I'm gonna find
Something
In this 7th beer
That I could never find
In your eyes.
It won't be as beautiful
But it will be
True.

my neighor died last night
kid my age
fell off the high cliffs of San Pedro
shattered onto rock
the ones that battle the sea...
came from a decent family
hard laboring mexicans
that never smiled
in fact the only time i ever saw the kid smiling
was when he would drive
reckless
taking the corners at 45
screeching 50 in a school zone
making the streets look like
a *******
when i first heard about it
i wondered if he'd jumped?
does that make me an *******?
didn't you think that too?
would you have jumped?
...**** man...
suddenly my face isn't looking
that bad

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.

I didn't know her
never will
but her neck was long
and she smelled of flowers
i noticed while passing by
she didn't notice
anything
i walked away
and she stood there
neck long
smelling of flowers
drinking gin alone now
i wonder what it'd be like
to feel pure
like her

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.

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

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

I swept the cockroach carcass's
From behind the fridge.
Bought a beautiful cactus
With pink blossoms and
Long strands of hair.
I picked up the empty beer bottles
And *** rags from around the bed.
I am dying.
I bought a bookcase
Saved the immortal stacks from
The cancerous dusts.
I washed the sheets,pillowcases, blankets,and my two good shirts.
I am dying.
I noticed it breathing down my bare
Back
As I sat at the smith-corona 220
Drinking
Green tea...
I remember August,2014
I stood in the mirror
Drunk on a whole bottle of whiskey
Finally alone
I told IT
"I'm gonna run you right into the ground *******."
And it was
Hard
But I did it.
I lied down on the clean bedding
Last night
In the dark.
I am dying.
I noticed it lying beside me
With its cold blond hair
Waiting on my chest.
Then I felt
A warm soothing calm
Pour through my bloodstream
I thought "its done now"
I closed my eyes and saw
A door made of shadows in a dark
Room
With a static white light
Seeping through the cracks.
I heard something knock twice
No, not some glowing god.
Not some bright saving faith.
I opened the door, it was something like self forgiveness,
Like bad karma quitting.
A funeral for a
2 ton depression.
I am dying
I can smell it.
What is one supposed to do about
It?
Live.

"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.

The scariest part of
This loneliness
Is how much
I don't seem
To mind 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.

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?

They often ask
"Did you see _ last night?"
"Do you watch _?"
"No."
I don't have a ******* television.
There are enough
Actors acting
At work
On the street
At mom's house
At the grocery store
At parties
At the bar
I don't want to watch more when
I'm alone.
The dancing spider on the wall
The paralyzed lines of the book
The breathing notes of the music
The slow pour of cold beer
I sit here and stare
At nothing
Just like you

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.

The lights were still on
As I lifted myself from
The air mattress
To check my back
For bedbug bites
I noticed a young roach
In the sink
He scattered quickly
Then stopped
Staring
As if to dare me
To try and **** him
He was the prideful matador
And I the swollen eyed
Stumbling bull
It was life and death
I tried to smack him
With a water bottle
But he ran and hid behind a pipe
So I took a bottle of aftershave
Tried to drown the *******
In a refreshing burning winterfresh
But he was untouched by the splash
Then he scattered across the wall
I ran and grabbed the worst book
In my collection
The premier book of major poets,
1970
They printed Simon and Garfunkel
In there
I tried to smash the
cunning cockroach
But my fingers touched the
Smashed corpse
Of a previous conquest
I quickly threw the book in disgust
And wished it was the roaches
Wife or mother
Lying dead
Smashed by an awful publication
He ran quickly
Laughing at my frustration
Proud
Then he settled in a hole
Under the edge of the counter
He was the victor
He raised his sword
Toward the sun
And stabbed me in the heart
I fell onto the air mattress
Drooling
The young roach returned to his nest
Proud
He found the fattest female
Flipped her over
With his filthy fluttering legs
He tore open her thorax
Then inserted his roach genitalia
Into the wound
Inseminating her
And assuring his legacy
While I slept
Alone

