First
She walked out
And I had to learn
That I was a coward
An orphaned lover
An old house cat
Abandoned
In a grocery store parking lot
I had to face it again
The emptiness
I smoked all of those nights
Away
I was numb
I was nothing
I lost 30 lbs in 2 months
Then it all caught up with me
One night my heart started beating
Rapidly
I couldn't breath
Started to shake
I sat in a corner and watched
The room grow ten times it's size
I heard a static crack in the ears
I was lost and unhuman
I was a rabid dog trapped in a corner
I felt sick for weeks after
So
I gave up the ***
Switched to drinking
Whole bottles of whiskey
128 lbs, shirtless, screaming
The fellas laughed at the beginning
Until I started throwing ****
Trying to fight everybody, anybody
I had 3 new catch phrases
"I'll ****** **** you man"
"I'll smash all your ******* teeth in"
"I've seen it all man."
After a while it became
Too much for the fellas
And soon they were all gone
So
I found better company
Dostoevsky, Fante,Bukowski,Hemingway,
Hamsun,Lorca,Sartre, etc.
I found a ****** apartment
in San Pedro
Drank beer and read every night
Until the loneliness felt comfortable
And then I
Accidentally
Became alcoholic
Then i took my wild act
To the streets
A few weeks ago I was at a concert
And this guy kept elbowing me
In the ribs
I said "If you keep sticking that elbow
To me, I'll ****** **** you man."
I said it cool and soft
And the guy looked real scared
And I was too
So
I had to quit drinking...
I keep thinking about
Zarathustra
Rising from his cave
After years of solitude...
A guy at work said
"November's almost gone
Man, this year just blew right by"
And I thought
'Good.'

I bit the end off of
A seven dollar cigar
It was raining
The same way it did
24 years ago
The day I arrived
Puffing the heaviness
I felt like an old book
Left out in the rain
Then dried by the sun
Dirt stained, cover ripped off
Pages crumbling
By the softest touch
I thought about
All the hell it took
To get to this cigar
On the porch
I puffed the heaviness
It burned smoothly
And felt all too
Familiar

Tires meeting rain
The only existing sound
The oaks bathed proudly
Feeding off of
A sobbing grey sky
I watched it all
Alone again
Out of a second story window
Only
This time
I didn't realize
That you weren't there
This time
I was finally thinking
About tomorrow

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 was a sad man
the world was sad
my grandmother gave me a $20 weekly allowance
from some sort of government disability fund
I would walk to the corner of 10th and Walnut and purchase
4 - 40 oz Mickeys, a pack of condoms, and a pack of reds
and met her at the bus stop
some black girls mugged her for some christmas gifts there once...
although it makes me smirk now
being 17 was hard

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.

Alone can't be right...
It sounds like too harsh of a word
For this
How about
Dreaming?
Or waiting?
Karma?
Or an act of god?
The women are out there
Walking circles in grocery stores
Staring into bar bathroom mirrors
Wearing white dresses with
Blue roses
Smiling
Smelling of lavender
High heel steps combusting like
Matches
As they scrape against the filthy
Streets
Bodies shining like moonlight reflecting
off the blade of a butcher
The women are out there
Tonight there's two right outside
Smoking from a pipe in the alley
Talking louder than my radio
"He was like 'Please baby, we can make it work', I was like 'Nah fool! You been creepin!'"
"Ah my gah, that fools drama... COUGH COUGH"
"**** girl, imma fine me a new manCOUGH tonight!
**** that fool!"
"Aye! YOU gotta do YOU girl!"
The women are out there
They're right outside my window
Waiting
And tonight
That's close enough
For me

