your bad habit is a problem
only if it's a problem

five minutes into our morning shift
in the emergency room
we get a fella gunshot to the chest
it might be 7:05 am sunday morning
but it's still saturday night around here

express yourself, write what you want
god knows i do
but if you have no talent
and want me to pay attention
show some wit or humor
and you know what?
that’s true even if you do have talent

she was SUNNY FLOWER
a happy ukranian four year old
she had down syndrome, just learned to speak
she loved to push her own carriage after school
through the park, next to her mom
mr. putin
why did you guide your missile
to that beautiful little girl with her winsome smile?
why did you mince her to jelly?
don't you think
you should cut your own ******* throat
in penance?

gastrointestinal doctors
must be appalled by the **** people eat
the ludicrous cuisine of fast food
they witness the cataclysmic consequences
which they’re supposed to clean up
it’s like filling your car’s gas tank
with cat litter, seaweed and yoo-hoo
and expecting a smooth ride

make no mistake
this is a country
where men blow the heads off little children
beyond their parents’ recognition
where republicans will not allow democrats
to win an election
where we haplessly strangle the environment
to a breathless end
make no mistake
it all means something
but what--
besides the obvious?

the way we look is window dressing
a distraction to others and ourselves
not our bodies – they ARE us
but the way we APPEAR
****** blondes do it for me
but you can’t base a philosophical system
on a great set of ****
though you might be tempted

i could have been this, but i'm not
i could have done that, but i didn't
tantalizing, torturous thoughts
and complete baloney
you can only be what you are
you can only do what you did
all detours and dead ends
are built into that one highway
you ride

i work in a hospital
throwing all my resources
into keeping a 97-year-old breathing
the next dweeb brings an assault rifle
into a texas school
and murders nineteen 4th graders
as far as i know we have free will
but maybe not
maybe that’s an irrelevant illusion
maybe we’re drones
on a battleground of karma
programmed by generals
we might call good and evil
though maybe that’s just as irrelevant

mom, dad and Uncle Money
he's YOUR uncle because it's THEIR money
now in later years he's a bully
a fairy godmother, an annoying obsession
he obliterates imagination
you wanna love him but you can't trust him
he's here, he's gone, he's up for a good time
even while kicking your feet out from under you
and he always has a better argument
doesn't know the cool tunes but he plays the hits
Uncle Money gets all the ladies, in the end
he paints a binary picture, in a bad way
but he forever gets his *** kicked by Grannie Luck

i'm my best audience
engaged, attentive to nuance
amused by my dry wit
dazzled by my intellect
astounded by my intuition
i am entertained!

if you can walk away
nothing happened

while cause and effect is inviolable
there is no beginning
there was always before

as i walked down the hall to the cafeteria
at the hospital where i work
it hit me
i will NEVER get what i want
i had a big laugh
and got a cheeseburger with extra pickles

let's see
russians annihilating ukranians for no reason
china supporting them for cynical advantage
india itching to massacre its muslims
republicans dismantling the electoral process
while their paranoid millions load up
a mass shooting in the pittsburgh north side
another ***** acts out in the NY subway
with smoke bombs and bullets
the devil visits an elementary school in texas
one fifth of reptiles are about to disappear
goodbye birds and bees
the environment disintegrates
and we crank up the heat

it's speeding
accelerating
you can taste it
the fever is peaking
exhilarating
detonation is imminent

he’s so sharp
and gets everything wrong
like a superb computer
without enough information
for its calculation

he woke up on the wrong side of the bed
every day of his life

i’m frankenstein’s masterpiece
constructed from so many components
dad, husband, respiratory therapist
poet, filmmaker, musician, artist
applied physicist, philosopher
bike rider, weight lifter
coffee drinker, reader, television addict
taxpayer, consumer, sucker
emperor of my universe, peon
fearless, fearful, fatalistic
and i know a heap of ***** jokes

when it comes to cartoons
you’re either a disney/mickey freak
or a warner brothers/bugs head
it’s a stones v. beatles thing

do people need new prayers for inspiration?
or is it like classic rock--
the hoary old hits are the best?
might be more meaningful if we all
wrote something for ourselves
but it would have to be stupendous
i doubt we'd be up to it
it's like asking each of us
to compose our own bohemian rhapsody

