the doctor said the worst thing you can say
to a family member
"this hospital is full of incompetent people"
he just made life impossible for the rest of us
now everything we do is wrong
you have to paint a picture for the clan  
and that is not the picture you want to paint
the love families feel for their sick ones
metastasizes into worry so severe
that we get splashed with its acid
their love is a blast furnace and we get burnt
it’s sublime to be around such love
but it’s a colossal bump in the road of therapy

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

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

i’m suddenly in a ****** up situation
the patient is brought in tripping
the word is he took peytote
stopped his car, got out and proclaimed himself god
now he resides in the ER
he’d been tied to the cot but his nurse let him loose
"there’s no doctor’s order, i can’t restrain him"
strict regulations
he crawls out of bed and wobbles unsteadily down the hall
i get in front of him to block and redirect
but he’s not going for it
which puts me in an uncool position
he could start swinging on me
and he’s a big fella in good shape
if i respond he could fall and hurt himself
either way, i’m *******
i push him back into his crib
and strap him up anyway
a nurse who knows what she’s doing
says she’ll get a doctor’s order for restraints
once in bed, the guy is docile
"you want some ******?" he offers politely
"no thanks," i say
"i’m working"

shot three videos, posted poetry all over the city
saw the Weegee exhibit at the Museum of Photography
he makes every other photographer fade to gray
read some poems with my fellow sad old poets
at Otto’s Shrunken Head on 14th street
went back to Chinatown (you CAN go home again)
enjoyed that Led Zeppelin movie with my best bud
had drunken escapades with friends old and new
smoked **** for the first time in years
didn't get high while everyone else was baked
a fine conversation with a director at the Holiday
spent two days with my daughter and her kitten
took her to the movies, bought her a steak
hung at her favorite bar when she learned
she’s being sued by a hollywood producer
a fun trip

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?

most of us can get through most days
without melodrama
but can every day contain a moment
memorable and meaningful?
when it was worth the effort
of getting out of bed?
maybe this moment is that moment

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

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

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

you gotta win once in a while
it’s nice to get what you want
but going further
if a train never reaches its destination
the oil dries up, the engine slips, gears grind
fellow trains break down in despair
the destination turns a cold eye
you are stuck

glorious twaddle
launching a generation of ***** feet
book upon book of wishful thinking
a saccharine boozehound
trying to convince himself
of i don’t know what
i say this with affection
i lived it and loved it
but it made zero sense

**** that glittery mausoleum in Cleveland
the real rock’n’roll hall of fame
is the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, NJ
and that went out of business years ago

I DID IT!
did i do it well?
not material
just doing it is what matters
that’s how i explained it
when they locked me up

i’m a tree falling in the forest
with no one around
and i’m loud as ****

here’s the brilliance of Starbucks—
when people order fancyass drinks
they get shunted off to purgatory
to wait forever for their ludicrous concoctions
while i get my simple coffee right away

astounding that art critics
make enough money to eat
i know, most don’t
but kudos to them for conjuring
**** to say about art
when there really isn’t
that much to say
“[critics] praised [the artist]
for his use of color”
well duh
there’s zilch happening on this canvas
BUT color
and what’s there to say
ABOUT color?
“colors vibrate when juxtaposed
and they’re pretty”
then there’s the explication
of toothless symbolism
meaningless to anyone but the artist
and that’s about it
so hats off
my bedazzling scribes

now let's see
if i were afraid of everything
didn't care about other people
thought science was *******
but believed anything anyone said
just because he said it
who would i vote for?

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

all the young fellas shot
languishing in the hospital
with families bedside
grieving and dealing with it

a young woman bedside
gets off the phone
"they just called me
they’re waiting for him to get out
so they can finish him off"

a  mother bedside
"that boy that just left?
that’s the one who shot him"

a family bedside
as i perform therapy
mom says
"you think we’re trash
don’t you"

just had a patient kiss my hands
for helping her out in the ER
never happened when i gave guitar lessons
though it should have

i don't wanna go in the room
according to his chart
the patient got in a car with a bunch of his friends
only to realize he didn't know any of them
they molested him and tossed him out of the car
and when he got to the hospital
he was molested again the emergency room
that's what it says in his chart
i don't wanna go in the room
because when i get out of the room
i may be part of his epic saga

we older american jews relate to israel
we were indoctrinated as kids
israel good, nazis bad
israel good, arabs bad
why would those bad arabs attack israel?
the palestinan problem is that they existed
before israel, unless you go back ten million years
and they’re still here to get pounded
israel doesn’t make it easy on the jews either
it’s so insistent on being a jewish state
that saying anti-zionism is not anti-semitism
does not compute
we’re gonna get smashed in righteous fury for eons
for this particular genocidal moment
like we need a new target on our backs
it’s like learning your uncle is a serial killer
you make excuses
you remember his good side
and there was plenty of good
but that dang serial killing…

