i want to slide downhill
with woofers in my ears
i want to either save the planet
or leave a large crater in it
give me blue neon city lights
and lulu singing to sir with love
i want the blues in every note
(but without the blues fans)
i want fat to be the new thin
and i want time to roll backwards
i want the folds of my thalamus to flatten
not a stroke but nirvana

you go to her/him with something you gotta do
that you know is wrong in some way
and she/he presents a convincing argument
as to why it’s right and has to be done
by you

so you wonder if dumb luck is going to save you
son, it’s the only thing that will

cheer up, my talented friend
as far as picking up chicks online
an out of work drummer
and an out of work Broadway drummer
are two different species

a limited frame of reference
that’s why people are such morons
they’re not inherently stupid
just narrow and myopic
you’d think with tv, the internet
easy transport and open borders
eyes would be wide
nope

(obviously i wrote this poem before the borders closed)

i’ve worked out what to say
to whiny patients in the hospital:
"your dissatisfaction was expressed
quite eloquently...
may i retort?"

we were sitting on atwood street
drinking beer and admiring the students
i was stumped:
"how come only women
came back to college this year?"
it was pointed out to me
there were just as many males as females
but i failed to see them

the concept of william byrd is weightless today
he wrote the music on my current hit list
which has everything and nothing to do
with a fellow who roamed london in 1586
named william byrd

where’s it gonna end?
countdown from some to none
sinking into the mud from which we sprung
but come on sparky
sink a drink and compel the fatcats
to share the wealth
and when you do your job
complain all you like
moaning helps ease the pain
a medical fact

it’s not much of a mystery
the law says police can **** you
if they’re afraid of you
they’re terrified of black people
so there you go

i look death in the eye
and say "give me a cough"

it’s friday
trump is still a dangerous *****
the republicans who enable him
are a cynical bloated disgrace
his diehard followers
(alright, much of the country)
are a sad crew of suckers

there--  i feel a lot better
now i can get my BBQ on
and listen to the ******* surfers

if you can't play your set drunk
you can't play rock'n'roll
no judgment
straight fact
take it from a guy
who rehearsed down the hall
from the ramones

it’s all chemistry
physics is the shuffling of chemistry
biology is when physics blows chemistry in life’s direction

there have been four so far
never consummated
through ignorance and morality
if i knew then...
but if i had made it with them
would they glow the same way?
am i the one who got away for them?
and for my wife of twenty years
i'm not him
me and the kids are right here
and he's back there somewhere
a beguiling smile in the window

oh no
my sacrum has dissolved into the earth
and i can’t get up

today i’m a respiratory therapist
treating covid patients in a city hospital
the denial of science in this country
is having glaring consequences
the punks that we were at age 20
wouldn’t have been surprised
at the militant ignorance
of some of our fellow citizenry
the difference is that back then
we would have laughed

why is it necessary to hate walter’s BBQ?
because the customers are young
comfortable and smiling
(reason enough, but not just that)
they’re all white in a largely black city
a white clientele for a BBQ place
a pricey BBQ place
a couple of black women come in
they take turns taking photos of each other
and leave without ordering
that’s why

don’t complain about her complaining
that opens up a hall of mirrors
and echo chamber
of complaints infinitum

is god speaking to me?
am i the genius of my own topology?
do i have an iceberg in my pocket?
are my insights contagious?
are my revelations fatal?
am i just rearranging legos?
am i flaky in that way?
is there a point?

dreamt about a hermaphrodite
maybe you can teach new tricks
to an old stag

sorry but
you gotta crash every once in a while
or you’re not really riding

summer was sunnier in the 60s
and the 60s were made for kids
my folks had backyard BBQs
with the tijuana brass in constant spin
i don’t know if it was my mom or dad
who put it on, but they both dug it
them and their friends and neighbors
me and my sister too
best part of my short time with them
i grew up, had a family, threw BBQs
merriment with wacky musicians jamming
between burgers, feeding
the most cartoon characters in town
i’m glad my kids have magical family times
to turn back to, as i do
every time i hear those spanish trumpets

once upon a time
i woke up in a garden of dried *****
from a tuinal OD
an uh oh moment
and if i hadn’t woken up
well no one held a gun to my head in union square
(an actual possibility in those days)
now at work in the hospital this morning
we just gave up on a 20-year-old athlete
OD’d on pills, arrested, dead before 8 a.m.
mom, dad and older brother are wild with grief
uh oh