Call it
Instinct
Animal instinct
I need
Something from you
Then you can have
Whatever's left of me
Then rip my head off
Then try to keep it down
It was always burning
Anyways

The neighbor jumped off the San Pedro cliffs
suppossed suicide
he went down in the 3rd
i know a  mother who smokes
speed,****,cigarettes,
drinks daily,shoots up
lost her children and teeth
she'll go down in the 8th
she'll go down harder than she fought
most will take a dive in the 12th
don't even bother putting up the hands
moving the feet
don't even know there's a fight on
they call that a win
staring out my second floor window
slack jawed, both eyes swollen
teeth loose, blood clogging nose
i keep getting a few good shots in
but life has a great counter hook
my legs are starting to go
and i want to take the 10 count
but
i just can't

see i'm a man from California
i'm not proud of it
...snow...
Waterloo, Iowa
mother with cancer
father a bad drunk
a whole city dying
what a place to try to
save our love
...snow...
it made life seem so
blank
i had to talk behind your back
to the one woman
i shouldn't have
...thousands of miles away...
and you always were a vicious little thing
it was ****
I didn't even see that right hand coming
that open palm fit just right
the first time you ever swung
baby you made my head spin
we were both impressed
i put the car in park
got out, tripping over all that
...******* snow...
how many days does it take
to walk from Iowa to California?
...i hate the snow...

I can always hear them in there laughing,talking,living.
There must be
3 of them living in that
Small studio apartment.
Their room always smells of
Incense, pizza,marijuana.
I've seen them in the halls
19 year old latinas.
And where should my love belong now?
It is much too dangerous
For a man of 24 to have read
Sartre,Celine,Hamsun.
Ya know,
I often fantasize
About 35 year old women.
Although I have met a lot of
35 year old women
That don't know
****.
Where should my love belong?
Probably exactly where it is now.
But I hope
Not.

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

The holidays aren't meant
For the lonely.
Imagine,
Going to a department store
Alone
To only buy cheap gifts
For your grandma
For your siblings
For your mother
No lovers
No friends
Nobody exceptional.
Insanity.
And they all are expecting
Nothing or
Cheap knick-knacs
From you.
Nobody to impress.
Then working 10 days straight
Up until christmas eve
To make sure everyone else
Has a memorable christmas.
Christ.
I open the 3rd
From the 2nd 12 pack
Of the week
I open the book
Celine says:
"People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delerium
in front of them."
I smile
Dog-ear the page
Hold the brown ale
Up to the light
It is pretty
Like a poisonous flower
I **** the bottle
And time moves like its suppose to.
A fast uncontrollable blur
I am one with the spinning earth
Thoughts and words flow freely
There is no past
There is no future
Just a distorted
Present.
I walk outside
For a cigarette.
I stand swaying
Becoming
Intolerable
To the people
That pass by
Rubbing them
The wrong way
Like a poisonous
Flower.
Christ.
Bring me the
New year.

I watched a cat
Tense up
Spit and hiss
At the sight of
Itself
In the mirror.
The bird will believe
That he is not alone
In his cage
If you place a mirror in it.
The mirror
That cruel *****.
I looked into it
And did not like what was there
But I did know
That- that-
was me.
Man recognizes his own reflection
Then believes he has a right.
A right over everything else.
A right that is not
Fought for or learned.
A right that he
Is simply born with.
The mirror
That cruel *****
Murdered humanity.
We are slaves to the sights
Of ourselves and others
While the cat
Searches only
For a spot of sun
Then lies
In the grass.