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

Frank’s RedHot sauce
the duct tape of food

baudelaire has ****** me over
all you drunken poets know what i mean
old alkies
laughing at young alkies
laughing at old alkies
baudelaire and bukowski snickering at the end of the bar
making me pay for the next million rounds
with a currency of meaningless hangovers
and silly stanzas
free beer and revelation
always tomorrow

i come in to do some therapy
there’s two prison guards in the patient’s room
and there’s jeff sessions on tv again
i involuntarily groan and turn my head
one guard says, "yeah, i can’t stand that little ******"
even the prison screws have had enough of this ****

these poems make me an arbiter of reality
pretty crowded field these days
in fact it's every man for himself

when the laptops power down
and the pens run out of ink
when the cell phones gasp
and the telephone poles keel over
when the band goes mute
and the reservoir in my head is empty

i'll be glad
i stocked the ponds
of the cosmos
and can spend my nights
fishing

the truth is
you mostly don’t care about things
until you have to care about them
a necessary filtering process
for the vast polluted ocean
of existence

you’re confronted by a special kind of stupid
when conversing with an idiot who’s so **** sure
he’s so **** smart

sunny 80s in may
chores around the city
sandals, shorts, ebike
old kid rock tunes
students halfway naked
sidewalk beers delivered by stunning servers
wacky salad pork wraps
martinis at the fancy restaurant
another lovely afternoon
there’s a day off for you
happy to write this poem again
i wish i could rewrite this poem
every day

you know what i like about the Atlantic Monthly?
many Important Articles on Important Subjects
when i read it, i'm Important

alan turing conjuring his everything machine
he built the future
and we’re stuck with it

"i forgot my ID," i said to the guard
as i tried getting into work
"you should have remembered it"
he snapped
"yes, i agree, but being human
i made a mistake"
he glared
admittedly i do look like a terrorist
"you can call my manager upstairs"
"YOU call the manager"
"uh, ok..."
the manager came down, gave a wave
and escorted me into the building
the poor guard was just doing his job
and ******* about having to do it
"why can't people do what they should
and let me sit here and do nothing?"
hey i can relate
i feel the same way about my job

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

aching after aphrodite
turning my back on beatrice
and every night i’m foaming
gathering women into my sheets
stained now yellow, green, red, brown
swaggering across streets, beds, stages
gazing into cameras
not smart, autographing plates at patti’s
but beer blackout bingo, baby
so nasty and ***** on prosper street
conscience passed out on the couch
but she didn’t have to answer the monster’s call
for some the future has a subtle rhythm
for me it’s a few bumpy trips assways down stairs
first for fun, then kicks

hey rockstar
someday you’ll recall your name, your birthright, your peace
but next week will be a ball and a half

as these things go, it’s a happy ending
he tried shooting his girlfriend in the face
the gun jammed so he turned it around
aimed it under his chin and pulled the trigger
surprise -- it unjammed
the bullet tore through the mouth
and exited the left eye, missing the brain entirely
and even though he arrested thrice
before we got a breathing tube in
a week later we’re shuffling him out of intensive care
"hey look, Sure Shot’s leaving," i say to my partner jeff
to which he responds, "you mean Old Dead Eye?"

we live in a world we do not understand
we navigate the surface
the superficial layer
without a clue as to what lies beneath
doesn’t slow us down much

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

to be fair
we were always racist
the civil rights obsession
of the 50s and 60s
was an anomalous blip
witness our recent reaction
to black people's displeasure
at getting slaughtered by police
for traffic violations
america was so appalled
we reelected donald trump

the strapping 20-year-old saw that tiktok video
someone riding a motorcycle standing on his head
looked like a good time
happy stupidity vs. dismal reality
entertainment always trumps education
if the tiktok video had been him in a hospital bed on a ventilator
a broken neck, quadriplegic
he wouldn’t have watched it
though if he had watched it
he wouldn’t have been in that hospital bed on that ventilator
having us unplug him two weeks later

pulling the plug on a covid stroke patient
his brother MUST be in the room
"i gotta be there – i GOTTA be there"
he insists on the phone
and even though it’s perilous to be in the room--
when the breathing tube comes out
the patient will be coughing covid in all corners--
the hospital protocol says it’s a-ok
the man can by all means inhale his brothers’s deadly breath
BUT  
at 4 pm, the anointed time, he’s not there
we call – "are you coming?"
he’s dead drunk and not going anywhere
MEANWHILE
the patient’s fiancé wants to ZOOM in for the end
we set up a laptop at the foot of the bed
aim it at the poor fellow
and as i pull the tube to send him on his way
there’s SCREECHING from the computer
what the hell are we listening to?
is that martin lawrence and a piercing laugh track?
she’s got her tv BLASTING some old situation comedy
to usher her man into eternity

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

once again the sudan is dipped in hell
a ferociously satanic civil war
tens of thousands butchered
villages torched, millions set wandering
and now a famine
babies starving to death every two hours
i was gonna skip breakfast
but instead i loaded up at the cafeteria
four turkey sausage links, two hash browns
and a hard boiled egg
i know it's ****** up logic
but it felt right that someone have 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

"steven’s coming over tomorrow"
my son announced
then went up to his room
spent all day ******* boxes
gluing cardboard planks
coloring
arranging soldiers
the next morning
when his friend arrived
sam ushered him upstairs
when steven saw the setup
he let out a short "ooo"
as sam announced
"imperial city"

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

it’s not a fair world
nor a rational one
an unpleasant
though obvious
fact

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