I hate zombies
they are the infantile enemy
the foe against which there is
    no guilt
the essential
        human
questions of right of wrong
  of morality
never apply to the cerebellum-craving
undead.  It's us or them
   hunt or be hunted
   **** or be killed
they are enemies that fail to
      challenge
   our notions of what it is
   to be us
give me a werewolf any day
or rather - any moon
the tortured lycanthrope
   forces the protagonist to
choose to **** because
    unlike zombies
there's always
   a chance
   however small
   that a werewolf
can find
redemption

I worry about everything, baby
I'm a
    writer - a poet
    passion begets anxiety
it's my job  hell
I even worry about
        my worrying
my stress is recursive
mere moments only can I
    break the loop
      forget to worry
        and smile
usually it's when I'm
    with you

the room is filled with
old lady stank
the kind that assaults the nose
and crawls down the throat in
an angry attempt to
drive you right out of the building.

she says the walls are “peach”
but I can see behind the cracked flakes
that it was once yellow.
I just grunt and sit at the edge of the bed
determined to hate both colors on
principle alone

I don’t want to be here, in her stank
I don’t want to look at the cracked
and pitted
desert that was once her face
I don’t want to strain to hear her
wavering and whispery voice

Yet here I am,
surrounded
by horrific images of a ****** Christ
nailed ironically to the walls
rosary beads hanging from
every candle in the room
and the Blessed ******
fighting
for space on the walls next to her
zombie son

where’s her god now
I wonder sourly as I strain to hear
her wavering and whispery voice
relate how nice the orderly was
who
washed
her prune of a body this morning.

hell, forget the god
where was her family
or her friends
or her nut job preacher

there’s only me
carrying my own stank of
whiskey and smokes
sitting here on the edge of
her bed
listening to her stories

humor,
or so I'm told,
is key to happiness.
seems every time I try to laugh -
I cry.

to live
in harmony -
to exist without that
horrible restlessness in me
each day

guitar's
wailing tonight;
long, slow, melancholy.
The only way he knows to say
goodbye

Given
to me for free;
a smile from a small child.
For a moment, I forget to
worry.

when I was five and life was a song of
excitement and innocence
the world was full of mystery
and I had never felt
the pain of hurt or loss of
any kind    and then
one day
a playmate pushed me right off the swing
you picked me up   brushed me off
   told me not to cry
‘mommy,’ I said,
‘it hurts’

when I was sixteen and in love for the  first time
to a young Cuban girl I felt like
    an adult doing adult things
dates and kissing and groping
and late-night phone calls with the
cord stretched and twisted through the house
and under my door    and then
one day
she left me for another teenage crush
and I felt world-ending
anguish  burning, hot, consuming
as only a teenager can feel them
you held me close
   told me I’d be ok
‘but mom,’ said I,
‘it hurts.’

when I was thirty-five at the end of my marriage
holding on to it with desperate and futile hands
trying to be a good father to my sons
who put me on a pedestal high enough
to rival the gods
I fought depression
and anger
even as I felt co-dependent longing
for the woman who was
  breaking my heart
there at the end of that marriage
one day
you held your grandchildren
and me
   and told us we’d be ok
‘mom,’ I said
   ‘it hurts.’
  
when I was thirty-eight and dying
from the cancer eating  my body
  repulsed by
the very sight of my
shriveled and sunken body with
chemotherapy eyes set deep
deep inside my skull
and scars on my body finally
making me as ugly in life as I felt inside
I despaired and I grieved
the loss of innocence
in my children and the burden
on my new girlfriend
one day
you sat by my bedside
and held my hand,
  told me the kids
and I
were stronger than I knew
‘but mom’ I said, looking
at their pictures,
‘it hurts.’

when I was forty and strong again,
recovered from cancer
and from divorce
my scars a badge of character and honor
with a beautiful new bride by my side
a new life to live
and a new daughter to love
that day
  you lay in a hospital bed
clinging desperately to life
     machines to monitor
tubes to breath
nurses to care and
doctors to treat
I held your hand, like you always held mine,
  alongside
your daughter (my sister) and
your other son (my brother)
as you breathed your last
even as I
   sobbed at your passing
and fell into the arms of my wife and siblings
I wondered
  selfishly
who now will hold me like you did
like only you could
because oh god, mom
it hurts.

when I’m this drunk
and you’re a thousand
miles away
I miss the plenary version of you
everything that you are
and all that I perceive you to be
why aren’t you here with me

I want to stop giving up
I want to just do it
I want to love you completely
with all that I am
and with no reservations

because when you’re
a thousand miles away
I know that the daily
irritations and influences
that detract from our
utter (what an ugly word) and complete
devotion to one another are
just that
distraction and irritations

the insecurities and the self-defeating
effects of life are nothing
when I have this much whiskey in me
I know that my love for you
is real

more real than Paris for Helen
more significant than
Romeo for Juliet
I love you as I love the
heart and lungs
in my own breast

without you I am bereft of a
vital *****
necessary for life
for existence

when I am this drunk
I don’t make sense
but I know
more truly than I know my name
that you are
essential
and that I love you
always

when you have had
one too many
you can’t write coherently
and need to stop
trying to be deep
and meaningful
give it up, man
with five shots of
whisky
in your gut
you’re not a poet
you’re just a man with
too many words and
not enough sense to
stop typing