in the chronicles of our days,
the agonizing ones
are the most
memorable.

flipping through pages
of history books
it’s always
war war war

expired lives
settling differences
with violence and force

and now the living must
barter time and
happiness
for absolution
in order to honor
the dead with tradition

but yesterday was yesterday
and yet we carried around
like dead weight
on our backs
without thought
of letting go

and somehow, someway
the problems we’ve already
countered seem to attack
us the most

as I stroke my beard
and watch them spin
down the endless well
of dread, sorrow
and regret.

at this moment, right now,
as you read this
is a new beginning
in a series of new beginnings
that is constantly repeated
in a continuous cycle
and every moment beforehand
becomes a dream sequence
of non-existence and
wasted time
nothing comes back to haunt us
except the history of ourselves
we slaves to our decisions
prisoners to our internal form
anchored by trivialities
centered by nothing
broken records of regiment
to what we repeatedly do
everyday and continually
search for happiness
even if unhappiness
secures our bliss.
we are the everlasting breeders
to a succession of living corpses.

smoking a joint full of crystal cookies
I think of the poets tonight
everyone of them
climbing on each other
reaching for the top of the bucket
trying to escape
and everyone pulling
each other down
with no chance of reaching the top.
I look down into the pail
full of doleful glum
and it dampens my spirits
I want to pick it up
and dump it out
onto the sand.
I want to pull the thorn from their side
I want to release them from their anguish
but no one ever helped a fish
by pulling it out of the river
to save it from drowning
and I fear for their psychoanalysis
being swept away by the tides
of forgetfulness
I fear for without their sorrow
their creativity will be carried
off into a soulless sea,
lost and gone forever.

stupidity reigns in my brain
and I can’t get out the words
that I’m trying to say
sometimes I rhyme and I don’t
know why but I don’t like it
this way
when I speak it all comes out
in lame jokes and awkward
conversations
so I keep myself cornered
and silent to avoid any sort
of confrontations
if only I could talk like how
I write
I might just be able to live life
the way I like
a better car, a fully-stocked bar,
a nicer house, a less-stressed spouse,
god forbid I have ambitious kids or
give me a higher quality of wine
and I’ll be doing just fine
but the voices dampened my insensibility
to make it hard enough to get out the
sentence structure of my impossibilities
I stutter and twist and my mouth
fills up with spit
I choke and croak out the sounds
I make in my own throat
it’s hard, it’s hard, it’s hard
allowing something you know is wrong
to be right
because you can’t speak up and you keep
your lips sealed tight
maybe it’s better this way, to live day by day
when silence outweighs the things your trying to say
I’ll just keep to myself with prose and poems
and lyrics and tomes
and let the loquacious bobble their heads
with halfway essays on ******* they did today.

I turned 36 today but I feel like I’m 86
and all I want for my birthday is to die.

pain is everywhere/ hell is everywhere
and happiness doesn’t exist.

no amount of love or change
in my life can cure me from the
aching loneliness that lies within

no amount of records could
complete my collection

no amount of words could
finish my poems

I don’t want to **** myself
I’m not a suicide case
you won’t find me at the bridge tonight
and this isn’t a suicide note or
a cry for help or attention seeking

I’m just really ready to go,
ready for decomposition
ready to escape from myself
ready to be put out of my misery
and to be released from total
anguish that life has shown me

there’s nothing more this blue grey
world could offer me
when the sun shines
I want the rain to fall
my feelings are numb
my brain is dumb
my emotions have solidified
depression makes you feel like
a useless blob on the floor and
I know now that happiness
is a mound of decaying flesh
with an empty slit as pretty
as a melancholic smile.

do you think my poetry brings laughter?

am I an ancient jester of poetic injustice?

I sure hope so.

I wouldn’t want anyone to feel
like the way I’m feeling now.

here we are
approaching
closer and closer
towards the deadlines
of our wasted lives
and we have nothing
to show for it except
soul extortion
and we pray that
we may evermore
dwell in expostulated
successions.

I’m surprised
I’m alive
and
survived
the luck of my past
that hadn’t killed me.

the cause that effected me
to trade in my crazy antics
(I’ve mistaken for bravery
or invincibility)
for mental acquisitiveness
(I mistakenly thought was
for personal gain)

and now
there’s nothing more
to complain about
there’s nothing more
to look back on
there’s nothing more
to hold onto
and the most sensible
thing for me to do
is end it alone
with the walls taunting
the final destinations
like a fly to the cat
and somewhere outside
the mares eat oats,
the goldfinch pecks the
dandelion heads and the
motorcyclist revs up the
engine with nowhere to go
and dreams of riding through
the Badlands at night,
never-to-be-forgotten
again.

troublingly, when they’re talking,
it’s usually not in my direction
and I rather like that a lot
but when it is directed at me
it’s usually nothing profound.

unaccountably, I have a lack
of response towards soulless
creatures who have zombified
their vitality

they’ve exhausted their inventiveness
opted out to conformity
over-welcomed their stay
and burnt out their last match

the apex of their days is the
sandwich they’ll have for lunch,
the power mower they ride on
in the Saturday afternoon heat,
the motor oil they use for their car,
the purchases they’ve made online
with free shipping and handling

and it’s no wonder I’ve undergone
a number of ways to elude their
temperament

making no eye contact
keeping my head down
walking really fast and
pretending to be busy

but the more you avoid them,
the more attracted they are to you

their castrated lives their wives envisioned
are so flavorless like taking a bite out of
an aspirin and they think their persistence
is stunning when it’s nothing more than
relentless and wearisome

I look out the window
feeling trapped
the day is out there
life is out there
not much life
but enough to
take a chance

and very few have the courage
to let go and break free

the little white spider crawling
up my windshield has more
courage, character, charisma
than I or the half-bred egrets
I encounter with on the daily

who knew these assortment
of words arranged in a
peculiar way would give
me the courage to go this far?

but how much further
am I willing to go?

when the world feels like a rope
you’re dangling from above
the swampland of futility
and the imbeciles circle
below like crocodiles
ready to lunge up
and snap at your
insides

I hear their idiot laughter
and their footsteps
working towards
me now

as the door closes slowly
and the light narrows
paper thin-like into
the windowless dark.

I cringe and
wait for it
to end.