drop a sock at 4:30 in the morning
soft landing, no damage
my wife sleeps on undisturbed

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

my identity is so slippery
my empathy so complete
(empathy, NOT sympathy)
that i’m not sure who’s me
when strolling a crowded street

you know
maybe jobs are SUPPOSED to drive you insane
the more i consider it
the more plausible it seems
what job DOESN'T drive you nuts?
maybe “employment” was designed
to wreck your mind
the overlords’ secret agenda

today i want to play my harpsichord
and i have to clean the gutters
why wouldn’t i play the harpsichord first?
we all know the planet’s in bad shape
what if the world ends at noon
and i cleaned the gutters
and didn’t play the harpsichord?
tragedy

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

alienation isn’t profound
it’s the nation we live in
but my alienation is epic
i’m alienated from the hepcats in this dive
the ladies who ignore me
the god who hides from me
the cops on the street
the politicians who “represent” me
the managers who “manage” me
the hicks i work with
the patients i work for
myself for eating meat
the motivation that abandoned me
the technology that sidetracks me
the music i’m commanded to enjoy
certainly the dart players
the capitalists, the communists
the smokers, the foodies
the carpenters, plumbers, electricians
rats, tigers, lions
the trolls who hate anyone who does anything
i do love cats and dogs
alcohol agrees with me
i’m popular with bartenders
i dig commercials
and the people who read these poems
thanks for listening
sorry

next time you drunkenly bring up suicide
“you guys are better off without me”
i will once again drill it in your soggy noggin
we are NOT better off without you
if you die, much of us dies too
you will ******* me
you will ******* your son
you will ******* your daughter
and all the good things you have done
will be erased

when i was ten years old and we were moving
i recall those sessions with the real estate agent
i was suffering and she was happy
i was watching my world disintegrate
leaving my friends, my school, my home
my sister and i would never feel comfortable again
and this real estate woman was having a ball
enjoying the transaction, making a few bucks
digging life
i remember wishing we could make an even switch
i could be her, happy and whole
she could be me, losing so much

now i work in a hospital
and as i treat the weak, wheezing and dying
spending time with them and their families
and their desperation, resignation and grief
while for me it’s just another workday
punctuated with lunch and coffee
i see they too wish for an even switch
they’d leave me languishing in the bed or waiting room
while they hop on my bike listening to the beastie boys
on their blissful way back home

had a great time in new orleans this year
sad to hear about that brain-dead *******
with an empty life and nothing better to do
than launch his truck into a bourbon street crowd
on new year's eve,
14 dead, dozens crushed
and oooo, he served honorably in afghanistan
and probably had unmet mental needs from the war
and yeah, wonder where this twice-deployed vet
got the bug to slaughter folks he never met?
he was a hardworking family man
he helped out the lady upstairs
all these random mass murderers have a story
and the search for their motivation
is served up to us as entertainment, really
at this point we have to dodge the raindrops
you can't go to the supermarket
without the possibility of assassination
the world is brimming with violence
but this growing american obsession
with murdering arbitrary strangers
seems unprecedented
an especially nasty example
of american exceptionalism

sometimes your brain just gives out
like any other exhausted muscle
you get a neurological flat tire

exile is our fate
looking for a way home
even if we’ve never been home

exiled from my pulitzer
from my place at the algonquin roundtable
barred from the scotch of st. james 1966
john lennon’s holding my throne for me
but i can’t get in the club

exiled from our world conquests
our lives of leisure
exiled from the parents of our past
our children and ourselves as children
from the summertime of youth
and in the end
exiled from this ****** earth

as i play with the building blocks
of my perceptions and conclusions—
of course i’m an existentialist
i didn’t make the road
but i’m in the driver’s seat

exit interview
with the manager
you’re both ******
he opens his trap and you snap
"shut up phil, and do what you do best
sit down and do nothing"

he was combative, strapped to the bed
but he could still express himself
he spit a tooth at his nurse
“and there’s plenty more
where that came from, *****”

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

today i'm in the ER
trying to treat an 89 year old woman
babbling in an obscure urdu dialect
that baffles her translator
her grandson found her so annoying
he locked her outside last night
in zero degree weather
first pushing her down
giving her a subdural hematoma
well, she is kind of annoying

a couple of homicide detectives
just showed up for my patient
his daughter shot him
he can't get an MRI
due to fragments from a previous gunshot
i wonder who shot him that time?
his mom?

imagination is my best drinking buddy
i’ll always pick up the check
on this prison planet, fantasy is the liberator
it pulls down every cloud
undresses the ladies
expunges adultery
pulverizes the patriarchy
obliterates mommy
flattens fatty tissue
bulldozes boredom
annihilates procrastination
decimates iron-poor literature
gobbles up poverty
overthrows the workplace
abolishes taxation
liquidates profit
exterminates capitalism
confuses the cops
torpedoes certainty
trashes common sense
wrecks mortality
exterminates the divine
fantasy, the one-stop shopping mall
of freedom

back in new york my life was a narrow vestibule
but my dreams were cathedrals
reality was vapor
fantasy as concrete as 8th avenue

here in pittsburgh i’m living the life
but my dreams are deflated balloons

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

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

i’m frankenstein’s masterpiece
constructed from so many components
dad, husband, respiratory therapist
poet, filmmaker, musician, artist
applied physicist, philosopher
bike rider, weight lifter
coffee drinker, reader, television addict
taxpayer, consumer, sucker
emperor of my universe, peon
fearless, fearful, fatalistic
and i know a heap of ***** jokes

