
Paid for prison
I am going to miss it.
This is where I decided I wanted to
Write
I stare into the mirror again
This is going to be
A long vacation...

It happened while listening to a song
An old song i used to hear when
She was around
It happened while somewhere far
Away
The purple blossoms began to die and fall from the tree
And somewhere further she lied next
To another man
Feeling that same howling loneliness
She felt with me
That old song put me right back into
That dim room
Lying next to her
Feeling full
Full of love fear joy and
That underlying loneliness
I am always running  from
I listened to the song and began to
Tear up
I haven't cried in two years
I haven't cried because I haven't
Loved since then
I tried to shake it off and
Focus on the boxing match I was
Watching
But that ******* song kept
******* me back into that dim room
We used to lay around lifeless,jobless,
Starving
Eating a box of Bisquick and each other's souls all day and night
I thought I was missing her
But no, it wasn't that
It was never really love
We were just two wounded spiders
Trying to devour one another
I missed feeling full.
I missed the days without this
Immense burning
I missed the days without death die
Destroy
I missed living *******
The song ended
The  tears never fell
But I came pretty ****** close
Then I felt that ugly humongous
Mountain
Crawl off my chest
I felt the drowning rats climb out of my gut
I walked outside
And watched the purple blossoms
Die from the tree
And the air tasted sweet
And my body felt light
The war is over. The war is over.
My god. I hope my war is over.

She sat across from me diagonally
The husky latina wearing clothes too
Tight
"Now you see here, 0=0 therefore the
Answer is undefined."
I couldn't focus on infinities
She sat staring with her head on folded arms
I couldn't stop watching her legs
They opened and closed slowly in a
Sensual rhythm
"Once you find X you can plug it into the original equation to find Y"
Why?
Her rhythm sped up and I watched
Her push her pelvis down into the
Hard blue metal desk chair
She was really working for it
Was anybody else seeing this?
The sun came in from the window
And laid on top of her
It's shine fell just outside of my reach
I could stretch my arms and touch it
If I wanted to
She stopped the smashing of her
Upper thighs
And began to rub herself back and forth into the uncomfortable chair
"And can anybody tell me WHY we are dividing both sides by 12X?"
I couldn't. I couldn't focus on parallels or horizons
She was going for infinity
She worked it harder and faster
Infinite. Infinite.INFINITE
she began to slow down
Stopped grinding and started the
Thigh smashing again
Slow.
Then she stopped and looked around the room
I looked away
She stood up and placed her purse
In front of her crotch
"The solution is somewhere between
Negative infinity and positive
Infinity."

The mice are howling
They are empty inside
Stagnant rivers
Dead oceans
My leaves are brittle
Incinerating instantly
May they burn inside
Forever.

"Oh! And look at this one!
Sitting alone in a dark room
Preparing a noose from weaving
Two of his child's jump ropes together!
Guess why!
LOVE!
His love is with another man while
He sits at home with a spit covered
Child
Fantasizing his wife's embarrassment
And regret
When she finds him swinging in
The closet.
Oh, my children, my children.
Love is not what I had planned
For thee."

Love. Like the shadows upon the
Pavement
Waiting for the moon to take it all
Away
Where has it all gone?!
Nearly two years without
Kisses,*****,hand holding
Just an empty bed and
No tears
Tears were love
And stabbing yourself drunk on the bathroom floor
Was love
And the time she hacked at her cold White skin when I was going to leave.
Confusion is love
And waking up together on Sundays
Making coffee,cooking eggs,
While laughing in the kitchen
Was love too.
I remember looking into the mirror
One morning
I said "Jesus! What am I going to do when you finally leave me?"
And she said "ugh! I don't know!"
And I laughed hard
And she stared out the window
And I'm still trying to
Figure that out...

Fresh rain and the
Dead leaves rotting in the gutter
All the springs the earth has seen
We're wasted by the bitter cold
You were just a passing breeze on a
90 degree evening
Or a fever in December.
You cold bitter *****
I am just like you now
So why can't we make this
Work?

You beg to the gods
"Please! Have some mercy on me!
Surely I have paid my karma debt
Off by now!"
And you live for the days
When things are dull and dying
The wasted hours
When you don't think of
Any gods at all.

Where are the lilacs inhaling salty
Sea breeze?
Where are moon miracles shining
Bright on salvation trails?
There are no wise rivers here
There are no stagnant trees escaping
The horrors
Where is love?
Where is god?
When I shut my eyes
I watch a brilliant blue-green
Hummingbird
Flap vigorously
Then suddenly stop
Dying in mid air
Falling onto your filthy pavement
Where is love?
There is no god.