"I just don't feel right
I think we should just buy a test..."
I thought she was a fool
She was always so worried
About people,time,missing out
On life
Not me
At the time I was only worried about
My hangover and the cable man
I said " Baby, your crazy. The cable guy is suppose to be here
Between 10 and 1.
Your gonna have to wait."
She clenched her jaw
Glared at me
Rethinking her definition of hate
She had just come back
After walking out on me 3 weeks ago
But that was ok with me
She was a fine girl
Her face beamed beautifully
Screaming like the tortured moon
Her body dipped and climbed
Like new mountains
Like burning rivers
Like rainfall on dying trees
"I can't believe your making me wait!
I might be pregnant! Your ******* ridiculous!"
I said "Well if you are, it isn't going anywhere..."
She ran out and slammed the door
I chased her down the street
She stopped suddenly
vomited her mcdonald's breakfast
On the sidewalk
I held her hair
Maybe she was right
We got the test
I was standing with the cable man
Flipping through 900 channels
Then I felt it
My apocalypse
My judgment day
Death and life grinning
They always had it out for me
"It's positive." She said
Her eyes suffocating
Bulging with tears, hate, agony
They were dulled by deceit
By the nights of me not knowing
Where she was
But I loved her
So I didn't bring that up
Then she said "...how soon can you take me to the clinic? I can't ask my mom for money, but you just got
Your Christmas bonus right?"
She said it like she decided
weeks ago
She wanted no discussion of a life
With me
I said "yeah."
And soon it was done
And then we were too

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.

Yeah.
I often drink 10 beers
Alone
On nights like these.
And shadow box
Morales style
In the corner of my room
In the moonlight
Singing Lorca's screaming poems
And feeling Sartre's
Nothingness
I walk the streets of
Los Angeles
Like its ******* Ask The Dust 1939
Ignoring droids and hover boards
Flying right past me
All the good writers are dead.
And all the words are just ******* now.
Especially
Mine.

I was in my room
Opening the 2nd beer
Watching a light rain
While listening to the AM news
When I got a phone call
From an old friend
"Hey man, whatcha doin?"
"Just at home, havin some beers."
"**** man... Well we're going to the bar tonight man, You wanna ride along?"
I thought, not really.
But the radio was only screaming
"TERROR!"
And it was hard to dance to that
"Alright, I'm down man"
I was gonna see the fellas again
They had taken a long break
From me
They had seen me
Covered in blood
Naked and screaming
Wasting away in a small room
They deserved a break...
We were sitting around the bar
Talkin
"Whatcha been up to man?"
One had blacked out and fell
Down some stairs
He was sporting a broken arm
A missing tooth
He said "I been getting ***** like crazy cause of this! They say it gives me character."
I said "****, sounds like
a good gimmick."
Another had been unemployed for
4 years
He said "*******, I just dropped
$200 on a purse for my girl. Then this ***** asked for a matching $100 wallet!"
I said "Sounds about right, that's exactly why I've been alone for a year."
We laughed
I turned to the door
And saw another walking in
He saw me and dropped
his shoulders
Rolled his eyes
Clenched his jaw tight
I don't think he knew I would be there
He hadnt talked to me all year
After I'd insulted his girlfriend
He sat down at the stool
Farthest from me
We kept drinking
Then I got a text from a girl
Who had read my poems
She said I must be sad
Cause the poems were all stagnant
I thought about a mouthful of
Brown saliva
Where mosquitoes bred
Then chugged the rest of my beer
We decided to leave the bar
Bought a 24 and drove to
my buddies house
The one that hated me
Buddies?
I sat drinking at the house I was
Banned from
While lighting a cigarette
He cracked me in the jaw while I
Wasn't looking
I thought I probably deserved it
I decided not to swing back
Then chugged the rest of my beer
He said "YOUR A REAL ******* MAN! SHES NOT TALKING TO ME CUASE SHE KNOWS YOUR HERE! YOUR A MISERABLE ******* MAN!"
I sat and stared at him
Then he apologized
And put his arm around me
"Look man, I love you man, and I miss hanging out with you. I'm sorry I hit you, but I've been wanting to all year. I love that girl. I'm gonna marry her. You can't say **** like that to her! You've been out of control man."
I said "Well... I had a bad year..."
Then another buddy started crying
And the beer was gone
I felt it was time to leave
I got home
Stripped down and
turned on the radio
I knew I wouldn't see the fellas
For a long time again
But
It was a pretty good
Night

There were legs
Everywhere
Tensing
Writhing
She crawled
All over
A spider mounted
The horse.
We were spitting
On everything
The church killed for
And everything
That science killed for.
The walls couldn't hold
The shrieking hawk
The coyote howl.
Without the clothing
Without the sanity
Without pretending
We were ugly animals.
It was life
It was wrong
It was nature
It was ******
It felt good.
To stop being
Human
For a few
Minutes.

they say she is something
like an apple tree
I guess its her form...
I stood beneath the branches
the leaves
it was comfortable
but the sun sneaks between
blinding eyes
illuminating the scars
then I saw the noose...
we all hung there
the apples, the branches,
and me
more men came
they'd been watching
we all hung there
it was comfortable
in her shade
she could take us all
she was very strong

she asked
"what do you write about?"
and I stared at her
and my scar itched
then my pupils grew twice their size
and then I vomited
all over the floor
she said
"OH!!!"