Still groggy from sleeping pills
I grab a towel and the 3 in 1
Then stumble down the hall
To the community shower of
The old boarding house.
I knock. No answer.
I put the key in the lock.
Push.
The door is locked from the inside.
I knock.
"HEY! SOMEBODY IN THERE??"
no answer.
Push.
"*******!..."
Someone probably sleeps in the tub.
I'll have to drive across town
To my ma's house.
Make an excuse to drop by.
"By the way...you think I can take a quick shower?..."
Still groggy from sleeping pills
I start up the Chevy
"Big Mama" I call her.
She is ***** and sometimes unreliable.
That's why we get along.
I knock on ma's door.
No answer.
I try my key.
Push.
It opens.
I strip down in the bathroom
I don't even need flip flops for this
Shower.
There are a dozen rubber ducks in the tub.
My kid sisters.
I decide that I should not cover them
With my filth.
I line them up along the ***** tub edges.
I turned the HOT up all the way
It burned the way I like.
I started thinking about
Love.
Where had it gone?
I used it like an old toothbrush before
Now, I would sell world peace for it.
What had I done wrong with the last one?
I heard something fall into the tub behind me.
3 rubber ducks.
2 dressed like chickens and 1 like a unicorn.
"Too chicken to be unique?"
I remembered never enjoying the time I spent with the last woman.
I always felt like I was fighting to keep her around.
I was hardly ever myself.
Then 3 more ducks fell into the tub.
A Lion, a Queen, and a cat.
The quiet life I craved.
The small family that I had failed to keep before.
Maybe the ex died and was sending me a message.
Maybe it was just those ******* Sleep pills.
Then another duck fell into the tub.
A pilgrim?
I guess it all meant
Nothing at all...
I stepped out of the shower
Stared into the mirror.
I smiled.
The face looked less ugly this time
And more like an interesting
Abstract painting
"Hmm..."
I opened the door
Prepared to conquer
A new world.

I never gave a **** about literature.
Until the women were gone
And the loneliness replaced them
And the words kept the loneliness
From becoming
Unbearable.
One Ex-girlfriend
Used to read often
And write poetry
She tried too hard.
There was a lot of big words
Mashed together
And the ideas were always
Too grand.
She wrote a dumb downed poem
For me one time
And pasted it
On the back of a polaroid picture
I loved that picture
Me on a ***** couch
With my beautiful long black hair
18 Surrounded by 4 beautiful 17 year old girls.
I'm only 24 now
But I feel more like 47.
The poem began
"Cigarette smoke in this cold weather
The shiny studs on your black leather"
Something about tantalizing...
She always used tantalizing....
I always think about
Being 47
And laughing about
Nights
Like this.

back on the bourbon
the $8 bottle
sweating away another
wild lonely night
locked in my small rented room
stumbling over
passion
life
woman
pain
poetry
all dying
smiling numb
and laughing to nobody
waking up slow and naked
put on the coffee
wash your face
try to wash away
the defeat
study the words
that madman wrote
last night
he knows you better
than you ever will

It always made me feel
Sick
When a woman would say
"Ya know, I had the strangest dream last night..."
What made me feel sick was
Knowing that I'd have to ask
"Oh really? What about?"
Then listen to a story that meant
Nothing at the end
Pretend to seem interested
Then pretend that I was some kind of
Dream interpretor
While she frowned at my conclusion
I always hated that...
Unless of course she said
"I had the strangest dream about YOU last night."
That I liked
Anyways...
I had the strangest dream last night.
I was sitting in a dim cluttered home
With some middle aged woman
Of some strange faith
As strange as all the rest
She held a 3 foot cadaver of a man
Only he looked more like a doll
With ripped dead skin
And wide bright glassy eyes
She was sobbing and whispering
To the small dead man
Then she said to me
"It's a custom in our faith to hold our
Dead
And say goodbye to them face to face"
She handed me the dead body
And I thought
I'm not afraid of death.
But my skin crawled
******* hardened
Throat clenched
at the sight of it
I cradled the grotesque being
And said
"Well...I hope the afterlife treats you better than this one..."
I cried a little
I am not afraid of death.
I woke and thought about the dream
I didn't know what it meant
If anything at all
I laughed and said to myself
Your pretty ****** up man.

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.

