poems are not all
sunshine and
rainbows

sometimes,
just sometimes
we have to ****
in the bathroom
sink of beauty
to find out how
repulsive it can be
underneath

I find the soap ****
of the shower drain
to be more enriched
with adorning features
than the palm trees
of florida

art
and all forms of it
are inexhaustible,
you could never
take that away,
including this
ugly
ugly
ugly
poem

doing either one and
we dream of $8 haircuts
and no plans of anything
but watching the routine
of life unfold in front of
prying eyes through
venetian blinds
as singles mothers
prep their child for the
education of death
as dogs walk their masters
as fathers choke on neckties
and stress in traffic
as the mailman makes
his rounds
and someone is being born
and someone is dying
and someone is dead
and worst of all someone
is dead before they die and
money is made and money is spent
and someone is lubing themselves
with comfort and convenience to
make getting ****** by the world
a little more tolerable
and a little less raw
and I am here
eating walnuts and
drinking Spotted Cow
and listening to Sonic Youth
on this delving day
while the rest are scouring
through another day of
intolerable hell but we never
stop and think for a moment
to ask ourselves who we are,
we just enable them to run our
lives and tell us who we should be
because when they got you at
childhood
they
got
you
f
o
r
e
v
e
r

it’s all behind me,

the past,

like a dream,

a dream I once lived in
with vivid memories
of nostalgia and the
many people I’ve
encountered and
can’t remember
along the way

some alive,
some dead,
some gay,
some straight,
some drunk,
some sober,
some successful,
some still searching for success,
(no one is a failure)
some married,
some single forever
but the fragrance of
our friendship is gone,
past expired and evaporated.

I will never see them again
until I hear about their untimely
death and make myself present
to a funeral I wasn’t invited to but...

today is not yesterday,
today is not tomorrow,
today is today,
today is right now
and right now is the most
overlooked opportunity
to make something happen

so tonight,
just like the night before it
and many nights after,
the sun will settle down
leaving the clouds burning
red and the luminous moon
will leave a smudge print
in the night sky

I will not phone an
old friend and play
“catch up” with our lives
and speak of old times past,

just sit in my fortress of solitude
with the best strategy I know.....
to get drunk
without any.

it will remain
better this way

from this moment forward

You want a poem?

I have nothing to say

The less I write

The more strengthened

I feel towards my words

maybe I’ve changed
maybe the world changed
maybe both
maybe it’s sufficiently for the better
maybe it’s superlative for the worst

who knows?

I don’t

but those days spent
in dilapidated rooms
were ****** in the
otherworldly beauty of music,
that made us feel invisible
in our own little mystical
world of phlegmatic compositions
and we outlawed the vexation
of petty differences and tribulations

under the same pale moonlight,
our hearts were accompanied by
borrowing time from the
misery of tomorrow,
being chased by elephants,
and exhausted in pleasure
until we lost control of ourselves
in the beer bottles of perplexity
we talked a lot,
we drank a lot,
we smoked a lot,
Iggy Pop and Tom Waits,
moonshine and tweeka,
tranced in Susanna Hoffs eyes,
you truly were the
dancer in the dark
and sincerely,
those days
can not be beaten,
outdone
or relived
again

although
my best friend
is beyond the sky
by now
the remembrance of
memories and the
feelings of presence
makes me tremble

you were priceless and irreplaceable
but even diamonds turn to dust,
even diamonds turn to dust

and this is the end
of all dreams
yes,
the end
of all
dreams

I bedded down with Frankenstein
I bedded down with Dracula
I bedded down with the Wolf Man
I bedded down with the Mummy
I bedded down with the Creature
from the Black Lagoon

and the end results
were a carbon copy
of fundamental flaws

hairy,
oozing with slime,
bloodsucking
homemade monsters
that wrapped me up in sheets
and laid me to rest
upon the catacombs
of their one bedroom apartments

but after feeling ghastly,
my decision making
became quite hasty
and acted
as if
I were the
Invisible Man
afterwards

