Please Pogo music, wake me up. The night, now reduced to warm laptop light, is inching toward dawn. I pray to the patron saints of writers - is it Neri or Ávila? Whichever is on call I suppose.

“I’ve indulged in reprobation,” I confess, openly to the fuzzy, waxing, crescent moon. “I need that alchemy that turns coffee and a rough outline into an actual paper.”

I yank off my hoodie, fling my window open wide and hang myself out like wet laundry. Have you ever tasted *****? Vile stuff really.
The forty degree breeze feels like heaven and my eyes begin to focus. I peel off my leggings to let my entire skin tingle with cold.

My Keurig beeps confidently. I found a couple of peanut energy bars in my bookbag and rip them open like a ****** who’s discovered a forgotten stash. I devour them so quickly it’s like a magic trick - then I brush my teeth.

I take several slow deep breaths. I can DO this, I assure myself, but my outline looks adequate at best. I need this done so I can relax with a super bowl party pizza Sunday.

The song “Data & Picard,” sets me to dancing, “It’s better to have loved and lost..” Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard pronounces, perfectly auto-tuned to the music.

I love this song. I love the night. I love the challenge.
I set myself to the task and finish, three hours later, as the sun breaks into morning.

Everyone! Everybody!
If you all could shut the hell up
For a just one sec,
I like to propose a toast.

I’m the designated driver to my friends
when they can’t make it home
I’m everybody’s therapist
really good to talk to
without questions or judgement.
I’m the priest you confess your sins to
because you’re desperate for forgiveness
or afraid to have a one-on-one with God.
I’m often asked how I’m so lit
without any refreshments.

I’m clear as *****.
I don’t need anything extra
to tell the truth
to have a good time
to say yes or no.

I can dance my *** off
and remember last night was dope.
The morning after
I grab my bottle of *****
drinking my issues, blessings, and my fun.
Sweet as honey going down.

So, if you think I’m lame
*******.
I’m actually quite the energy ball.
If you think I’m better than you
get your head out of your ***.
At least I don’t act like a fool.
You think I can’t hang with you.
No. Don’t get the **** twisted;
You can’t hang with me
if shrinking your liver
And burning your lungs like paper
is the only thing on your agenda.

I know you have cancer.
I have cancer too.
We all have it.
And it *****.

So we take our meds
to treat the symptoms;
to feel better
to feel like we’re one step closer
to curing the illness
To feel like everything is going to be alright
even when it’s not gonna be.

The difference between you and me
is that I take the shots
the bartender AKA life
pours into my glass.
I drink
and it’s sweet as honey going down.
Clear as *****.

But please! By all means,
drink what’s in your glass.
Light that **** up.
Just leave me
and my tall bottle of ***** alone.

Because I am about to get
shaken and stirred
until I fall the **** out.

Cheers!

Serving up poetry like ***** and ginger ale
(with a ***-soaked crook and a big fat laugh),
the anti slow-soul-erosion antidote to...normality

way up ‘high’ on a ledge, overlooking the mountain range,
got my Stetson on, canteen full of ***** and ginger ale,
matches in my pocket, Chris Stapleton in my ears, and
a *** soaked blunt between my lips to get even hi-higher

a big fat laugh crosses my lips, creases my face, it’s time
to lean up against that big tree, light myself up, strategize,
how to get even higher, how to get down, how to do both
simultaneously, at the same time, without dying too slowly

the sunrise cheats, clods of plain ugly clouds covered it up,
i know it’s on account of me accumulating, stuff, bad poems,
delayed gratification of not confronting the situational, at the
cellular level, though the intersection with macro-international
clusters of men destructing their corner of the world surely
ain’t helping, but the drip into veins cools the paining’s ardor

the woman is edgy, debating if it’s that time, to give up, to snap
that towel across her face like a forgotten hotel wake up call request,
should-she take the truck and go visit her sister in Ashtabula
for a week of *******’ and staying longer, a couple of years more,
and me muse what i recall from living alone, and how it was easier
and so much harder that the shakes begin but that don’t stop,
but adjust the *****/ginger ale ratio, and things seem fuzzier
and for that I am eternally grateful for the miracle of potato
distillation

could do much more additive, but you don’t got the patience
like I do, so, forgive in advance and here’s hoping that maybe

someday you’ll learn this craft and the  extreme patience it
requires, how to savor a word, its conjunction with the one that
comes before and after, the combinations that make a verse, a stanza
sobering beautiful that it robs your breathtaking sensors, a scar minder to, for god sakes, ****! **** that trip to trite, give us something to shout about,

exhale on the moraine morass, that’s the other side of, yup, over
the rainbow that landed on the peak, cause a peek, is just the start of a trip downwards sloping doggy on my hands and knees and yeah, i’m drunker than I care to deny so I’ll head back down, or roll down, to find out what my next adventure will take, maybe I’ll chase after her,

and fall on her neck with sorries, sorrows, and kisses, besides,
now that I’m done, the sun decides to show a couple of cracks
and that’s some kind of of sign to wrap this sonata up and try a
new fugue, letting its contrapuntal composition tune cleanse me
and
save the day, and a corner of the world, hell it could even spread
like somethings good, successful  counter terrorism, zero shootings in New York and Chicago, forget, yeah, what they call that?  oh yeah,
peace on earth.

just maybe.

I crave love like I crave *****
I just want something
To make me feel okay
To keep me from thinking
To distract me
To mask the pain
To run from myself
To feel alright about myself
Even just for a while

I have drank *****
Down to very last droplet
At bottles bottom

She smelled like cigarette smoke
and *****
and Oh,
how I wished to be
the ash or the bottle
that fell
from
her
lips.

The brittle grass beneath his feet
The cooling air won’t fail the beat
Was feeling sick but can’t throw up
Too tired to sleep but can’t get up

This pill to swallow, a bitter beast
And time spent here, still meant the least
Static sparks in electric air
First given was warning fair

Wonder out and he will tell you jokes
Between *****, Red Bulls an’ Cokes
Now an echo cries and begs to stay
Tied to a wish for a happy birthday