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

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 make noise on the piano
can't really claim to play it
this morning i grappled with sheet music
simplified to kindergarten level
trying to get a handle on Handel's Bouree
a hapless hour happily spent
in the afternoon i visited the symphony
to hear a dude play Mozart's Piano Concerto #22
i came home, opened a beer
and went back to mangling Handel
now if for some reason
the pianist from the symphony
found himself in my basement
and observed me butchering Handel
i imagine his reaction
would be sympathy and encouragement
"he's really giving it a good try," he might say
"for a mentally challenged person"
but if someone told him
no, he's normal, he plays in public
and occasionally gets paid
our virtuoso would be be disoriented
rattled, drowning in mindblown disbelief
"no, this is not a world where that can happen"
then the horror would set in

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

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?

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

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

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

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

**** 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

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

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

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

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

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 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?

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

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

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 ****

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

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

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"

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?"

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

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

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

"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

"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

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

Frank’s RedHot sauce
the duct tape of food

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

what happened?
what will happen?
where are we really?
and the why is a lost cause
why does that man have only one arm?
we will never know
we’re sunk in a swamp of boundless mystery
but we’re rolling fine without any answers
it effects the price of beer
but we’re gonna pay it anyway

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

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

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

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

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

trump’s gonna decimate the tourist industry
you think people said
“gee, i wanna visit **** germany
looks like fun”?

what the world chooses
to reveal about itself
to any individual
is highly selective
idiosyncratic
you might call it a tease

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

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

"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"

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

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

xylazine, horse tranquilizer
croc, the zombie drug
must be lots of fun
you’re getting high
while your legs disintegrate
you shrug
"gotta take the bad with the good"
we had a patient come in
we could see his femur
the actual bone
and we could smell the problem
from out in the hall
he was scheduled to get the leg chopped off
but first we pulled out the breathing tube
so he could decide if he wanted the amputation
or preferred to get septic and die
when asked how he let things get so bad
he gave an intelligent answer
"because i’m stupid"

on the day i reached enlightenment
i wrapped myself in blankets
for a smudged moon
ferried a snare drum and trumpet
on a bicycle of varese
annointed all nymphs worthy of me
and told the nurse with the ****** rings
i was ready to polish her brass
i slaughtered the innocent
loosened the bowels of intellect
and figured it the **** out

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

my mansion is home to rats
i’m stashed in a studio in the bronx
i’m an olympic athlete with a beer gut
my last hit tune was analog
once upon a screen a movie star
now no one wants to see my face
my covergirls have moved on to husbands
my investments reduced to empty wine bottles
and while none of this is true
i’m living that way
a ruined aristocrat

biking to work at 5 a.m. on sunday morning
i see some malevolent ***** on saturday night
has dragged the sign YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS
from the sidewalk to the middle of the road
what was going through this idiot's mind?
"this is gonna be epic
have another beer and let's wait for the crash"
i drag the heavy base and flattened sign
back to the sidewalk
someone did indeed smash into it
but it's still dangerous
if that ******* had half a brain
he'd have seen that the only way to avoid the sign
would be to swerve head-on into the opposite lane
but maybe i'm mistaken about his motivation
maybe that was the point
maybe a car hadn't yielded to this pedestrian
and this is his revenge
"**** the world
starting with the ******* in this car
and all cars"