listen to the man who saved the lives of seven men from an ammonia spill without the use of a respirator and pulled them to safety.
listen to the man who single handedly fixed an airplane and saved the airport millions of dollars in cost.
listen to the man with an eight and a half inch **** accompanied by the woman who keeps a ruler in her purse to measure it.
listen to the man who pull shotguns on the high school football team with his mole faced companion for beating up his little brother.
listen to the man who arc welded a kid into a locker for putting his hand down his sisters pants.
listen to the man who pulled the greatest senior prank ever by disassembling a Cadillac and re-assembling it in the school cafeteria overnight.
listen to the man who goes to the bar at seven in the morning and orders a root beer, only to be quickly rejected by the bartender.
listen to the man who beer bongs Dr. Peppers.
listen to the man who has diabetes and self regulates his blood sugar by drinking a six pack of Mountain Dew.
listen to the man who orders an extra large pizza to himself and throws his body over it when you get too close to him.
listen to the man who believes that cold ravioli in a can, not only tastes good but won't make you sick.
listen to the man that claims to be the best singer in the world.
listen to the man who disciplines his step son in the bathroom at the super bowl party.
listen to the man who will dunk a head of lettuce in a bowl of ranch and eat it whole.
listen to the man who eats green bell peppers like Granny Smith apples.
listen to the man who eats bagel sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
listen to the man who walks with his head down and as soon as he looks up his leg submerges into a latex trench.
listen to the man who grabs his fat wife by the dog collar and forces his tongue down her throat in public.
listen to the man who will ****, wipe his ***, not wash his hands and serve you taco dip with his **** fingers.
listen to the man who takes one sip of pbr and screams the he can't handle it.
listen to the man who gets pelted in the back with an ice ball and slowly looks back in disapproval.
listen to the man who won't tell perverted jokes with mixed company.
listen to the man with the wet noodle.
listen to the man who drives down the highway getting road head by his wife and finishes in her mouth right before they get to the toll booth attendant.
listen to the man who warns you that there's a homosexual in the room.
listen to the man that got revenge on an ex-lovers new squeeze by taking the lug nuts off his car and throwing them in the bottom of the pool on a cold November day.
listen to the man who gives himself a nickname that nobody will call him.
listen to the man who pulls away from work to eat a frozen dinner, only to get yell at by his trainer in mid indulgence.
listen to the man who bought a card and flowers for his wife after she found he had been a dating website and didn't get a single reply in the past three years.
listen to the man who has worked every job you every had and always has a story to one up yours.

they will all tell you the same thing:

      .....not now, Kelly might get jealous.

typing away at the writer;
like a machine gun
lock and loaded
and ready to fire
ink splattering
like blood and
words shot out
like the fusillade
of the ******
hands tied behind
my back and the
fold has blinded
my eyes with a
cigarette lit and
my senses of
unflappability
prevails again
no last words
no last requests
just barrels of this
machine pointed
at my head and
my heart in all it’s
glory like a man
taking a **** and
it could be all taken
away by the trigger
just as quickly as
the turds flushing
down the river of
cowardice gunslingers
but if you
glint towards the
charlatan of brutes
like a dried up
white elk, then
you’ll know what
a poltroon
really
is

however,
the mastery
of the world
are eager to know
how much they can
squeeze out of you
like blood from a
rock before
they stick a
skewer into your
vitals and roast the
ebullience off of
your pneuma like
a burnt kabob
and that’s why my
gutter fingers must
rip sheet after sheet
from this monkey box
like the slightly torn pages
from the loose hands
of madman, and it all
comes down en masse
like four walls meeting
in corners
like the miraculous cry
from the sadist
like 7 billion in existence
and which one am I?
the cat burglar,
the dream alchemist,
the televangelist,
the czar,
the grand master of underlying,
the time traveler,
the creator of happiness
or just another standing
in front of the execution
line for one last time
because we never know
how many seasons
we have left
until the end

these hands,

these hands were meant
to melt in the keys of the piano
and not for pushing buttons
to operate complex machinery,

these hands were meant
to climb the plateau’s of New Mexico
and not for spilling a half bottle of
Dutch milk while the tv watches me
passed out on the couch,

these hands were meant
to build treehouses for my children
not to drunk punch lousy bums
on the slum streets and lose,

these hands were meant to
pick peaches in the orchards of Georgia
and not to be holding my **** as it
****** in the linen closets and China cabinets
while in the drunken state of befuddlement,

these hands were meant to
make colossal sandwiches
and not to swipe my card
in the drive-thru,

these hands were meant
to caress my wife and
waltz her through life
and not be defiant,

these hands were meant
for gumption and not for
delusions of grandeur,

these hands were meant
to make my own dreams come true
and not someone else’s,

these hands were meant
to have purpose, talent,
motivation, diligence
and not to be shoved
into the pockets of uncertainty and
suffering from indolent characteristics,

these hands were meant
for bigger indentations
in the world and not to be
tyrannized by simplistic minds

these hands,
these hands,
these hands...

but somewhere down the lifeline
of my palms
I had left behind
my spirit and my soul
a long, long time ago
and it’s never too late
to get it back,
oh no,
it’s never too late
to get it all back.

between the hat and boots
an old man stands
withered and totaled
with every breath taken
another months rent paid
and every time I blink
another decade passes by

but with each passing year
another candle stands
as the cake burns brighter
in the age of my doing
than the year before

while others await the
next coming attraction

while others rage
and never move on

while others drink
poison and wait

while others hold onto
an extreme admiration
for the total of their deeds

while others are out
walking and mingling
down the streets
and celebrating
their stupid existence

my piano tongue will
cope with the bottle
and write poetry
like taking a ****
it exits my body
and the weight
had being lifted,
but one is excrement
and the other is soul,
essentially the same thing
pending who you are
or who you were

and my two best friends,
loneliness and emptiness
will put on party hats
make some noise and
sing songs for me
under drooping streamers
where the living remain
physically present and
absent minded
once again.

