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"

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

if you listen to music you actually enjoy
you win
it’s hard to nail the moment of pleasure
for things that are pleasurable
but a song is a bullseye

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

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

call it religion
slaughter the heathen of choice
the easter bunny commands it
call it education
keep the kids prisoner for twenty years
then crush them with debt as they exit the jail
call it government
watch king and crew siphon money from the realm
call it entertainment
knock out the brains and ******* the senses
call it love
a mess
call it life
a tremendous blip in the firmament

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

it’s not about you at all
you get swept up in people’s definitions
hung on the wall in someone’s frame
you’re artifact on the edge of their radar
to your family, you’re a son daughter sister brother
and technically yes, your mom bore you
(and still does)
but must you accept all that goes with it?
you were born in new jersey
must that make the sopranos and bruce springsteen
your problem?
artists paint you as lame and superficial
the boss works you like a crossword puzzle
to the government, you’re a fraction
to the rich, you’re money to be spent
to the cops, an obstacle
to the bartender, a lousy tipper
they convince you, they’re persuasive
but must this be your face?
it takes a lot of energy to break free
you escape once to find yourself in another cage
it’s a russian doll of captivity
maybe it's not worth it
how many times can you wake up
and say **** it?

if you have 4/4 going on
it’s cardiac rhythm
you like 1&3, i like 2&4
but either one gets you on the train
you can layer anything on top
saxophone, guitar, synth
barking dogs, crashing cranes
airplanes, aggravation, nuclear ordinance
moans, groans, koans
your heart’s dancing

the showbiz failed in room 63
"you look like you don't like your job"
said mrs. patient
i laughed
"i love my job"
"you don't look like you love your job"
"this job is great"
"i don't believe you
if your job involves other people
you should get another job"
i laughed again
"i will consider it!"

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

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 never imagined
homosexuality would be mainstream
gay marriage would be legal
or a trans person could walk down the street
without being eradicated

on the other hand
the reaction to all that freedom
has conjured an openly-stated longing
for violent fascism

never imagined that either
when i was a kid

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

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

one corner of my job in the hospital is chest physical therapy
pummeling people on the back to loosen the junk in their lungs
a grueling effort requiring strength and stamina
i’d broken my arm, bike v. pothole, had been on disability for months
and now i was back at work for several weeks
but chest pt hadn’t come up
until this morning
i wondered how it would go
i positioned the elderly patient for proper drainage
and commenced beating the **** out of him
i snuck a glance towards his head
the old fellow was grimacing like an outraged skull
my arm felt fine and i thought
i’m back, baby

look at this:
"adobe meat-free beef jerky"
subtract the beef from beef jerky
what remains is an edible toxic dump
and that’s not a bad idea
drop the masquerade
erase the window dressing
from now on the only commodities in my kitchen
will be vegetables and a bowl of sugar
a plate of salt, a platter of caffeine
a dish of alcohol

people are chromosomes
so we shouldn’t be surprised
when we act like chromosomes
bivalent bonding
after a couple of drinks
it’s chemistry

from the shower across the dayroom at shaver psychiatric
naked as the dawn, a spring in his step
his nuts hanging, he’s a happy man
until he slips in the doorway to his room
falls and hits his head
he wakes up to find eight of us staring at him
"are you with us sir? we need to assess you"
he’s still stark naked
"yeah yeah, ok, hold on a second"
he grabs a towel and starts buffing his nuts
"we have to get your blood pressure sir"
"ok, ok, hold it a second," he says
continuing to polish his testicles with ambition
the scene goes on unchanged for fifteen minutes
he’s way clean and dry down there

now every time i take a shower and wash my crotch
i have to smile

i'm a curator of all that dissipates and evaporates
not only memories of my grandparents, my dad
now my mom
but the flesh tonsillectomy i performed on the rocks
in maine when i was 17
my wife's heartbreaking smile
and "come on down to my boat, baby"
a happy 60s tune no one remembers

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

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?”

as i was playing my ***** at a sidewalk cafe
three bums who’d monopolized a table for an hour
exchanged belligerence with a guy boarding a harley

i don’t know how it started
i was busy with my unfinished symphonies
but i felt the violence in the air

"get off the bike," said one of the mooks at the table
the biker jumped out of his seat and took off his helmet
a hollywood handsome moviestar stud

"come over here," said the seated blowhard

"oh, i’d love it if you took a swing at me"
the biker announced to the whole street

staredown; poseoff
the fools at the table didn’t rise
no thanks
the biker was winning just by standing there
bragging about how he’d love a punch in the nose
he didn’t have to approach
only wave his arms in bring-it-on jerry springer motion

then he overplayed
"my lawyer would love it if you hit me"

a roar went up from the table
"the guy rides a harley and when it’s time for a fight
he hides behind his lawyer"

it was a complicated macho standoff
an intricate defensive moment
the bums had backed down
but the biker had blown it

he climbed back on his bike
"yeah you’re real tough guys"
while the table which had stiffened in NO
taunted him with his lawyer

moral:

***** music incites violence

just had a conversation
with our cafeteria worker/union organizer
he’s on fire in his 5 kilowatt way
someone took down his flyer
at the hospital starbucks
"it’s capitalism," he fumed
as he gave me my biscuit and gravy
and a LOT of bacon
since i’m a fellow traveler

"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 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!

