let me ask you

you’re sitting in a hospital room
visiting a friend or mother or son in a critical care bed
an alarm is triggered, an ominous warning
you nervously step outside looking for a nurse
you tell the nurse there’s something beeping
the nurse comes inside and fixes the occluded line
you nitpick about the time it took
you question procedures as the nurse is doing them
advocating for the patient
the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?
yeah but guess what
the nurse doesn’t want to come into the room anymore
whether you’re in there or not
the vitals will still be seen to
but other patients suddenly need more attention
and by the way
every time you ask me if i washed my hands
(like the posted signs advise you to ask)
i think:  if you’re that worried about infection
i’ll just stay out of the room; that much less exposure
that means painful bedpan delay for your loved one
or lying in filth a little longer
waiting thirsty minutes for that sip of water
staying in one excruciating position half an hour more

so have you done your friend or mother or son a favor?

our better natures have much to contend with

we want the chinese to be slaves in factories
so we can buy our crap for cheap
we want fracking to poison neighborhoods
so we can heat our homes on a budget
we want to torture cows and poultry
for a chicken *** pie and a roast beef sandwich
we want the suckers in the middle east
to knock each other off with their bonkers belief systems
(*** slaves are kosher) so they leave us the **** alone
we want the old to be sick and the young to be broke
so we feel like we’re sitting pretty

this is what we want
this is why we’re so happy

a sad racial incident
i’m at a sidewalk cafe
i take my phone off the table and put it in my pocket
i look up and a black teen is passing my table
i didn’t even notice him and he’s staring at me
"i ain’t interested in your phone, man"
then he walks on
accused

there's a moment in every flight
when the plane is banking away from the airport
you get a dizzy view of the landscape
and realize this is nuts

what did i learn working at the hospital today?
don't do a headstand on a motorcycle
but don't worry
the daredevil kid who taught me this
will never do it again

dreamed i was in barnes and nobles
trying to buy Boswell’s London Journal
the young clerk gave me a package
of diapers and baby powder
with boswell’s face stamped on it
"i don’t wanna wipe my ***," i told him
"i wanna read boswell’s london journal"
dreams!

the secret of life is simple and two-prong
one, you gotta be lucky
two, appreciate things when they’re good
because they won’t be good forever
don’t sweat the small stuff
the big stuff’s coming

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

as the years pass
you get wider
more horizontal
when you’re utterly sideways
they shovel the dirt on you

yeah, you're anticorporation
that's why you wipe your *** with tree bark
and weave your own cloth
from the cotton you grow in the basement

yeah we’re going camping in february
makes you a man
and if your **** freezes off—  SNAP!!
makes you MORE of a man
well, it’s a trade off

there’s no intrinsic value in anything
none
oh there’s value, but only what we ascribe
like picasso scribbles now worth a fortune
because somebody decided
it’s all arbitrary
***?  a compelling biological twitch
self-preservation?   if you say so
pizza?  tastes good
democracy?  if you dig mob prejudice
god?  if he existed
love?  a great tv show
youth?
ah, now you’re talking

the facts tell one story
my insanity tells another
occasionally i wake from my delirium
and realize how far i’ve drifted out to sea
then i’m dragged underwater again
it’s like driving a GMC pickup
from one whiskey rendezvous to the next
floating high above my memories
and way below my desires
i’d love to get back to sober ground
so i propose a toast
sometimes a pretty girl is a cheap trick
and i’m not falling for it

started three 12-hour shifts in a row
the hospital is home for the next three days
my actual house is now a hotel
sympathetic wife, cozy cats, comfy bed
but my interest and energy
my life force is here
it's a weird freedom
no one cares what i think or say
or even do
decent food, the soups are good
thrills and spills, dueling with disease
juggling the maladies of the patients
trying to make a dent in their suffering
smoking females underfoot
flashing eyes above masks
snug scrubs showcasing enticing rumps
fantasies on every floor
ahhh, the days of a healer
home again

before i grew up and sailed away
on a river of beer
i was a dandy drug fiend
burned off my eyebrows
smoking ***** over a stove
snorted all the coke at an upper west side party
and beat hasty retreat
wandered the street in an amphetamine stupor
wielding two fistfuls of used belts
ah, the indiscretions of youth
been a while since i rolled joints in hash oil
spilled on someone's sheets

in the 21st century
playing a guitar instead of a computer
is like driving a harley instead of a lexus
the lexus is better for every kind of weather
smoother, sleeker
more versatile
more intelligent
the guitar?
IT'S A ******* HARLEY

i bang my head against the wall for a living
and it’s no coincidence
that’s what i do with my free time as well
i must love it

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

when i was a kid
i wondered what it would be like to be 40
now i can't remember being 40
i STILL don't know what it's like

just because something’s for sale
and you bought it
doesn’t mean you didn’t steal it
isn’t that why prostitution is illegal?
of course, stealing is fine
if you couldn’t purloin the life
of a sirloin or banana
you wouldn’t eat
BUT
just because you can buy a porkchop
doesn’t mean that the pig
placed himself on the market
not to sweat it though
when the earth digests you
it all evens out

my friend dan, a rare and refined writer
came to pittsburgh for a poetry forum

in hopes of making a splash
he decided to bake a chicken
and bring it to the event
unfortunately he chose a kitchen
in ohio

i never got a piece

i look in the mirror and wonder
how do i do it?
the **** i have to deal with!
then i think about other folks
and the torture they endure
i throw my hands up
surrender to god
and turn on the TV

you can’t come out ahead
not with death picking your pocket
on your way out the door
but maybe you can balance the equation
reconcile the molecular weight
of the positive and negative
like the moon tonight
it’s a perfect glowing circle
the moon is a balanced equation
your life can be the same
if the wind blows your way