Flabs upon *****
of excessive skin
flock towards the sands
to soak up the rays of
the day light hours
and delude themselves
in the roped off
safety zone waters
of the seashore.
Benched from lack of participation,
sober and observant,
you can't help but overhear
a conversation about the salty tastes
and textures of boys *******
between four teenage girls
who look like they just entered
the early stages of middle school
and should not know anything,
at that age,
about that topic of discussion.
Seagulls slowly glide overhead
waiting for the perfect moment
to bomb white droppings in the
******* mouths of the hodads
and steal their bacon while they
quickly scurry off and guffaw
on the inside.
Young ladies *****
hang proudly out of their
skimpy bathing suits and stare
into the sunken eyes of perverse old men. Socks and sandals roam the shores
like tyrants to detect metals
in the sand with their hiked up baggies, buttoned up blue Hawaiians
and fisherman hats.
They'll find god before
they find these treasures.
Unsupervised children puke peaches
and use plastic shovels
to pour buckets of sand
down the backs and cracks of rubbernecks with discourtesy and no remorse.
Adults shaded, relaxed and
nose deep in books
leave the responsibilities
of their parental duties
with inexperienced lifeguards
to babysit their youngsters
while they doggie paddle
and submerge in the undertow
along the waves of the oceanside.
Concession stands serve
delicious yet unhealthy,
deep fried grotesque of
appetizers and entrees
to the potbellied roly-poleys
as they wash it all down
with a fountain of syrup
and carbonation.
Bare footed beefy **** diesels
and their skinny minis
walk hand and hand
over the broken beer bottles
and sharp rocks buried in the sand,
unscathed and luxuriate
in teenage love
and summer fun.
Dorks and dweebs
play sand sphere
with bunnies and honeys
while Gremlins and grommets
hunch like Quasimodo
on their surfboards
and ride the ankle busters
and pounders til the end
as they hit the bone yard
at point break.
The sun shines down on all of us
leaving that warmth and radiant glow
as you watch the mythical creatures
and sea serpent shaped clouds
slowly overpass.
What a lovely day at the beach.

another meal missed
and starving for the art
but it gives back
so much more than
a steak and lobster
dinner could ever offer

the ability to lose control
of ones mind and let
complete liberation
of madness take over
while rationality and
normality behavior
will refuse to never
fully understand
it’s lunacy,

delirium to open your
eyes and mind to see
the beauty in artistry
that an inept society
could never distinguish
through the spyglass
of discerning aptitude,

don’t worry about what’s
in your bank account
or what’s on tv
or how much gas
is in your car
or being on time
for your kids
soccer practice
or what’s on the
agenda in your
eventful calendar,
or being too busy
executing your plans
of insignificance

submerge
yourself
in a sea of
loneliness

go crazy
every once
in a while

and perceive
the world as
the world
perceives
you and find
out how lifeless
humanity
really is

then create the art

children are born

parents lie

while Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny,
the Tooth Fairy, Punxsutawney Phil,
Uncle Sam, Father Time, Belsnickel,
Hanukkah Harry, Jack Frost, Gryla,
the Kitchen God, Cupid and
the Great Pumpkin
are passed out on
their barstools

and Krampus
stands alone
in the dim light
and pours himself
a shot and a beer
and calls them
a cab ride home.

tonight,
when the streetlights
go on well after dark
and the scintillating
moon illuminates
a painted mural on the
star filled night sky
behind the junkyard fence,
the skin stretches,
the blood boils,
the hair grows full,
the fingernails extend
and the human/werewolf
transformation is flourishing.
the blood soaked moon
looks good enough
to howl
under

in a magic land of purple static
with a hint of blue and green,
ghastly shadow figures stand tall
and dance in the background
of delirium and madness.
quadrilateral patterns hang
netted in dinosaur shaped trees
surrounded by lizard tin foil
windows and roosters crowing
in the moonless midnight.
watching cowboys puke peyote
in the plateaus of the Sierra Madre,
as white dragons couch surf through
the waterfalls of decrepit old women.
fingers bend back and melt into the
ice cube ashtrays and flowers bubble
up out of bedsheets as your waving
hands leaves behind black trails of
indiscretion.
three headed old man sits alone by
the campfire adjacent from moats
of mossy grass glistening in the
silver stars.
distorted magnets hang on refrigerator
doors as pumpkin heads and cancer
patients sit around candle lit tables.
twinkling treble clefts leave gentle,
somber imprints as the tunes float
out of the music box.
blue and gold caps tie intestines
up like a twisted pretzel.
unsavory flavors linger in the mouth
from styrofoam textures.
intensifying citrus awaits the
elephants gates of psychedelic
hallucinations.

                                  I
                              have
                           one thing
                        to say about
                whiskey and shrooms
             .... I miss my friend Kennie
                             every
                             single
                             day....

we are travelers in motion
playing banjo and hopping trains
headed from nowhere to nowhere
lusting for a higher purpose
away from this mediocre town
in this substandard state.

staring down the sun
like gunslingers,
squinty-eyed,
name calling,
spitting in the
dusty streets
and pulling iron
ready to draw.

there are cracks
in the sidewalks
outside convenient stores,
that look like new routes
on the way to terminus

sifting through
the mountains
and the valleys,
across the rivers
and over the bridges,
down the scattered
highways where the
bums are dying in
the forsaken streets
of crumbling castles

the tractors causing
unnecessary traffic
in wide open spaces
of the rural areas,

midwestern farmers
plant rows upon rows
of corn and the one
firework shop stands
alone surrounded by
nothing for miles
all around it

the sky shows its reflection
in the buoyant lake like a
mirror looking back at its
own idea of itself,

horses gallop freely
at grazing ranches,

endless journey’s
through the cold nights
of the desert wastelands
and the stars shine through
like pinholes in the intergalactic cloth
that keep the hyenas away from laughing
and viciously attaching the reinvigorating
green muse that communicates without
the use of words and shows us the way....

under which tree shall we lay?

not even our
reinvention
is an inviolate

but we not tulips
you could easily
pluck from the
moistened soil,
we are dandelions,
deep rooted in the
hard concrete

and we will
overcome and flourish
to find ebullience

like pieces that fell to Earth.