Frank’s RedHot sauce
the duct tape of food

sadly we’re all born to play supporting roles
but the prisoner by subtraction
is free to imagine anything
he can make you and me zombie slaves
concubines to his fantasy
he has that right; it’s kosher
while we wear chains of responsibility
shackled to the civilities of liberty
exercising our right to spend money
on **** we don’t need
he can steal it all
he can dream us to death

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

it's very clear that i am the genius of me
it's also quite obvious that my uncanny insights
do not extend to anyone else

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?

admiring of the ladies
cordial to the fellas
dismissive of the management
indifferent to the work
on line for the coffee

ginger is the star of these movies
fred is a special effect

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

"Society of the Spectacle" by Guy Debord
a founding text of the Situationists
it's like social media was invented
to intensify what he's talking about
our reality is a manufactured representation
of course Guy Debord's life
was yet another glorious failure
his canny analysis changed nothing
but it can be argued that glorious failure
is the way to go
otherwise you're not thinking big

the supergenius' race-baiting strategy
is gonna bite him in the ***
his base (in every fragrance of the word)
will still boogie down with its war-dance
but he's gonna motivate a lot of people
to put a brake on the fascism

things didn't end well for mussolini

everything is a battle
between good and evil
loosely defined
which is a problem
every impulse is between life (good)
and death (bad)
which already pulls you into grey
because life for you
is death for a chicken wing

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

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

a wacko version of hamlet

the patient came up to us raving
GOODNIGHT, GOODNIGHT
a naked swollen giant
his basketball *****, his endless belly
every system failing
we prepared to put him out
so we could stick a tube down his throat
plug him on a ventilator
and insert lines for safekeeping
GOODNIGHT, I LOVE YOU
he tried to lean off the bed
take it easy man, i said, restraining him
SUSAN  
who’s susan? asked the nurse
GOODNIGHT, GOODNIGHT, GOODNIGHT
good night, sweet prince, i said as we gave him the drugs
GOODNIGHT, I LOVE YOU, GOODNIGHT
we intubated him and took him down to the OR
where he passed twenty minutes later

i can't say i've had infinite pleasure
but i've had pleasure an infinite number of times
and it does add up

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'm my best audience
engaged, attentive to nuance
amused by my dry wit
dazzled by my intellect
astounded by my intuition
i am entertained!

i worked christmas and the day after
both time-and-a-half days
unless you worked christmas
then the next day wasn’t overtime
that’s ok
i wouldn’t wanna break the “nonprofit”
with my unbridled greed

if the company you work for
says tuesday is wednesday
unless you have a union or quit the job
tuesday is wednesday

so much joy with mom & dad, grandma & grandpa
my little cats spikey, spooky and pep
but the memories are tinged with grief
my delight has a halo of melancholy
so much love but i miss them all
i grieve at their absence
it’s a heavy thing

i don’t feel that way with michael, jack, al, the duke
it’s light, it’s buoyant, jubilant
they’re gone but they gave me stuff i still enjoy free of charge
i smile when i listen to the band dada which jack turned me onto
i laugh at all his whining, which was his way of processing life
and the duke trying to beat me up over cindy
the bartender throwing us both out
another night when he jumped on stage at cbgb’s
to purloin the mike from jeffrey lee pierce
making showbiz history
then there’s al’s consoling wisdom
when the old trache patient croaked in front of me at midnight
a shocking horror show and i still had rounds to finish
al simply said "this’ll happen again
you’ll be alone at the end of a dark hall and a patient will crump"
which did come to pass (alright, not such a merry memory)
but he framed it in a way that made it possible to cope
and michael, my long-haired james dean socrates
he was so cool he made a *** belly look tough
three years older, orchestrating the coolest moments of my youth
presenting me with smoking, music, ***, girls
taking on the creepy priest who scared the **** out of me
when he told me i’d go to hell for being jewish
michael jumping in for my defense, bold and brilliant
at age 12 getting in the clergyman’s face
"how do you know he’s not going to a jewish heaven?"

no grief for these guys, just a lifetime of laughs and inspiration

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

some artists are genres in themselves
like Dr. John
when hacks replicate them for profit
Monkees vs. Beatles
Beastie Boys vs. all of hip hop
sometimes they strike gold
they’re playing the fun parts
distilling the hooks that work best
making them better than the real thing
sometimes phony wins

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

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

last night my wife jabbed me in the ribs
to stop my snoring
i woke up and listened to her
snore up a hurricane
that’s a happy marriage

happy wife, happy life
and even though there’s no such thing
as a happy wife—
most likely she’s married to a man—
it doesn’t hurt to aim high

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

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