by that measure
this year was a mindblower

if there’s a perfect segment of your life
put it on the wall
and charge yourself admission
like i’m doing right now
i straddle the planet
and scoff at my helpless emotion
i scrape up any tears i cried
spit them at passing airplanes
and balance the astonishing equation

it works

it's my only talent
i know where to dig for the gold
and my gold is a renewable resource
music with momentum
harmonies that levitate
meaning where there is none
motivation in a vacuum
women who steal your breath with a glance

thank god i'm married
it would all be too easy if i weren’t
and in the end, too boring

ironic when you consider
that marriage is a still life
with the paint flaking off

but when you're alone
it all breaks down

marriage is like college
you're not sure it's necessary
but if you don't go
you feel like you missed something

and the truth is, my bride
i would have missed everything
without you

greetings from the neurotrauma ICU

BED 1
morbidly obese female arrest
brain death protocol tomorrow

BED 2
drugged out assault victim
intubated for combativeness
to get the breathing tube in his mouth
we had to pry a bag of *******
out of his mouth

BED 3
21 year old arrest
80 pounds, looks like spinabifuda
claw hands, twisted feet
but no
autistic but no birth defects
just starved to death
by his caretaker brother

BED 5
50 year old woman
potential locked-in syndrome
cause unknown
possible she sees and hears everything
but completely unresponsive
can’t even blink an eye
to signal i’m here

BED 6
51 year old CORE patient
2 day protocol
for ***** donation

BED 7
biker crash
seemed ok until his MRI
revealed a spine so compressed
he spent 10 hours in the OR

BED 9
30 year old car crash
trached, quadrapalegic
buckets of secretions
chugging a wide-eyed
40 breaths a minute

BED 10
man fell out of a tree
huffing cleaning spray
we found a **** ring in the trauma bay
and upon intubation
his ******* fell out

lounging on couch, young naked
chin resting on thin shoulder
she across room, pad on lap
penning preliminary sketches

outside, one sickening screech
of brakes, one suspended gasp
of skidding, one tremendous crash

not a twitched nerve in his body
no stroke broken on her pad

events outside remain outside

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

some visions are pedestrian
workaday
bring them home for night time consumption
then out with the fishbones
but you
you're a memory i'll stick under the tree
unwrap at christmas

saturday afternoon at the music store
browsing those racks of $1 CDs
dismal souvenirs of ambition
tiny graves

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

i don’t know about you
but some nights i go out looking for trouble
sink a few, drop a bottle, jump a rooftop
shout the wrong thing in the wrong ear
many nights really
and sometimes i gotta take my popped knee
busted head and flattened ego
back home to lick my wounds
and enjoy the quiet world i live in

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

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

if you decide to only worry
about things you can change
and when you analyze it
that’s not much
your worries shrink drastically
goodbye weather
goodbye world news
goodbye *******
goodbye fate

all the options compete
for a sliver of my attention
which is split thinner and thinner
but if i’m captured and amused
it’s cool, it’s a good deal
i come out ahead
it’s contended incessantly
that my attention is utterly monetized
subliminally
but i don’t care
i say it’s a bargain
it’s like selling your soul
when you know you don’t have one

"**** 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

gnarly opinions from my algebra professor:

"about a year ago some idiot took pi
out to the ten thousandth place"

sometimes inexplicable (to me):

"i don’t like that Please Aunt Sally Stuff"

awesome litanies of cliche:

"you can’t see the forest for the trees
nobody comes out of the womb running
you have to crawl
i don’t say this because i have free time
or to hear myself talk—
rome wasn’t built in a day!"

sometimes he strikes gold
telling a tardy student:

"try being late for a ship
try standing on the dock
see if they sail back for you"

when the same kid asks the date:

"what does it matter?  you don’t know the time!"

the melodies are fanatical
the harmonies are undisclosed
the rhythms are giraffes tripping

at least
that’s how it sounds to the marketplace

let’s pretend life never ends
let’s pretend we’re free
let’s pretend we’re more than the fungus we resemble
we’ve got to **** down all the vile protein—
smelly warlords, 9-5, gangsta rap—
our brief stay in this fleabag hotel earth
where checkout time is way too soon—
popups, ***** and praying for mercy—
we must plug into any available outlet
and hope it’s not reverse polarity

if i can’t give a lunatic poem
to a lunatic lady
what’s the point of writing one?
well, maybe there is no point

my coworkers bristle
when i say i’m a poet and composer
and that slaving in a hospital is just a hobby
"no," they insist, "the hospital is your PROFESSION
music and writing are just HOBBIES"
ok
so for vincent van gogh
he who never sold a canvas
painting was a hobby?

there is no justice in this world
not in nature’s rules, nor human
the cosmos is a cockeyed moral labyrinth
if you want justice
you must apply it yourself
according to your own standards
and your best abilities
don’t expect to receive it in turn
not even on christmas morning
santa has other priorities

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

you can tell the joke about the guy
who drooled four tablespoons of toothpaste
but you can’t make someone happy
if it’s her day to be sad

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?”

when you have the blues
when you lost something
you’re never gonna find again
you might have the inspiration
to write a sad song
but why would you ever sing it?

play in a great band and no one wants to hear you
write a fine poem and no one wants to publish it
even published, no one wants to read it
looking fine but no one’s looking
got a big **** and no place to put it
******* in front of me, can’t squeeze them
i tell you, it’s a miracle anyone ever gets off a load

zombie apocalypse
what better way to process
all these brain dead monsters
murdering total strangers
and third graders
with their advanced weaponry
you can’t go to the supermarket
without fearing you’ll be assassinated
by the walking dead

the trump impeachment show is a lot of fun
those republications don’t give a **** though
so nothing will happen
but like bernie sanders’ cosmic environmental plan
it advances the conversation