When youve had enough
And decide to walk out
They tell you your up
For a promotion.
When you test a new death
You go blind with madness
For 5 days
Then suddenly open your eyes,
A brand new clarity.
When the loneliness is
Victorious
You'll stand on the window sill
Ready to go
She will walk below
Look up at you
And smile.

"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."

He was a new guy
He said he was a writer
And ****, at first I believed him
He did have a degree in journalism
He had a miserable look
Greasy hair, greasy face
Greasier than mine
But then he told me
His misery
Came from politics
He only wanted to write
About politics
His constant frown
Depressing stride
Defeated personality
Came from politics?
A strange woman once carved a heart
Into my arm
With a rusty
Swap meet Indian knife
Then we ****** after.
Who the hell has time
For politics!?
They canned that *******
And I felt jealous.
He had a lot more time
To write.

My god
It CLACKS like a
*******.
Every key
Combusts like a homicide bullet
Hacks like a machete in 100 degree
Heat
Every word brings
Guilt,pleasure
The neighbors will surely
Pound on the walls
Going insane
From the power of
The typewriter.
I'm 24 in 2015
I've never touched one of these
Things.
When I brought it up to the counter
Of the 2nd hand store
The clerk was a few years younger
Than me
He looked at me like I was catshit
Crazy.
I also bought 2 1940s editions of
The Bronte sisters
That did not help my
Questionable  sanity...
I like this old thing
Every key is ******
And you must live with all your
Mistakes.

I often forget
That the surrounding world
Has....advanced???
Since Hamsun wrote Pan.
I am out of touch.
So I decided to browse the
Stale
New non-fiction section.
I picked up a book about love
At...random???
This ****** guy...
This guy was saying
"It's alright if he left you. You just weren't compatible. It doesn't mean your not good enough. Somewhere someone is just DYING to shower you with love and affection."
Ugh....
How could you
Lie
To the broken hearted?
Maybe this nut
Actually believed what he was
Putting down.
I flipped the pages.
More motivational lies.
He could've saved
200 pages and just said
"Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as ******."
-Hamsun. 1894.

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 walking down Gaffey Street
2 am
Drunk with only
The moon
To watch over me
Up ahead I saw
This black guy
Leaning against a newspaper stand
He was drunk too
He was staring straight into my eyes
I thought about looking down
But that would be submission
I stared at him and put my chin out
Blew my chest up
He saw this
And stood up straight
Hocked a big loogie
I balled up my fist and
Stepped closer
Feeling more alive than ever
Thinking about death
How it wouldn't be so bad
When we finally got an
arms reach away from each other
We did the up and down look
I knew he could take me
I finally said "You alright man?"
He spit again
I walked past then turned around
Walked backwards
He was still staring
Nothing happened
I turned around and heard
"****** ******!"
I stopped
Then thought
That's not so bad
And kept walking
The hardest part of being a man
Is that we all have to be
******
tough guys

Dangling from old cobwebs
Mummified within lonely fast dying
Saturday evenings.
My heart is ****** dry.
Drained by red lipped, long legged
Arachnids
But not completely.
You see they almost finished me.
But quickly crawled away
Toward the stench of juicier conquests.
So I hang here.
Mummified within loneliness.
But wait...
I can feel this tomb of intricate fine silk
Loosen up a bit.
I scream and kick and crawl out from the dusty old trap
Surprised.
It seems this was no trap at all
But a cocoon.
I was cornered and bled as a fly
But look now,
8 long legs,drooling fangs,murderous hunger.
I crawl to a damp dark untouched
Corner
And learn to spin
My own web
Again.

