"**** right i got the blues"
a buddy guy signature tune
it’s tattooed on the patient’s shoulder
the words embedded in buddy guy’s polkadot strat
i can’t get him to wake up from sedation
which is necessary for me to pull the breathing tube
he’s almost there but not
after an hour i drag a computer into the room
and play the song
thinking what a cool way to wake him up
it doesn’t work
but he comes around eventually and i pull the tube
"you play guitar, right?" i ask once he’s with us
"he tries," says his wife
we all laugh

had a ****** french meal
dull, heavy and not cheap
but like opera
french cuisine is out of my ken
maybe it was marvelous
all i can say is opera’s not for me

my father died when i was 14
presenting me with an unsolvable calculation
and a bleak though accurate view of reality
my wife and i didn’t die when the kids were kids
and that was a gift to the children
which we took back a bit by living
and the drinking, a mixed bag
but no divorce and no funerals
you’re welcome, kids

how did it come to this?

scurrying to "work," participating in this "economy"
plugged into abstract patterns of baroque behavior

well, complaining is easy -- it's just one of those days
when the larger perspective seems alien

you can put quotation marks around any concept
to yank it out of context for examination

bad?  good?  pathetic?
“bad?”  “good?”   “pathetic?”

people lie constantly
mostly to themselves
cause they're the only ones
who give a ****
we lie about who we are
and that's ok
sometimes it helps us
become who we want to be
a dream is a lie is a dream

consistency is defeat
going to work every day?
coming home?  every night?
TEQUILA!
***** BONGWATER!
look
my totality changes
every day and a half
i’m one slippery *******
so if and when i tumble out your window
it’ll be a nuclear event
molecules exploding
lasciviously recombining
promiscuously bonding with whatever
carnal stray matter catches my eye
by tomorrow morning
i’ll be snowing
all over the universe

alcohol and *******
and ******* at his wife
he chose to jump out of a sled
and land on his head
his christmas present to himself
now he’s tethered to a ventilator
with a bolt in his brain
his intracranial pressure
is scaling mt. everest
that there santa’s elf
is the textbook definition
of ******* up