sitting around the thanksgiving table
the turkey was yummy, the weather turned frigid
conversation mellowly roamed to tales
of childhood abuse
"when our son was a baby," i recalled
"we watched him trying to crawl
and our then-brother-in-law Nick
a self-styled hardass and an *** in general
asked what do you do to discipline him?
discipline him from doing what? i asked
pooping his diaper?
you know Nick, as a kid my mother slapped my face
when she thought it appropriate
we negated that strategy for our kids"
my wife, who often recounted beatings
she took from her dad, then told a story new to me
her mother's family were russian immigrants
and when her mother was a kid
and did something to set off her dad
he would make her kneel on a wooden plank
until her knees bled, then he'd rub salt in them
we all thought about that
until my wife said, "we have cookies"

one of the mellower insults of the aging process
is that things that were cool in your prime are utterly forgotten
if they’re pulled out of the attic everyone chuckles
and giggles at you for thinking you were cool to like them
even if they WERE cool and you WERE cool to like them

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

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

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

1.
when you're a few pages into a novel
you might decide--
is this the world i want to live in
for a week?

2.
useful or useless?
pertinent criticism
for any work of art

it’s a shocker
that earth is still spinning
on its axis

"**** 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

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

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

another day of israel
digging its own grave
their strategy of dead kids
is a real winner
of course
hamas keeps insisting
it wants to wipe out israel
a handy excuse
for more dead kids

ruth buzzi lay dead on the lawn
ruth buzzi, star of rowan & martin’s laugh-in
dayglo spinster with a hair net
like a spider web on her scalp
foil for arte johnson
remnant of a comedian
lay stiff on the lawn
my wife placed her there for decoration
she thought it was perfect
well it was perfectly disturbing
our friends were uncomfortable coming over
i reasoned with her
"we can’t have kids here"
but my wife thought it was a cool garnish to the house
she laughed, fixed herself a tito and tonic
and plomped down in a chair on the porch
admiring the lawn

my neighbor keeps her bicycle chained outside year round
that was MY plan when i moved in here
i see her bike in the rain, i see it in a blizzard
rusting, sneezing, freezing, wheezing
i chuckle every day at its deterioration
i didn’t do the stupid thing, by accident
on a whim, i made the wise decision
and every day i’m a smug ******* enjoying it

america is living in two eras simultaneously
to the white nationalists, their desperate crises are current
the latest news-- they MUST storm the capitol
to the educated, this is history
fascists?  nazis?  
a rerun, hard to take seriously
leaving them defenseless

maybe you've been running hard
and you still have more in the tank
but no destination
so you floor it
and that's your destination

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

playing the ***** at a puppet cocktail party
couldn’t be an easier audience
but my check is still in the mail

saving a skinny woman with chest compressions
single-handedly so-to-speak
i wasn’t alone but i’ll take the credit
the others were weak, i was going heavy
and that’s when she came back

resurrecting my villain for the TV series Heroineburgh
an afternoon shoot with 3 young ladies in tight spandex
acting!

saving another woman with team compressions
went on for 60 minutes before her heart reignited
a christmas miracle
though i unplugged her 2 days later
continuous seizures

getting 3 of my 4 bands on one compilation
that and a quarter would give me a quarter

falling off my bike twice in 5 minutes
car ran a red light, then got doored in the bike lane
today was the first day my sprained wrist allowed pushups
(helps with those chest compressions)

making a money hat for the video i’m shooting for the Dumplings
they’re the Rolling Stones of my favorite bar

went to a hypnotist at the Fringe Fest
failing to get hyponotized
"you were obviously resisting," said my wife
i don’t know
i think i’m just obviously me

playing my ***** on a movie stage
for 8 second segments with the movie
don’t ask
we made $96 and bought tacos for $95

now i’m listening to my swinging new louis prima album
reflecting on this groovy month of spring

the doctors dithered for days
whether to amputate the patient’s leg
it was a bone of contention

i bought a chevy impala station wagon
off the fire chief of hackensack
it was safety yellow and glowed in the dark
had a ball on top but the chief took it with him
still a switch for it on the dashboard
way cool
until the master cylinder snapped
on my way down a steep viaduct
with my two kids in back
no brakes all the way down
splashing into a busy intersection
at the bottom of the hill
sure wish i’d had that siren

cooler still was the car before
bought for one dollar from my uncle
who’d inherited it from his oddball best bud
a scientist/author of a popular cosmology of the universe
it was a 1973 gold dodge coronet
the name conjures ancient cop shows
a huge sporty firebreathing beast
eight mighty pistons and an oil leak
i drove it for two years
until the vital fluids gushing out like the mississippi
forced me to abandon ship

the greasy kid across the street found a buyer
we waited for him one saturday morning
around the corner sailed the identical car
same color gold, same year 1973
couldn’t have shocked me more if two statues of liberty
came crashing into each other in hudson bay
the four cuban dudes driving up were thrilled
cannibalism in their eyes
my car was stripped for parts as they disappeared

now i have a new minivan and ball-busting car payments
nobody gets cooler as they get older

this morning in the ER i met a large fella
who jumped out a second story window
escaping his girlfriend and her knife
he landed on his feet
unfortunately for his feet
dude should have cleaned the cat box

on the one hand
i missed every boat
on the other
they all sank

some ******* have way more
than their share of luck

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!

tom walks to work
and i bike here
we keep track of the rain
the snow, the cold
because we’re in it
we feel the scorching heat
our colleagues who drive in
live in a dream world