FLOWERS

pioneering and experimenting
in search for myself,
I stopped looking
after the sixteenth year in life
as I planted a seed in a place
where nothing grows
and blossomed like a
beautifully, unblemished
nuisance of the dandelion.

but, if the world was the
gardner of life, it sprayed
**** killer on my soul and
continously pulled me from
the roots in hopes that I would
one day sprout into an orchid
or a water lily or a daffodil,
trying desperately to mold
me the way they wanted to
but I'm no tulip you could
easily pluck from the
moistened soil, just the
aforementioned ****
deep-rooted into the
hard concrete.

each year after that,
I fed myself plant food
on the compost heap of
jobs, women, *****, madness,
fathering and mothering
two children, cooking
cheap meals and avoiding
religion and fashion and
politics and responsibilites and
marriage just so I concentrate
on surviving while feeling
brutalized and institutionalized
by the roses of society,
until the day came when I stepped
in the bear trap of literacy and
was confined with a typewriter.

and now I'm married with responsibilities,
fathering my two children and
the meals have gotten dainty,
the woman are gone,
the ***** has prospered,
the madness is here to stay
and I'm still impassive towards
religion, fashion and politics.

so why am I clocking in and out
of life for 23 hours a day
for everyone else so I sparingly
enjoy one hour of the day to
be myself and write?

because the world creates chaos
and I take their chaos and
create poetry and just when you
thought they've completely
diminished my soul,
a little piece of ash still glimmers
in the thick gray haze where the
victory garden dances with
burning flowers.

no one in this world,
not even my sworn enemy,
should have to
fight for
or
work for
just to be
themselves.

and if the end of
each day isn't a
5 or 6 hundred page
novel to write about
and bookmarked with
a crushed daisy
then what the ****
are we even doing here?

time becomes motionless
when entangled in the webs
of mindless indulgence and
made pliable in the mainstream
world of technology by
consuming video after video,
spiraling further and further
away from intelligence,
only to be awoken from
hibernation in the wool gathering
caves of make-believe by the
harsh realism that parental
figures pull them back into
but like most teenagers,
he’s inclined to believe
he knows it all already,
in the saddened truth
that he, in fact, doesn’t....
he’ll continue to fight
tooth and nail
with his poor
grammatical constructions,
which is often corrected by
his younger sister, on how
he knows and he’s correct
but doesn’t actually take
the time to think about
what he’s saying, only
to dig himself a hole
deeper and deeper
until he can’t get out

my own son,
he’s a good kid,
just confused
like the rest of them.
I blame myself mostly
for his lack of
ambition,
curiosity
and know how
by providing the
tools and enabling
such unwillingness

but nothing is going to happen
unless I make it happen
and I’m just not in the mood
right now.

she looked back and asked, “do we have enough candles?”

“enough to start up the Great Chicago Fire all over again.” I replied.

and she said,

“to watch that whole city burn to the ground would be quite the enchanting piece of captivating imagery.”

we lit the candles,
and danced with demons
like Indians in celebration
upon a pile of burning books
as we sang songs with sirens
under our drunken culture
while the troubadours
and lyricists without hats
played the diabolical lutes
and hellish harp strings of fire
on chaotic imperfections
we piddled on the face of society
and bet against the fixed fight
as the troops of tomorrow
paraded down the alternative streets
like ants in the kool-aid on a warm
breezy summers day
half the neighborhood
was drunk with rage
and the other half was dead
rabble-rousers, blithe and tinkered,
all stood up at once
like agitated cobras and
torched the night sky with incendiary
controversy and we made love
in the streams of submachine guns
that flowed like the cocktails
of Molotov under the arsonists belt
until the ****** of our memories
glittered on the broken buildings
of our minds.

five magical days
with no work
five magical days
of *** and laughter
five magical days
of art and creativity
five magical days
of books and spaghetti
five magical days
of mysterious adventures
five magical days
of old cartoons and movies
five magical days
of music
whether we went to
see it live or played
it together
five magical days
of drinking
whether it’s coffee
or whiskey
or coffee with whiskey
a Pabst blue ribbon
for breakfast if you will
five magical days
I no longer want or need
anymore

...it takes guts to let that go
and knowledge to know
it was never mine
to begin with