First
Try being alone
Until
Lost in the dark
Seems comfortable
Until Jupiter and the moon
Sound reasonable
Until cats look like willow trees
And the people like wilted flowers
Until you understand
That they are all out of their
Minds
And you're in worse shape
Until you see
Marriage as slavery
Boyfriends as leashes
And girlfriends as tombs
Until afternoon
And midnight
Are the same woman
In different heels
Until your mirror
Runs for congress
Until you can smile
At hurricanes and suicide
Yeah
Try understanding that first
Then when the next one comes along
You'll understand love
A little more
Oh, no...
You still won't be ready
But you'll be
Stronger

Hanging horizontal
Eyes rolling wildly in darkness
The AM radio whispers
A Texas mother is arrested after leaving her 3 children home unattended, police say they arrived and found her 18 month old burned to death in an oven"
I think about my *** of coffee
Black
I roll out of bed
Walk to the sink
The mirror disappoints again
I think of Sartre
Advising to stay away from the sight
Of yourself
Then I think of
Lepers, burn victims,
old amatuer boxers
And I feel a little better
I sit down and have coffee
With some of the greatest humans
Humanity has ever produced
Then I think about the ones
I will encounter today
Not so great...
"And there it is...the nausea."
-Sartre
I walk into the bathroom
And the cold burns
I step into the shower
And the water burns
I brush my hair in the mirror
And yes
That burns too
I step into my work uniform
And brown boots
I ask myself
"Are you ready to go?"
Keys, phone, wallet...
"I guess so..."
I walk past the mirror
then stop
I think
This is all so
Silly
The whole thing is so *******
Silly
I smirk at myself
I think
"I have had woman, I have fought men, I could never turn back...and all that lead me to where? This very moment"
-Sartre
I close the door
Then step out into
The cold dark
Morning

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...

I'd wake around 5 am
And watch my breath
Explode into the cold air
On a purple Saturday morning
I noticed her warmth most on
Days like Those
I'd roll over and press myself against
Her
Then watch shadows of branches
Dance across her
Warm pink face
I'd rise from bed carefully
being considerate
Of her sleep
I'd tiptoe to the washroom
Quietly put on the coffee
And start typing
Looking over to see her
Moan and roll
To the 'clacks' of the keys
Then around noon I'd crawl back
Into bed
While she began to wake up
We'd kiss goodmorning
Then have *** in the shower
She'd start breakfast in her towel
While I sat on the stool
Beside the stove
And we'd laugh and kiss
And the rest of the
People
And the world
We're very far away
The nights were different
There was too much gin
And drunken honesty
And she'd rip at my clothes
Howl like a desperate wolf
And swing for my face
While I kept my arms straight
up high
Reaching for the next
Quiet dark
Warm purple morning

It was 6 Decembers ago
I was just a kid
And she was 2 years younger
Her mother drove us both
To the clinic
There were middle aged women
Waiting at the door
And they were mad
At me
At her
At her mother.
We pushed past
Walked to the counter
I swiped my debit card
$365.
Really?
I used my first
Christmas bonus.
Then her mother decided
We would leave her there
Have breakfast with one of
her friends
Then come back
When she was
Done.
I had sausage, eggs, hash browns
Toast, and my first
Black coffee.
Her mother and the friend
Spoke in Spanish
I didn't know
What the hell they were saying
But knew they were talking
About us.
We finished
And drove back to the clinic.
She asked "Well...you learned your lesson
Mijo?"
I was busy, trying to figure out
What the hell
I was now.
"Yes..."
We arrived and picked her up.
Only it wasn't her.
It was something mutilated
It was something murdered.
We got back to her
Bed
And she pulled the covers
Over her head.
I wanted to ask
"...What happened in there...?"
But I cried instead
And kissed her all over her
Wet face.
She was death. Breathing...
A few months ago
I got wasted and brought it all up
Again.
Some girl at the party said
She had done it too.
"What the hell happens in there?"
I screamed
She explained
I was too drunk to listen.
Ya know,
I read Hemingway's
Hills Like White Elephants
And the "operation"
Totally flew over
My head.
What the hell happened in there?
Something.
Necessary.