Walking down a mournful street
In a heartbroken neighborhood
Wasted cement
The birds whispered nervously
The sun shined because
It has to
At the base of a sagging wood fence
I saw the paws of a pitbull
Digging frantically
Blood seeping into the mud
She paused to poke her snout
Through to the other side
I stopped and thought
You poor beast
The people and the wind
Are just as cruel
On this side
But I felt real foolish when
That dog broke free
Ripped a child from a mothers arms
Devoured it
In a bed of flowers
Then crawled back under its fence
While the sun kept shining
Because
It has to

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

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

We sat close on a slanted
stone wall
Slanting down
Toward the tide
Toward the rock
We watched them crash and scream
Still engaged in the everlasting war
Or maybe it was an everlasting kiss
Or maybe there is no difference
She laughed softly at my words
She was a few years younger in age
But centuries away in the lashings
Of life
I chose my words
Carefully
Cleverly
I imagined her waking beside me
My bed hardly large enough
To hold us both
To hold that smile
Then my daydream was disturbed
By the scoffing breeze
The palms erupted in laughter
It would never be
My bones weren't structured
To her idea of beauty
And her lack of imagination for life
Was the ugliest beast
I had ever seen
We sat on the stone wall
And there was a long silence
Both realizing love was still
Very far away
The moon sighed
As the tide cracked loudly
Onto the rocks
And I decided
That they were kissing

We stood face to face
Two alive
Both human
Occupying the same
Time
I felt her words like
Deafening disease
And she stared at my face
Like it was
Dogshit
While somewhere else
A flower bloomed
A lion tore at the neck of a gazelle
A child was born
A star died in the sky
A woman stared at her *******
In the mirror
A tribe ate rats for supper
A man masturbated in the dark
The universe was in perfect
Harmony

When Sartre put us in hell
One of the
Two torments
(other people being the greatest agony)
Was that all of our
Words and movements
Were already
Predetermined.
Yesterday I heard a women
Weeping
"I can't believe he left me. It hurts so bad...but...I know...god has a plan for everyone..."
I was horrified.

A beautifully coated
Fat raccoon
That didn't make it
Across the long lonely stretch
Of Gaffey Street
Behind the petroleum refinery
The tongue hanging in eternal horror
Eyes dangling from the skull
It made me sick
When we were kids we found a
Rotten opossum on the
other side of town
The upper class,clean,quiet part
We poked at it with sticks
Flipped it over
The other side soggy with death
There were maggots crawling out of
It's eye
It made me sick
All the guys said
"****! She's fine!" When she
Passed by
Yes, she had quite an ***
A body that tempted Christ
And left the devils in agony
You could see it in her walk
The guys said "She has beautiful
eyes
Hazel/green/grey
They change colors in the light"
I hadn't noticed
So I took a look
Her gaze was abandoned
Floating meaninglessly
In a forever unknown
Space
And then she opened her mouth...
It made me sick

I had 3 whiskeys
10 cheap domestics
Then saw her sitting there
She must've been in her fifties
Her ******* were big
Her legs long and smooth
Dark hair
Red lips
She sat at the bar
Gracefully
The way flowers dance
I thought
My god
So many men.
Loved,scarred
Left for dead
She had it all
She was woman
She was a beautiful painting
Of death
She looked over at me slowly
Staring straight into mine
Smiled
Then tossed her hair
Then looked away
My blood was burning
My god
So many men.

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.