"Baby, I do know! They're brown, a light brown."
"They're hazel!"
Jesus Christ,
She was crying again
I sighed,
New love is so dumb.
But as I think about it now
It felt good to play the game.
I held her by the face and stared into
Her eyes
"See! They're hazel. And they have
Stars in them, see?"
Stars? I thought, "****, she's insane too."
"Do you see them? Look."
She pointed to her wet pupil
"See those tiny black spots next to
My pupil? My mom always said they look like stars"
I couldn't see any ******* stars...
But for the sake of getting the argument over with...
"Oh...oh yeah...sure...I see them, yeah
They're right there!"
You sucker. What a fake. Weak.
I pulled back my head and stared at
Her whole face.
"Baby, you're so beautiful."
She looked up at me
Wet shining stars and all.
We kissed
And she looked up and smiled
Though not a normal smile.
She could smell the blood and
Fear.

I saw her
Standing still
While the earth walked in
Slow admiring circles around
her
I meant to say something
Brilliant, beautiful,
But I couldn't speak
Because I didn't want to cough
I seemed to always be
Choking on this world.

It's crawling somewhere
Unseen
Amongst tall wild flowers
Breathing slowly
Its lungs expanding with cold crisp
Air.
It's dangling somewhere from old
Willow branches
Photosynthesizing beneath
That tortured immortal sun.
It cannot be confined by money
Or walls
Women
Or half filled liquor bottles
Polluting stale air
It's floating somewhere in a screaming river
No course. No destination.
Destined for never.
I was thinking about it today
As I walked in hungover circles
In the department store warehouse
The manager saw my bloodshot eyes
And asked "WHATS TAKING SO LONG RAY? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BE DONE!?"
I think I am done now.
It's burrowing somewhere in burning desert sands.
It's smiling. Smirking.
It's laughing at me.
The moth and the 40 watt bulb.
I think I am done now.
Burning my wings again and again
And again.

I swept up the shards
Of brilliant flowers
And picked up a bouquet
Of broken glass,
Stuck my face in deep
Inhaled.
Can you see it?
This misunderstood
Beauty
In grotesque things
Such as this
Inside of me?

I forgot how it felt
To itch in a human skin.
I forgot that the hangovers are there
To tame me.
You see ,
A few weeks ago I went for
The works.
Beers, double gin and tonics, whiskey, some ****** ***.
I blacked out, of course...
But the REAL problem was that
I couldn't breath the next morning.
So I decided to go dry for a month.
I forgot that I think too much.
I forgot that there is some
Beautiful bright and rotten energy Exploding
Inside of my small body.
I want to wage war with the moon.
I want to spit at the sun.
I want to pull your hair back
And love you like broken glass.
I want push my face through cactus
Spines
To **** at the juice.
All this
Beautiful bright and rotten energy
Inside of me is burning.
But I still can't face
Those wolves on my doorstep.

They shoot the blackbirds
In locked cages
For singing of living freely.
They say
"No! No! No!
Those birds are insane
Bums
Losers
Dead to society.
Now,
Go to work
Go to school
Stop at stop signs
Marry
Have children
And pay taxes."
But I heard the lunatic chirping
Riding on the echo
Of a shotgun blast
It said
"Nothing really matters
And the people aren't as important
As they think.
The boundaries they set
Never really existed.
Now quit your job
Throw your wallet in the garbage
And run naked in the streets"
It sounded beautiful
And I can't seem
To get its ringing
Out of
My skull.
How long should I
Pluck
These black feathers
Of mine?

It was some part of me.
The mind
Or the soul
Or the madness
Or the love
Or the the hate
Or the loneliness.
It was the part of me
That burned so HOT
All the time
Until it finally seemed
To burn out.
Black ash swept across the tile
Into a messy pile in the corner.
That part of me just sat there
For months
Incinerated by the world
By its people
By its misfortunes.
Then the wind kicked the ash up
And the curtains caught fire
And the wall paint blistered
And the whole *******
Building burned down.
They tried to douse my fire
But it spread wildly.
The trees
The city
The ocean started to burn.
The sun began to weep.
The inferno could not
Be stopped.
It was
My time
Again.

I really thought I had you
Tied down.
My personal tamed tiger
Confined to the bedroom
To the kitchen
To my fears of outside.
But then I kept walking in on you
Staring out the window.
It's silly.
I never thought you'd figure out
That you deserved much better
Than me.
Since you walked out
I've been sitting at this window
Staring
For years.
But
I still don't see it.

Ok! Ok!
It ripped my vicious alcoholic talons off easily.
Like I was some cheap
$9.99 for a 12 piece
Dispensible chicken.
The doctor said "Your rotting
From the inside out.
Look, look at your face,
Your rotting."
The body has given up.
The mind has wandered somewhere
Wild.
"No more coffee or alcohol, you have to eat better. think about your kidneys."
"I'll try."
I sit around
Tired and bored
Like everybody else
Last week I was a howling inferno
Now I sleep for ten hours every day.
Uninterested in poetry,books,music.
Oh life,
You selfish *****!
Always finding something to take
Even when i think there is
Nothing left.
Another come down.
Another dreadful
Peacefulness.
I knew it all along!
Sanity is so ******
Dull.