3am
the unbalanced mixture
of that putrid smell
of stale beer and a
myriad of ashtrays
lingers through the air,
revolving records
snarling at me and
impatiently waiting
to play the overtures
six pack of tall boys
floating around in
a bucket of ice just
lolling in the cubes
like a dogs tongue
while the flies fly an
unapologetic patterns
that taunt me
under this dimly
flickering light in
this musky cubicle known
as my living quarters
it’s easier to go insane
than a dentist
committing suicide
and my vitality is depleting
out of me like a ghost
searching for a body
cigarette holes burned
into my favorite chair
that sits in the south corner
where I have wondrous
conversations with
my dead friends...
all one of them
outside those blinds
they think I’ve gone mad
the neighbors think
I’ve been driven to insanity,
the women across the street
who is cheating on her husband
with a younger man thinks I’m insane,
the little girl who swings in the
backyard behind me thinks I’m crazy,
the little Indian man who runs the
corner convenient store thinks I’m mad
nobody calls
nobody contacts
nobody wants to deal with the lunacy
I don’t blame them
in fact, I wish them well
I wish their profiles are all
monotonous and feasible
as they want them to be
it’s safer that way
silence is the scariest sound
I’ve ever heard
so I’ll sit here and have the
raw materials of madness
sit on my lap and share a bit
of laughter together
while we wait for better times
but like the taste of French fries
that have been reheated
in the microwave
its just never the same
but of course,
I never made it happen
either

Baffled by loud,
boisterous chatter boxes.
Completely oblivious to expressions.
That uninterested look on your face
and the feeling of fatigue.
Conversation as dry and baron
as the deserts wasteland.
Nothing in common.
You can't relate.
You get Antsy.
Every excuse to escape.
Thinking about anything else
other than the topic at hand.
The attic upstairs.
Single digit IQ's try to fill it
with treasure chests of useless information.
You don't want any part of it.
Worried about what others are doing.
Their perfect mouths will report
every flaw and imperfection
from someone else's every move,
while they put themselves up on a pedestal.
You could care less.
Zero contempt for
their own actions.
You tune them out.
You know better than to be
brainwashed by these dim-witted
knuckle draggers.
You look right through them
like they're not even there.
You'd rather be anywhere in the world
than trying to uphold a conversation
with this person.
Sovereigns of discussion
change subjects and steal the show
with their big takeover and  interrupt
that heart-to-heart you have with
your peers.
They vent about their troubles
and financial situations
like no one else in this world
has problems.
Yet, they contradict themselves
by flaunting and flashing
the expenditures on frivolous
things from the day before.
They've got much to say
but not a lot to talk about.
You have to dumb yourself down
on comfort levels just to connect.
Raiders of dialogue unleash
the tongue lashing of the century
as they talk "at" you
and not with you.
Loquacious bobble heads
with rotten personalities
share gossip and spread rumors.
Whispering in ears
behind the backs of others.
Sexist, racist, homophobic comments.
Bad combination of being
over opinionated and
living in the early stages of evolution. ******* and belittlement.
Telling you what to do while
putting you down simultaneously.
Feeling powerful and favorable.
Like a bully picking on children.
You simply ignore this because
you know better than to digest
such immoral behavior.
They don't care about
the historical events of your life.
Only their own.
Far fetched nostalgic
childhood memories.
Lies upon lies.
You call them out on it.
Only more lies to cover it up.
No use trying.
So vain in self absorbed sophistication. Superstars in their own minds.
THE BIG FISH.
It's virtually impossible to argue
with stupid people.
Family, friends, coworkers,
random's at the breweries.
Hiding unknown identities behind fabricated stories to sugarcoat the pressures of not being able
to handle the pure, unadulterated, truth. You need these types of people
in your life for entertainment value,
not to bore you death
but to sit back silently,
analyze and interpret
with your imaginary bucket of popcorn
as they prey upon other innocent bystanders and punish them
with the same unbalanced lectures.
You see the same dull and disinterested ****** expression you once had.
You're not alone.
Avoid eye contact
with these ingrates.
You are not that
unintelligent.
Never forget that.

I looked at him right in the eye and yelled,

“DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH EMOTION AND HEARTBREAK YOU’VE CAUSED OVER THE YEARS????”

He didn’t reply.

So I started to choke him and screamed,

“HOW DO WOMEN EVEN TOLERATE YOU? YOU’RE A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT TO EVERYONE YOU MEET!”

He didn’t reply.

I let go of him and my emotions changed over. Then I softly said to him,

“I can hardly even see you anymore.”

He didn’t reply.

So I beat him.

But of course, the ***** doesn’t communicate vocally...

...he just erects and takes his beatings.

my ears have been blown,
like shrapnel
by the elders always
reiterating
their complex tics of
indistinguishable versification

“energy is wasted
on the youth.”

well...

the youth need that energy
to patiently wait on the elders
as they buy an over abundance
of lotto tickets and hold up the line
at the local convenience store
because they don’t know what
else to do with their money
while they’re waiting to die

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.

one thing in common between
the greatest books ever written
and myself was that we were
banned from the schools

we turned our backs away from this
****-poor attempt at a system of education

and we’ve been inseparable ever since

he worshipped his God
more than loving his family
and living life
itself

and his God sent him
to hell for it

I sat back in my lawn chair,
whiskey on the rocks in hand,
sunglasses over my eyes
as I watched the flames
arise in the lenses

I took a nip
and smiled

you want a religious poem?

exterminate the doctrine

and the being

will reveal itself

once again

where were the living at
and how were they feeling?
what were they doing and
what were they thinking about
while I was spending those
dreadful days
in tiny rooms
alone,
at the foot of the bed,
with a bottle of whiskey
and my Converse shoes
tucked in the corner,
when the vines of nostalgia
were constricting my thoughts
and I was memorializing my childhood
like an ashtray,
putting out cigarette butts
on the bad memories
too often remembered?