A real big mean *******
6'5 280 lbs
With a 6th grade education
He had a tattoo on
On the back of his shaved head
A big stab wound on his gut
He was shot 5 times
In the ***
He was brilliant
At credit card fraud
Only felt pride
For his gang
In and out of prison his whole life
Said life was more comfortable inside
I watched him put his feet on the kitchen counter
Hands on the floor
And do 100 pushups
I watched him with dying red eyes
High on speed
Peeking through filthy blinds
Every 3 minutes
While explaining how the
Man in the telephone company truck
Was really the CIA
He was arrested for ******
But the courts let him go
Due to a lack of evidence
He had 12 kids with 5 women
He was willing to fight anybody
Even women
Especially women
Made me drink a beer and
Showed me **** when I was 8
Showed me how to steal a car
With a flathead screwdriver
I hated big outlaw
He was a real mean *******
It's a real shame
That I have to see his face
Every time
I look at a mirror

Immortality
In 5 tall manic stacks
On the floor.
Locked in a
**** apartment
For a year
Forgetting the world
Discovering
The line.
They scar the soul.
They harden you.
They rip the *******
From your skull.
They get you ready
For what slithers
Out
There.
I often think about
All these books
Sitting neatly on a shelf
In a warm home
While I lie next to
A warm woman
One leg thrown over
Her soft ***
Forgetting that the books
Are even there.

your a beauty B.C.
one of Caesar's finest conquests
you shrug at paintings
of the crucifixion
you should be cracked stone
fragile, withstanding centuries
gazes knowing your importance
not ever knowing why
Julius' knees would have buckled
if he'd had you

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

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."

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.

I was thinking of old love
Dying love
Love-Hate
That space between the two
That seems to last the longest
In any relationship
That
Fighting for bed space
Saying all the wrong things
On purpose
Waking in disgust
Hating every word
Drunken night arguments
Being able to breathe
When she's away
Love
I would take that kind of love
Right now
Stopped at a crosswalk
On a cold November afternoon
It seemed like all the drivers
Had passengers
I looked over to my right
There was a white haired old guy
In ***** clothes
Eating a gas station hot dog
He reeked of mustard
He glared at me
I looked back at the traffic
And thought
Everybody's going nowhere
But nowhere is somewhere
I hope...

bloated from the alcohol
spinning
lips and lungs cracked
by cigarette smoke
lying, watching
death crawl across the tile
picking up speed
all you can do is wait
the poem is just
words
and yours
are all bad
but then
the sun rises
and you can see
its' minute and second
hands
its your time
the poem is just words
and yours are all bad
but they're wept
from your soul
you can hardly stand
but you do
because
you could never stand
for defeat

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.

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.

Waking up
With a half swollen face
Last nights beers rattle
Across the tile
One is opened and full
.Who knows.
The only thing in the freezer
Is a bottle of southern comfort
I lay back down and press it
Against my face
Read some poems i wrote last night
For the first time
The sun peeks through
Black curtains
And I know
That sun is not mine
The day is not mine
But I am not bitter
You can have it.
Besides
There is still a few beers in the fridge
A box of cereal and a pill for sleep
The radio still works
And I am in the middle of
Lorca
Hamsun
McCullers
Anderson
I always start too many at one time.
I shower and look at the hall
Across the street
There are happy Mexicans dancing
They are dressed in nice
church clothes
They can have it.
I hear the Sunday crowd in the
Bar downstairs
They are always cleaner and fancier
Than the normal crowd
There is a live band there today
They can have it.
I walk out to the car to grab a book
And remember it's breaking down
And there are overdue bills to pay
That was the plan for today
No.Tomorrow.
I walk back up the stairs
Make my bed
Shut the curtains all the way
I am not bitter
You should take it
And I hope you do
something
Worthwhile

When I was 17
In the garage,
I would chug 40 oz Mickeys
Scream
Then hurl them
At the ******* wall.
The young girls laughed.
I used to stick cigarettes
Up one nostril
Inhale
Chug a beer
Exhale through my mouth.
The young girls
Loved that.
Now
24
Drinking alone
In this ****** studio.
I want to hurl this *******
******* designer beer
At the ******* mirror
But I don't.
Where did your
Passion go
Man?
I sigh.
The mirror laughs.
I laugh.
Then open
Another.