an 80s tune with zippy synths and chirpy vocs
a song for happier times
you couldn’t sing a tune this bright now
there’s no audience for it

when i was a squirt
i hated winter
and swore that when i grew up
i'd move south
where they never heard of snow
but when i grew up
and saw who lived down south
i said **** it
i'd rather freeze my *** off
than hang with those people
and those people are probably just as glad
that i'm living in an igloo

i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius

hey, that guy's pretty smart

the election was rigged
the election was rigged

can’t complain about my two days off
cold january winter but i biked through the city
drank wine at cappy’s
hit up the library
brought the soup tour to the african veldt
posted poems in a couple of neighborhoods
recorded foppish puppyism with a cosmic *****
shot a famous vid of me singing lynyrd skynyrd
wrote three poems of utter profundity
posted a tiktok art vid
saw the latest matrix
(most interesting thing about it
was which aspect ****** the worst)
worked out
hung with my bride
played with the cats
watched tv
ecstasy x 2
nope
can’t complain

we have 350 pounds of quivering repugnance
oozing out of a nightmare into bed 3
he's a nice guy but my god
drooling rivers of foul juice from nose and mouth
his tracheostomy spewing mucus into every corner of the room
one of the more gruesome patients you’ll ever treat
for someone not an amputee or gunshot to the face
the nurse rockets from the room
"I JUST GOT HIS *** IN MY EYE," she wails
"WHAT DO I DO?"
we shrug our shoulders
wash her eye out?   quit nursing?
and how did THAT happen?
she tears down the hall to the attending physician
who tries to talk her down
"he actually has the cleanest *** in the unit," says the doctor
"his labs show there’s very little growing in there"
hard to swallow when assessing fright night in bed 3

a covid patient arrests
unvaccinated
hovering between here and gone
leaning towards death
her daughter comes in the room as we’re scrambling
to keep her heart beating and oxygen saturation viable
"i know you guys are thinking she’s gonna die
we need her alive
we NEED you to believe that she’s going to live"
a sad rush of emotion
a vaccine might have been more effective
than my happy thoughts
but that’s how it works on my planet
on her planet, who knows?

on a warm winter day
i was taping poems to a pole
outside a coffee shop at the edge of the city
as i got back on my bike
the barista sauntered out of the coffeeshop
with a cup and saucer
a panorama of undiluted allure
a storm of blonde hair
eyes from venus
smile like desert rain
she was, obviously, the muse
"hello darling" she said
and strolled to the pole to read my latest

the bartender looked like bukowski’s mom
she served me another shot of tequila and said
"you better slow down, son
it’s bad for your health"

"i ain’t long for this world anyway"
i said, throwing it down

she snorted
"you’re the third kid who told me that tonight"

"hey, can i help it if everyone who dies young
comes to this bar?"

hey hon
how’s your morning going?

this unit is like a disaster movie
2 brain deaths
2 self-inflicted gunshots to the head
2 covids (if only there were a vaccine—
oh ****, there is)
1 paraplegic
1 drunken assault
and a very ******* fellow
who was gored by a bull

let’s go out to eat tonight

what we believe
and why we believe it
is a bowl of spaghetti
we're persuaded before we hear the issue
it's where you were hatched
who hatched you
and the other chickens in the coop
we'll believe the sky is green
if it's pinned to the top of the internet feed
to put it charitably
we're open to input
and it doesn't matter anyway
our decisions rarely coincide with our principles
we choose whatever door is nearest
and scoot on through

now everybody knows this
we experience time in a linear fashion
we’re on a track going in one direction
forward
behind us is our past
we can’t go there again
we can only look
"remembering"

but here’s the new stuff
the track is laid in an immense field
a lot of terrain
most of which we can never visit
the field is time in perpetuity
"the past" before the moments we lived
“the future" beyond the days we’ll reach
all in the field together

still though
it's an itch that can't be scratched
that time when i was young
strong, good-looking
happy and happening
is right over my shoulder
i can see it from here
but i can’t get there

sometimes your brain just gives out
like any other exhausted muscle
you get a neurological flat tire

last night my wife jabbed me in the ribs
to stop my snoring
i woke up and listened to her
snore up a hurricane
that’s a happy marriage

when she’s being a mindblowing mess
and moans "how do you put up with me?"
i say because i love you
we have built a world together
we live in it
and that’s how it works

necrotizing fasciitis
the fat man’s cancer

he got a motorcycle for his birthday
got some whiskey too
he didn't get a helmet though

i'm going to pretend i'm merce cunningham
on my bike ride home from work
hope it's survivable

a lifetime bouncing on the high seas of tito’s *****
you’re either dunked like a fatal donut in the acrid waves
or wind up washed up on the shores of sobriety