I felt, as if, my purpose in life
was as important
as the mendacity
from the liars tongue.
misguided down a
directionless path,
left astray and forgotten about
like a drifter
playing the part of the rejected
and disassociated

shattering windows of opportunities by
burning through time and space and
jobs and women and ***** and drugs
and brain cells and miracles and
ideas and tenderness and
humanitarianism and morality
and conversations...
lots and lots of conversations,
wearing down my body, listlessly
like matchsticks to flame,

but auspiciously,
I found the lighter in writing,
sparking a new beginning and
regaining myself as I took the
wheel back from driving recklessly
through an impetuous
crash course of life

there’s no reason to tiptoe
around light sleepers and
walk on eggshells or
unbalanced tightropes
without the use of legs
in front of searing eyes
when it comes to writing,

writing is love being hustled
down the dead insides of
the dispassionate,

the unhappier the childhood
I’ve experienced
the funnier the comic book
I’ve illustrated

the more personal tragedy,
the better the writing

our minds at war
and writing is the peace

like watching
the robin and
the cardinal
fighting over
the worm,
as they slowly
pull it apart

first thing in the morning,

I go to war with my clothes

bare knuckle boxing
with my shirts,
wrestling my pants,
hand to hand combat
with my socks,
ninja kicked my shoes
and I don’t even wanna
get into with my underwear

but when you’re 40 pounds overweight
and you can’t see your pecker anymore

putting your clothes on
is the hardest part
of the day

it’s all down hill from here

you can’t use the public restroom  
without smelling someone else’s ****,
counting smeared boogers on the wall
and reading poetry written by little boys
who will one day run the country.

I don’t use it to escape
or make the pain go away
or to numb my feelings

it’s frowned upon by most,
some find it deadening
and others to be fatal
but I find myself crossing
swords with the few who
are brave enough....

its the fuel,
the self medication
that makes me feel
alive and goes
hand in hand
with my writing
and my daily life

it gives me the answers
that fit in with the questions
that so many people yearn for

while they sip on their
coffee and tea and
write poems about
skittles and unicorns
in their fantasy land
that doesn’t exist,

I write
what I see,
think and
feel is to be true
and real in this
maddening world

anybody can play
the protagonist
but it takes guts
to play the fool
stepping in the
wrong direction
in life and to be
deceived by those
who are on the
outside looking in

I have no use
to sugarcoat
anything.
I am here,
naked,
in a crowd full
of clothed people
with nothing to hide
except my face
behind a beard.

I am the disease,
the *****,
the conformist,
the cancer of society,
cells reproducing and I’m
eating up all your resources
with no logic or reasoning.

sober Rick,
when hungover,
will thank
drunk Rick
tomorrow morning
when he finds out
that he made a lunch
for him and didn’t lose
his car keys

his drive to work will
be more peaceful
and the food on his
lunch break will taste
more delicious
than those he’s
surrounded by.

bend over world
and deal with it,

I’m a drunk
in moderation
without any regrets

so
pour
me
another  
mother
nature

life becomes drunk with happiness

when you self vaccinate
the parasite that’s
running throughout
your immune system
and stop the
infectious toxicity
from spreading

I
will
not
waste
another
word
or
thought
on
such
poison
that
is
the
quality
of her

it’s not that my eyes
we’re wide awake
to the merriment
of misanthropy

it’s that I was tired
of holding onto
one sided relationships

the perfect combination
in the freezing rain
and the misery of the world
that’s still out there
doesn’t have you
in submission
at least for the moment
the beer keeps you warm
the books keep you cozy
and the music continues to spin
until the needle skips into
oblivion

in the midst of everything
anything can happen
while resting comfortably
in your big home
in your big bed
next to your big wife
while you’re playing with her
cantaloupes and peaches
and you’re either too afraid
when it’s right in front of you,
smudging your shoes or
you’re too busy overwatering
your garden of atonement
and foolishly working hard
for everything and living
for nothing to notice it
as where there are people
dying on the streets
like a used q-tip
on top of the trash pile
who are working for nothing
and living for everything
just to get a little piece
of what we take for granted.

the potential that people
see in me
is the potential
I’ll never be,
like golden rotten teeth,
society setting the bar
with dominating voices
for higher purposes
and the television
had me
chasing city dreams
on the outside,
they want me to be
all skyscrapers,
monumental
and charismatic
but on the inside,
I feel like a conflagration
of condemned buildings
collapsing to the streets
they given me
the grass
and they given me
the graves
but none of it matters
because it’s what
I decide to plant
in the ground

the people I once adored
are the people I no longer
want to be surrounded
by anymore

half the world is trying
to sell you ****
you don’t need
and the other half
is just disinterested,
yet, they feel compelled
to preach about their
new found discoveries
with the best intentions
like blue herons
swimming upstream,
again the current  