Just hit the ******* gas
There are no stop signs
No destination
No laws now
There is a chance of death
There is always death
But you won't see it
Blinded by the sun
All of it's passion
All the burning
All of it's love
All of it's falseness
In your eyes
Just hit the ******* gas
It's better to not know
What lies ahead
Just hit the ******* gas

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.

Just knock that
Screaming
Hunk of ****
Off the wall
With a broom.
Rip out the battery.
Hope the landlord doesn't
Knock on your door.
Open another beer.
It's the
Least
Of your troubles
Anyways.

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?
............................................................­...........

It was our lack of
Sanity
That brought us together.
At the beginning it was
Good
We quit our jobs
Applied for food stamps
Stole from grocery stores
Drank and made
Love
All day.
When the money and food stamps
Ran out
We fled the state
Ripped off banks
Traveled
Then got jobs
And died a little.
When we returned to California
We worked
Drank
Fought
And died some more.
She would leave home
For days
While I sat in our apartment
Drinking,screaming, punching through walls
I was gonna leave for good one night
Until she ripped a hole in her arm
To show me
How much our love meant to her
I stayed.
Until finally
It was dead.
I always wonder
What she thinks about when she
looks down
At that self inflicted
Love scar now.
I shake my head and laugh
When I look down
At mine.
I'll treat the next one
A lot better.

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...

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.

Hemingway was real
Good at it.
And
Bukowski,London,Faulkner,Joyce,
McCullers
Fitzgerald,Thom­pson, Kerouac etc.
I've heard 20 year old
Girls
And
40 year old
Women
Speak ill
Of drunks.
I always want to ask
"What did you ever
Accomplish
Sober
That was so
Great?"
Fante always seemed real
Pure to me
The innocence
The young
Burning
Passion
Of his lines.
I read
A biography today
And even
Fante was a *******
Drunk.
I smiled
Exposing the missing tooth
In the back
Cracked the cap
And felt
Even more hopeful.
The blood of
Christ.

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

somewhere...
a man bows in his room
feeling a 500 degree
arson of loneliness
howling in his gut
while he thinks
only
of you...
somewhere...
a man is walking 5 miles
in the moonlight
wasted on 16 beers
he is happy to make it home
then finds
that you are not there
again
he finds the sharp end
of your most expensive
broche
sits on the bathroom floor
and hacks away at the leg...
somewhere...
6 inches away from you
in bed
a man lies poisoned
by a 2 year long
suicide
while trying to keep
your love...
somewhere...
just not here...
not anymore...
at least...
for the
time being
anyways...

They sell **** to poor people.
But its OK.
They are poor too.
I love that fiction book section.
I feel like I'm getting one over on them.
Hemingway,$1. Saroyan, $1,The Bronte girls,$1,D.H., $1, Sartre,$3, Camus...25¢...
I walk to the counter
"Your total is...$10."
They feel like they're getting one over on me.
Anyways...
(****...I've been drinking. It makes everything seem
poetic.)
I'm standing in the fiction section.
It's next to the women's bathroom
And it reeks like demon's ****.
I stand staring
Lobotomized.
So many titles
So much ****.
But... you never know...
(****... I was just thinking about the time I made a *** tape at 15...)
I found some more
Hem, Voltaire, Joyce .
I was having an
Ok
Day.
Then I smelled it.
Lavender on fire
In a torched
Green-black forest.
I looked over.
A beautiful blonde
Knelt down
Searching the very bottom row
Of the fiction section.
Christ...
May I combust
Now
And never see another
Sight.
She stood up
And stepped closer to me
Our shoulders touched.
"Sorry" she smiled
Green eyes.
I never notice eyes.
Green eyes.
"That's alright."
...*****...
She stood right next to me
Maybe, 10 minutes.
Say something
You lonely miserable *******...
All that reading you've done
She is browsing at fiction...
Say something, ******!...
Then her friends walked over
"Hey,(sunburntlavendardrippinginnapalm) you ready to go?"
"Hold up..." She exhaled
Say something
You drunkard lonely *******.
She stood up.
Looked at me.
Then left.
Green eyes.
I exhaled
Looked at the bottom shelf.
SHE, was there again...
Carson McCullers.
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
With her
"You'll never finish me, Ray." Smirk.
I smirked back.
Took her up to the counter...
$3.

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?

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.

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.