Here she comes now
See the rattlesnakes slither into
Hiding
Among the dying flowers?
Here she comes now.
Like warm blankets for the Indians
Like an infants crib turned casket
Like warm memories devoured by
Alzheimer's.
Remember all the nights you spent
Crying for her?
Here she comes now.
The assassin cuddles up closely
Running soft fingers over your bare chest.
Over your heart.
Here she is.
Remember the nights you thought
Suicide might be more tolerable
Than loneliness?
Here she is.
Staring deep into your tired,sorry eyes.
Into your needy soul.
You wanted her so badly.
Remember?
She does.
She pulls down her pants
And climbs into your bed
And you climb into her
There she is.
Your next death.
You feel so big
And so ******
Small again.

I used to think about her
When I masturbated in
The shower.
She was my girlfriends
Best friend
She was petite
With the fattest ***
I've ever seen
On a 100 lb. white girl.
And when my girlfriend left me
The white girl called a few days later.
She came over one night
And I undressed her
And she had these long cutting scars
Climbing up horizontally
On the side of each thigh.
And as I looked down at my naked self,
There were cigarette burns and a stab wound, and the time I made a cross on my knee with a broken ashtray.
It was beautiful.
Two scarred humans
Lying in bed
Making love.
That night she licked the disgusting stab wound
On my shoulder
Then asked
"Can I cut you, baby?"
"Sure" I said.
I am always fascinated by the numbness
Alcohol produces.
And she hacked away at me.
Then she carved a heart into my arm
And I carved one into her thigh
But hers didn't scab up as well as mine.
Then we fell asleep drunk
In each others arms.
Blood and love and *** and loneliness
All mixed up in the bed.
I used to ******* to her in the shower
Before all of that happened.
Maybe that's what made it so hard
When she left me.

I opened the mini fridge to
Keep the roaches away from my
Crunchy honey peanut butter and
Apple jam.
I pushed aside the southern comfort
And saw a hunk of shining tin foil
I opened it up
"Ohh yeah...****..."
It was all of my love
But the tears had evaporated.
It smelled a bit stale.
And the edges were starting to
Harden.
I took a bite.
"Still good."
I couldn't let it go to waste.
But what to do with it?
I couldnt eat it myself, that would be
Odd.
Like performing self *******.
So I called an old girlfriend
"Hey I still have a big hunk of this, it would be a shame to have it spoil."
"No... No. That stuff started to make
Me sick. Last time I had it I broke out
In hives."
"Alright,well...how've you been?"
"Great!"
"Great." Great.
I stuck the foil into my pocket and walked outside.
Somebody might want it.
I saw a homeless women
Sitting cross legged in a pile of filth.
"Spare change?"
"Can't. But I have this..."
She looked at it and frowned.
"The hell am I gonna do with THAT?"
I was starting to think this stuff was
Useless.
I took another bite.
If I could perform self ******* I
Probably would.
Then I threw a piece into a pile of
Manure.
And, I'll be ******. A flower sprouted.
It looked like a sunflower with
Cactus quills.
I threw a piece to a pigeon and it took it and it
Turned into some kind of
Raven-peacock and it
Screamed and flew towards the sun.
I took a piece and threw it to the ants
And their hill turned into a mountain
That shined like a diamond.
I'll be ******...
The stuff is still
Good.
I put the rest into my pocket
As I crossed the street
And I heard a car screech.
I looked up quickly
And shouted
"WHATS YOUR PROBLEM *******???!!!"
And banged on the hood.

I never want to
Tie anybody down
Again.
Calling her to make sure
She's not up to no good
Every 3 hours or so.
She'd say
"Hey baby...I'm just sitting around at home, bored..."
why did I always imagine a
Naked man playing with himself
In bed next to her when she'd say this?
We forced ourselves to dreadfully dull
Saturday nights
Staring at a television
Both really only making sure
The other
Was not out enjoying themselves.
Is this love?
It seems more like
Probation,or
A cancer,or
A forced drowning.
What were we trying to hold onto
Anyways?
We didn't want a family or a future.
I was just protecting my ***
And she was just hiding from
Her loneliness.
Is it possible to subtract
This grotesque jealousy from love?
Or are the two closely related?
Like cheap plastic bottle whiskey
And a heart pounding
Hangover?
Maybe the swingers have the
Right idea.
Yes, the shunned ***** of society.
Though I have heard people say
That THAT is not love.
I want a new kind of love.
One without bitterness
Without the falseness
Without the illusion of forever.
And until the next one comes around
I will practice this new love
By purchasing a small brightly colored bird and a cage.
I will hang the cage on the balcony
With the little trap door open.
Then I will lie down to sleep
And try to think only
Of me.