“up yours!” is such a great phrase
brings me right back to the 70s

i look in the mirror
and see myself at 25
why don’t photos
work the same way?

i am so used to failure
that it’s home sweet home
a smelly railroad apartment
i’d get lost in a mansion
it's comfortable funky shoes
i couldn’t walk a block in stiff pricey leather
success would be an unwelcome interloper
knock knock
who’s there?
success
take a ******* walk

barney chose his footsteps
whimsically
no deliberation
no destination
whimsy was his map and strategy
all night and day

"what’s happening, barney?"
"harpsichords, baby"
"what’s on the agenda?"
"pastrami and democracy"

and when barney picnicked in the park at 3 a.m.
and heard "give me your money, ******"
barney laughed a great laugh
and collapsed spreadeagle on the grass
the perplexed mugger straddled him
delivered a bemused punch to the jaw
and rummaged through barney’s every pocket
to find only pistachio nuts

everything is a battle
between good and evil
loosely defined
which is a problem
every impulse is between life (good)
and death (bad)
which already pulls you into grey
because life for you
is death for a chicken wing

so much joy with mom & dad, grandma & grandpa
my little cats spikey, spooky and pep
but the memories are tinged with grief
my delight has a halo of melancholy
so much love but i miss them all
i grieve at their absence
it’s a heavy thing

i don’t feel that way with michael, jack, al, the duke
it’s light, it’s buoyant, jubilant
they’re gone but they gave me stuff i still enjoy free of charge
i smile when i listen to the band dada which jack turned me onto
i laugh at all his whining, which was his way of processing life
and the duke trying to beat me up over cindy
the bartender throwing us both out
another night when he jumped on stage at cbgb’s
to purloin the mike from jeffrey lee pierce
making showbiz history
then there’s al’s consoling wisdom
when the old trache patient croaked in front of me at midnight
a shocking horror show and i still had rounds to finish
al simply said "this’ll happen again
you’ll be alone at the end of a dark hall and a patient will crump"
which did come to pass (alright, not such a merry memory)
but he framed it in a way that made it possible to cope
and michael, my long-haired james dean socrates
he was so cool he made a *** belly look tough
three years older, orchestrating the coolest moments of my youth
presenting me with smoking, music, ***, girls
taking on the creepy priest who scared the **** out of me
when he told me i’d go to hell for being jewish
michael jumping in for my defense, bold and brilliant
at age 12 getting in the clergyman’s face
"how do you know he’s not going to a jewish heaven?"

no grief for these guys, just a lifetime of laughs and inspiration

i was a vegetarian for a short time
smoked a joint and watched a documentary
about the factory farming of animals
when i saw them snip off the faces
of a box of baby chickens
so they could be stacked up
without pecking each other to death
i said to my wife "that it’s, we’re done"
we gave it up after a couple of years
i feel bad for eating meat but i just can’t stop
however
i figured out a way to pay for this transgression
a strategy to balance the karmic score
when i’m ready i will slither into a lion’s cage
and let him feast on my carcass
it’s what i deserve for all those chicken wings

i interrupted my routine
brain level 1 said "something’s wrong"
it look a minute for brain level 2 to compute
"you interrupted the routine"

you can appreciate what you have
or weep for what you lack
you don't have much choice
you might weigh the balance intellectually
but emotions bear no calculation
emotions are a crying baby

i say bite the bullet
appropriate the money
from the ten richest americans
give them all mustangs
and say thanks
no more poor people
we could all afford breakfast

"tonight’s my night to howl"

oh well
once voiced
the intention is a dud
only frat boys and sick puppies
can deliver on that promise

it’s father’s day and everybody has one
even if you can’t put your finger on him
we have a tradition in our house
on father’s day i ditch the kids
and if i want a white russian
that could happen
and if i want to dig a tinkling
percussionist from new york city
that’s up to me
because it’s father’s day
and i’m the #1 dad