I refuse to acknowledge
the aggregation of judgment
from the principals of
prosperity, honesty and integrity
and be measured by levels of
excellence and quality
as I lower my expectations
with beer cans that
lounge like lizards
aloft my bulbous beer-belly
like buoys in the ocean,
encrusted with a layer
of mustard stained
tattered torn t-shirts,
dust on my boots,
mud on my jeans,
hair messy and knotted
absentminded to the
disease ridden impurities
and set forth into the night
with delicacy
to look up at the stars
shining so bright
and enjoy myself
because when you have
no home to live in or
roof over your head
it’s kind of hard,
not to

we are all animals,
dull creatures in the
kingdom of fire,
preoccupied with perfection
and dizzy with the
unnecessary difficulties
that standardized civilization
has bestowed upon us

humanity is the worst thing
to happen to humanity

Bathe and bask in the smog
and let it become part of you
as you step out onto your
sidewalk cemented front yard
in the cold windy bitterness
that slices and dices your face
like an 80s horror slasher.
Accelerated footsteps in the
stampedes of raging bulls
alongside sewer rats
that scrape and scrounge
for dead rotting meat and
disease infected feces
in dumpster palaces.
Quasi-soiled bums and
bag ladies push shopping carts
filled with trifling treasure troves
and putrefaction in
filth and squalor
of the streets and gutters.
Panhandling and playing guitar
for loose change and lint *****
to run down to the local convenient store
and purchase their nicotine breakfast
and liquid bread
to get them through the day.
High rise buildings
in public housing districts,
where striplings dangle their legs
from fire escapes,
blasting boom boxes
and smoking spliffs
as they watch the adolescence
open fire hydrants on hot summer days
and toss lace-tied shoes
over power lines to indicate
the local drug hotspots.
Young suburbanites
swarm to the slums
to purchase the opioids and stimulants
that can not be found in their
utopia of the suburbs.
Urban ghettos are like combat zones
filled with mugging,
gang fights
and drive-bys.
As the world turns,
they're unscholarly minds
turn to murderous rage.
Parking meter maids ticket,
boot and impound
land yachts and puddle jumpers
to collect tax revenue for the
money grubbing municipality.
Anguished pregnant women
stand in overcrowded subways
while the disparaging
pussifacation of masculinity
comfortably sit as they
ride along the colored lines.
As the sun sets and
the hours of darkness arise,
the night crawlers and troglodytes
seep through the cracks of
condemned buildings to play
in the sandboxes of depravity.
The night is where the
hard concrete jungle comes alive.
Where the money is made
in this metropolitan playground
filled with libertines and temptresses
that prey upon *** deprived wallets.
Swindlers ring out every last drop
of currency from leaf peepers,
like a sopping wet towel.
Mad men run amok in the
wild streets begging for filled pockets
and sharing silly stories
and crazy conspiracies
to any ear that will listen.
Hot dog and taco stands
supply the most supplemental
nourishment.
Not a tree in sight.
Not a star in the night sky.
Under charcoal clouds,
planes soar through the
pink pollution and acid rain
showers down on all of them.
The banality of urban dwellers
filled with monochrome minds
and deep languor hearts
rest in twin beds of
studio apartments
and fall asleep to the
comforting sounds of
loud trains,
police sirens
and car alarms
as the city slowly ***** them in
and swallows them whole.

how many poems are written about
love and hate
living life and welcoming death
happiness and sadness
the fearful and fearless
sanity and madness?

how many poems are written about
darkness and light
the sun and the moon
the stars and the galaxy
the universe and our planet?

how many poems are written about
the trees and the rivers
the mountains and the valleys
the animals and sea creatures
the oceans and the land
the sky and the clouds
nature and everything it provides?

how many poems are written about
anxiety and depression
suicide and living life to the fullest
music and silence
philosophy and art
incarceration and liberation
coffee and tea
***** and drugs
war and peace
politics and religion
*** and celibacy
******* and addiction
and those who use it
for recreation and those who
believe it’s an abomination?

how people are drunk?
drunk on alcohol
drunk on love
drunk on books
drunk on ideas
drunk with magic
happening all around them

how many poems does it take
to sing?

how many words do you need to
piece together to end this poem?

as many as it takes
until everything is
swallowed into the
abyss of nothing

what’s worse than death
is not living life

we are eaten by the
trifling technicalities,
like rabid weasels
and assimilated into
the void of non-existence

and when the day comes
that our hair
has all turned grey
there will be nothing left
to die inside our hollow shells

death is not the end

but the beginning

our lives are just the preface
and we tend to skip over it
just to get to the good stuff

so when death
comes knocking
at your door with
a singing telegram

she’ll be disappointed

my eyes
like bullet holes
in the side of
car windows
waking up
in someone else’s life
in someone else’s bed
and I dream of escape
but they’ve taken my legs
and restricted my jurisdiction
to four tiny light blue walls
that drive me mad and
imprisoned me
inside a prison
inside a prison
inside infinite prisons
like a Martyoshka doll
with an open door policy for
violence but limiting my
freedom of expression to
cover up these walls with
anything that interests me
but I guess that’s the way
the world works, anything
interesting is prohibited and
beating you senseless is
encourage so may never
know who you are or what
you’re doing or what you’ll
become but if there’s
a little blue sun that shines
on the luck of chance and
it comes to you naturally,
know it, take it and run with it
like you’re being chased by
cannibalize headhunters
because you never know
when it’ll come back, if ever,
and sitting here now
thinking of Havana
realizing that I’m still here
in this reoccurring nightmare
of unnecessary difficulty
I’d appreciate a simple pleasure
like ******* on a mosquito
that’s resting in the ******