i have my discontents
but when i get to my hospital job
and look in the mirror pre-shift
i think of all the hurting people
in this building i came to help
and all the medicos i’m here to help
help these poor folks
and i think "you’re a useful *******"
and that’s good enough

we convened to play a book of hieroglyphic scores
bought for a buck at the yearly carnegie music library sale
collectively you could say these pieces by various composers
comprise the music of the spheres
we knocked the **** out of them on friday night
with drums, a cheap synth
and a ukulele plugged into a powerbook
playing these scores today
by forgotten or never known primordials
who channeled nature and magnetism
and yoked them to the concept of music
was like breathing life into the dead
reanimating them
i say death to bach and metallica
those greedy pigs
we honor the others
because we are the others

my wife’s on the wagon
so i said i wouldn’t drink at home
only in a bar
then the bars closed from the virus
conspiracy!

"enough of this lollygagging"
i say to my wife as i leave for my hospital job
"there are lives to save"
and as soon as i lock up my bike at work
i run into a woman stuck on the sidewalk
trying and failing to make it up the hill
"my chest hurts real bad"
i fetch a wheelchair and push her up that hill
delivering her to the emergency room
man am i connected to the universe

my fellow respiratory therapists hate everybody
nobody gets away
we have a new fella
good looking, young, sculpted, groomed
a nice guy and decent therapist
"oh, the model" says brenda with idle contempt
it’s a beautiful thing

here on this perfect summer morning
i take my friday ny times to the Coffee Connection
to sit outside and enjoy my day off--
and the city is on lockdown again
sitting not allowed
i suppose i could give it a squat

it’s a common consolation
that we all share the same view
flush or broke, lucky or luckless
we all live under the same sky
pondering the same constellations
too bad it’s *******
the wealthy live on another planet
more water, less desert
more dessert
closer to the stars
and their constellations provide
luxurious consolation

an arm adorned with one tattoo often shimmers
but a tattoo sleeve doesn’t work
profound for you, a swirling mess for me
meaningless dizzy clutter – less is more, man
it’s like years ago i was driving in backwoods nebraska
i came to a village with one ******* SKYSCRAPER
dwarfing the town like a cadaverous giant
twenty stories tall in a hamlet of 7-11s
ranch homes and stunted two-floor office buildings
it would have been a ****** in manhattan
all those seventy-story monsters huddled together
each elbowing the next from the limelight
cancelling each other out
but a single slamming skyscraper in a hick town
hits you like the first beer after two months at sea
a billboard in the desert or a charitable lady
nibbling your cashews after a stretch in the can
i was like jack tripping on a beanstalk
i pulled over to smoke a doob, stare and you know what?
i bet you a few nimble souls hopped off that tower

yeah cops are just working guys doing a ***** job
and when you need one you need one
but man, they let themselves be molded into an army
at the drop of a top hat and overtime paycheck
the police are weapons and sometimes used accordingly
they see no problem dropping into invasion mode
against the unemployed, the underemployed
the darker population, freethinkers
and other americans who break no laws
except the law against resisting the harness
the cops accept their role as cattle **** to students
who are playing their role:  cross-examining the USA
it's simple but true--
wear a suit and you're the boss
dress funky and you're a creep.
deserving of the smug baton
i observed this at the G20 summit
where i strolled along a phalanx of cops
there to protect the inviolability of property
more sacrosanct than the citizens of the country
and now i watch them kick down the wallstreet settlements
serving and protecting the dollar almighty
(thanks to my fellow beatniks for the cliche last line)
(but tell me it’s not true)
if you’re a policeman reading this
thanks for getting my keys out of the car
but WAKE UP to the way you’re intermittently implemented

i’m listening to the gospel station
digging this lady’s paean to christ
i’m stealing the song
not paying for it with piety or belief
taking what doesn’t belong to me
it’s transgressive
like watching the miss teen america pageant
or staring at my neighbor’s wife’s ***
enjoying what’s not mine to enjoy

i just picked up the monkey wrench gang
a bible for eco-terrorists
an influential text
when i was young i read henry miller
and soon began ******* my brains out
read carlos castenada and added psychedelics to my mix
read bukowski and my upward mobility turned south
now i’m not young
so the monkey wrench gang
probably won’t have me blowing up bridges
which is fortunate
mein kampf is next on the syllabus