I woke this morning
With no hangover
After the 10 beers last night
I made a *** of hot black coffee
Slugged it down
Listened to the local jazz AM
While enjoying the absence of the sun
The cold grey clouds
are better company
I read a few shorts by Hem
And a couple pages of Dos
I got off the mattress
And threw a few jab and hook
Combinations toward the window
I got dressed
Walked past the picture of Fante
On my wall
Then I ****
In the community bathroom
Of my roominghouse
I thought about
What a man is
Should be
Probably not this
But definitely not
My father
And I was far from that
I tried my best to be
Far from all of that

...Death...
What's the big deal?
I practice it at parties
When I
Black out on gin.
I practice it for
8 hours a day
When I
Wander mindlessly at work.
I practice it
Every night
When I lie down
Alone in the dark.
And didn't I hear you say
"I LOVE sleep" before?
And don't you hate
When you have to leave the bed
Every morning?
Then why do you still
Shudder when
Death is mentioned?
And why is that
The only time you really feel
Existence?
...Life...
What's the big deal?
Today I am
Sleeping in.

she once told me
her and a friend invited
the local jehovah's witness boys over
to try and **** them
it made me laugh
then we ******
for years
what's your type?

leave the paintings
leave the photos
leave the vinyl albums
...that was a pointless hobby...
leave the love
leave the tooth
leave the journals
...you can read whatever you'd like now...
leave the cats
leave the ***
leave the blood stains
...on the bathroom floor...
grab only the good books
whatevers left of the gin
grab the coffee maker
put your shoes on
i'm ******' outta here

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.....

the beauty
the life
the pleasure
the style
the birth
the experience
the flower
the poem
is in the pain
she said "you never have any fun,
you hate everything
your always so pessimistic."
i don't wanna be
honey
i'm just tryin'
to stay alive

No
The love
Life
Laughter
Soul
Hasn't gone
Yet.
Yes
It dangles
Begs
Is beaten
Set on fire.
It all just
Doesn't
Seem
Most
Important
Now

There were managers
College grads
Conspiring in the corner
Next to the dumpster
And the women complained
About mistreatment
And the men worked with
Aching backs
Dying to prove
Something.
Everybody is busy
Everybody is angry
Nobody feels
Fulfilled.
Some walked fast
Some dragged themselves
Some sweated
Some laughed
Some screamed
Some looked
Miserable.
Everybody submitted.
Christ...
It's just retail.
Every morning
I say to myself
"I'm going in,
but I ain't doin
****
Today."

"I gotta starve and pay taxes while
THESE people(roaches)live on welfare, mooching off of MY money...lazy..."
She frowned and shook her head.
She was very passionate about
That.
It's a trick.
They want you to feel
Pride
In doing menial tasks.
It has to be
Somebody's fault
That your stuck here.
I smile at the coworkers
With sweat on the forehead
And panic in the eyes.
Afraid of losing
This.
I smile at the welfare collectors.
They figured it out.
Stocking store shelves
Or
Sitting at home
There's no pride in
Either.
I've tried both.
It's all
Hell.
Everybody
Is too ******
Bitter.
They see the hands of lazy thieves
Where I see
The soft pink hands of laughing
Carnivores.
Oh well...
If you don't want to
Feed them
Just
Become one of them.
It's a
Trick.
I said
"Yeah, well...you gotta eat
Somehow."

Minimum wage men
With
$200 dollar shoes
And minimum wage women
Expecting $300 bags
From them.
I remember telling my last girlfriend
"WELL...****!... YOU SAID WE WEREN'T GOING TO BUY EACH OTHER ANYTHING FOR CHRISTMAS! WHY'D YOU BUY ME THIS!!"
she cried
And on the
26th
I bought her a crystal
Necklace on twine
From a Mexican swapmeet
And ice cream
Sandwiches.
I mouth off so much at work
All day
Sometimes
I think I'm
Trying
To get canned.
The higher ups seem
Entertained by it.
I've seen the guys
That sweat
Panic
And dream of sales
Get fired.
While I stand in the bathroom
Writing poems.
I do feel bad about
Not putting effort
Into
IT.
But
I figure...
There are more
Humane traps
Out there.