8 registers open
only 1 cashier
6 other employees
milling around
the store
assisting the 3
remaining customers
while 16 other people
wait in line to check out

their system works
like most systems
I’ve seen before…
backwards and drivel.

I guess common sense
isn’t so common anymore.

there’s something remarkable
about the magical realisms
between the admixture
of writing and driving.
of course, it’s a difficult task
to literally write while driving
and I don’t recommend it
to anyone but the ideas you
can come up with in your head
become evidently transparent
like a clearing through the fog
and if I was given the chance
with a reliable car, a mixtape of
good tunes, a decent amount
of time to road trip from
Portland Maine to Portland Oregon
and getting lost in the
reverie of elucidation
and neglected dreams
along the countryside
and over the mountains
and through the Great Basin
I could easily write an overkill
of poems in my head and if I
could just get them down on
paper would be a
magical realism
in itself.

you could own a safe
with all the greatest
treasures in the world
locked inside but it’s
still not as great
as knowing the
combination.

using his goading wit
and cocksure personality,

he declared to the public
that his physical features
were a chiseled mathematical
equation of perfection
in comparison to my own
unprepossessing attributes

a bit conceited perhaps
but I never give into such
supercilious irrelevance
with my modesty as I left
him soaked in his own
self-proclaimed victories

maybe I was doomed with
the probability of having an
abominable physiognomy
or maybe it was just that he had
a face only a mother could love
and I didn’t have a mother

while rain falls like teardrops
from gloomy clouds that
suspend over a consumerist
country. impatient people will
trample over themselves to save
money on those bargain deals.
I will remain safe in my house,
nestled up in my warm cozy
blanket with my pajamas still on,
feasting on Thanksgiving leftovers
and read a book or write a poem
and have Charles Bronson entertain
me on the movie screen but most of
all I get the purest enjoyment
forgetting about how
vicious and gruesome
the holidays can be.
there’s no other way
to spend Black Friday
and there never was

we were so poor
that we lived in the 80’s
throughout the 90’s
and couldn’t seem
to ever catch up

so we surrendered  
the mechanizations
of advancement
to watch the art
behind the dogs eyes
instead of the snow
from the television set,

it wasn’t pretty
but we could feel it,

careless and free spirited

as we took a step back
into a different era
that we never lived in
and laughed
on simpler times

hypothetically
speaking:

you’re at the 8 hour job
they give no overtime,
no Christmas bonus,
no raise, no promotion
and yet you continue
to bend over backwards
for them only to receive
nothing but grief, guff
and paycheck so weak
you can’t even afford a
studio apartment for
yourself in return

without praise,
without thanks
or that you did
a good job

and after listening to the
the same repetitive music
and mind-numbing stories
from your co-workers
for hours and hours
days and days
weeks and weeks
months and months
years and years
decades and decades
eventually someone
is going to snap

and this is how shooters
are born,
this is how bomb threats
are made,
this is what encourages people
to commit random acts
of violence

these people are not monstrous
these people are broken
and they have been
driven into doing
monstrous things

but upper management’s
only concern is filling the
owner’s pockets with money,
not your mental stress—
they want you to deal
with that on your own
time, not theirs,
although they may be
the cause

and in the end when the blur
of mass murdering happens
from the rampage of the
disgruntled employee
they act shocked
and terrified with
cries of outrage
that such inhumane
things can be
happening
right now.

we’re all responsible
for our own actions
but it takes a sadistic
type of someone to
propel another person
into going berserk,
to start seeing red in
transcending limitations

some reasonable men
are pushed into doing
unreasonable things

as the shadows have stopped
in the circle of dead children.

time is constant
people are not
the skies are gray and
the church is closed
there’s a change
in the air
it can not be
seen or touched
like colors and thoughts
but I can feel it
naturally,
I let it happen
rustling around
in the wind, wildly
and it comes
gushing up
through my nose
and into the psyche
I’ll be ready for it
I am not destined to
live the rest of my life
in the same place
where I was born
but en route for
greater things in a place
that makes me feel happy
I am the way of the future
so hand me the ******* blueprints
you snarling sharp-tooth savage beast

there’s nothing original about my writing.
I just listen to everyone I’ve ever met
in my life who converse it all away
and have the guts to write it down
with my own eccentricities added
like finding a baby in a dumpster,
a cockroach in the dishwasher,
your car keyed and tires slashed,
a bird maimed on the sidewalk,
a worm in the apple,
your woman gone the next morning