i’ve come to see
people who are a pain in the ***
keep you on your toes

resnick!
for years we worked together in the hospital
i knew him as a villainous old coot
but a stud in his youth
and a rake all the way through
smoking relentlessly in the oxygen tank room
which didn’t blow up, but just coughed
cascading merry cynicism with wicked timing
"for chrissakes," he’d say, seeing me carting equipment
"i took less than that with me to vietnam"
tom told me a ***** joke about rodeo ***
that i repeated on a book tour
(since i’m the ***** poet)
and which turned the audience so hostile
my poems may as well have been covid
tom came on to all women:  staff, patients, family
"hey little girl, you want some candy?"
so over-the-top creepy that it was acceptable
if you squinted
he was triggered especially by denise
a young nurse:  blonde, petite, shy
when she walked by, his admiration calmed him down

now tom’s gone to that great ashtray in the sky
and when i see denise in the halls
i smile and savor tom’s unshackled lust
his peculiar resnick love

is it really such a radical idea
that people shouldn’t push other people around
and pillage all their resources?

seems to me that the idea of a king and queen
is the wacky concept

got lost on the way out of bed
took a wrong turn at the pillow

there is no “music”
the word is a vague endearment
applied on a whim
“music” is an adjective

"watch out, slow down, what the ****"
that’s my reaction to some truly appalling driving
from my compadre the duke
this would be years ago
he turned to me, smiled and said
“the difference between you and me
is you’re afraid to die"
"no," i said, "the difference between you and me
is i don’t WANT to die"
now i’m an old coot
and the duke never made it to 30
i called that one
but he was a star

hitching a ride to the southside after a night shift
looking forward to sunrise holiday obliteration
oh holy night -- it’s our christmas party
my twenty dollars the first of a hundred on the bar
tequila from me, girlie shots from my menagerie
they taste like Chanel #5 but by shot #10
they knock you across the room

getting home from the christmas party is always an issue
but the bus goes directly from Jacks to my living room
so at 11 a.m. or who knows when i exit the bar
it’s freezing, snowing, and too much fun out here
but when the 54c bus finally materializes i rejoice
pay my fare and relax onto my seat
elated to be escalating home
i’m safe on the bus, so warm, so comfy
so slowly sliding from my seat to the floor
all seven passengers look down at me, that guy
i giggle up at them with christmas cheer
and say "woops"

the small blonde nurse and i were breaking our backs
transporting the giant patient in the ****** bed to a cat scan

"i’m hot," she said as we slogged through the hospital

"you are kinda hot," i said
"you don’t really need to mention it"

we laughed and she said
"well i’m just putting it out there"

on tuesday in the hospital
i made a student cry
she wouldn’t shut up about a no-win situation
we talked half an hour as i charted
she got more and worked up
"we should DO something" about a patient
when there was nothing left to do
"we are done talking about this," i said at last
"if you work in a hospital
you won’t see ten people like this
you’ll see hundreds
and their families
if you really want to help these people
you can’t be so emotional"
words that jumpstarted the tears
i felt unsettled about that
but she put me in that position

on friday i was at a gallery opening
the artist handed me a vape pen of ***
"what’s that?" i asked
and my cool factor shrank to zero

just burned my finger
thanks george foreman
not bad, but it stings
and you know what?
i’m glad for the distraction
in these dank days

the top shelf at stingrays
isn’t like the top shelf at another bar
it’s more like there’s no room on this shelf
so let’s stash it somewhere up above
but i figured i’d give it a shot
so to speak
"i’ll take that abners up there
the bourbon"
petey the bartender nodded
bent down and produced a bottle of abners
it wasn’t even bottom shelf
it was on the floor
but it got me messed up

some people have too much money
it defines them
totally
anything else about them
is irrelevant

country music night was a soft adventure
much stranger and more charming than expected
the living room was microscopic
they were passing around a fifth of whiskey
"i hope you don’t mind," said our host
a heavily-bearded med school/phd student
"but i drink from the bottle"
uh, groovy…  i stuck with beer
and admired his grungy charisma
we tuned to his autoharp
which was out of tune
we sang silly old country songs
he’d printed out lyrics and chords
young hippies came and went
a banjo, a fiddle, a lute, two ukuleles
my flashy flatpicking and slide
sweet, ragged harmonizing
we’d landed on the planet of pure music
skipping from moon to moon
till way past midnight
you should have been there

when people make assumptions about you
you resent them when they get it wrong
and you resent them when they get it right

dear ultimate phone number marie whateveryourlastnameis who

just graduated somerset high school, imaginary aroma of whose
thick, ready thighs and *** (and car!) woke me up this morning
at a boil, who told me anytime I want and wrote your number
on a slip of paper that I stripped my entire room to find, even
unhooking the radiator cover but no good:

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH