i’m king of the astral plane
and if there’s any justice
i mean, there is no justice
but if there WERE any justice
when i kick off
i’d ascend my throne
and spit lightning bolts
at all the other kings

last day before vacation
so you know you gotta pay
an hour left on my shift
the patient was going full linda blair
arched pelvis grinding out of the bed
trying to pummel one and all
but when i came in the room
i triggered something special
YOU ****
i thought her head was gonna spin completely around
she punched me
people straining to hold her back
as she desperately snapped, trying to get a bite of me
GET OUT
GET THE **** OUT OF THE ROOM
as i got the **** out of the room
i explained to the nurses and doctors
i often have this effect on women

last day of work at mercy hospital
leaving is always fun
it’s the end of the beginning
i won the strong man contest
that nurse couldn’t even lift one “e” tank
i’ve hauled 13,000
after so many deliveries
of so many oxygen canisters
today each one is the last
i’ll never see the seventh floor again
job well done
boss shakes my hand
says come back as a therapist any time
floating like a ghost through these halls one more time
push something and people look right through you
you’re invisible
except to other people pushing
carts of laundry, garbage, lunch
it’s zen, it’s the dating game
it’s martial arts
tai chi, but instead of kicking ***
i’m pumping cylinders, healing the sick
and even though i said so long to so many
i did this so alone
last look

jackson browne's Late for the Sky is an uncanny song
illuminating the moment right before you split
with someone you love
the latenight time when despite all the swerving
you see the end of the road
the grieving and inevitability
built right into the overtones
i liked it before i had a girlfriend
and when i had one and we built a world together
and broke up
i listened to it and shook my head in recognition
and thought what a good song

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

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

people lie constantly
mostly to themselves
cause they're the only ones
who give a ****
we lie about who we are
and that's ok
sometimes it helps us
become who we want to be
a dream is a lie is a dream

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

sharing a dilapidated porch and shrinking fifth of jim beam
with my friend pete
we’re in maine celebrating his fourth novel
eagerly awaited by his ten fans
the sun is sinking and pete has his ruger 380
taking potshots at a statue of cervantes on the lawn
“what’s your issue?” i ask as he clips cervantes’ shoulder
“jealousy?”
“no,” he drawls, casually reloading
“******* never wrote a followup to don quixote”

waiting for the stars to align
meanwhile
there’s tacos, the kids, the cats
and us
and the stars loop de loop
to scoop us up

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

she asks in exasperation
do i ever think about my white male privilege?
**** no
the most privileged part is not having to think about it
then i ask her
do you ever think about your plain old white privilege?
as opposed to being non-white
crucified with every glance
judged guilty of thievery and stupidity
do you think about your money privilege?
wealthy enough to eat in every restaurant in town
while half the world starves
ever think about your health privilege?
strong enough to stroll the boulevards
while others struggle for breath
and lay immobilized in pain
i’m telling you
taking all this good fortune for granted
is the biggest luxury of all
and she says
only a man would deflect the question that way

we shared manhattan
me partying in fetid basements
you dancing on skyscrapers
magic is a mild word
it’s a miracle we’re alive
so let’s hook up one more time
i’ll meet you at midnight
on the tip of the empire state building

make no mistake
this is a country
where men blow the heads off little children
beyond their parents’ recognition
where republicans will not allow democrats
to win an election
where we haplessly strangle the environment
to a breathless end
make no mistake
it all means something
but what--
besides the obvious?

i live for music
but it’s undeniable
music is manipulation
roll over beethoven
roll over taylor swift
"i want to move people"
uh huh
move them to do what?
spend a few bucks?
worship you?
but i'm not talking to you
jeff beck
the man just wanted to play guitar
and **** did he

wine, women and song?
well, beers, wife, jamming...
netflix, lunch...

the problem with aging
is that most things
that were inspiring in youth
are not relevant anymore
and the things that are relevant
are not very inspiring
pop music, for instance
yuengling, nursing students
jumping off a bridge
to reach the honkytonk downriver
they've lost their torque
gears are slipping in every direction
mayhem and pandemonium lose their spark
when they're not a choice
but an inevitability

the hospital is a maze
built in confusing sections
but that’s just the start
the people i deal with
are a maze within a maze
patients, families, nurses, doctors
other respiratory therapists
and superimposed on all this
is another maze
the conundrums i try to solve
a fella fell off a cliff
a jehova’s witness fell off a roof
a 16 year old shot himself in the head
my strategies for keeping them breathing
or not
every one a maze
and i’ll never find my way out

i was an ***** player for a talk show in the southside
one night while tanking up preshow at a poolhall down the block
i snooped a conversation about a stripper birthday party
currently in progress at mcardles pub
mcardles being a bar on an alley in the southside
i made haste for the stripper party
though i didn’t know which alley to head for
alas, mcardles pub stayed aloof
i was toasted and the southside got bigger
with talkshow time only an hour away
then 45 minutes, then half an hour
and i couldn’t find mcardles
many alleys, all blind, no mcardles
no strippers, no off-duty pulchritude
finally, in despair, i surrendered
went to the lava lounge, plugged in my *****
painted my face and put on an indian headdress
i sang "piece of my heart"
sharing my misery with the audience
(yes we had an audience, a good one)
when i was done our mc alexie said
"he looks like one of the village people
but he sang the **** out of that song
let’s hear it for unfinished symphonies"
yeah let’s hear it for me
taking pieces of my ***** heart
and throwing them at the happy drunken
coked-up ladies at mcardles invisible pub

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

life is a series of triumphs
every breath is a victory
but we dwell on defeat
we remember the moments
of weakness and incompetence
failure and rejection
the ones who slipped out of the net
not the ones we caught
maybe if we stood upside down
we’d get a clearer view

i'm going to pretend i'm merce cunningham
on my bike ride home from work
hope it's survivable

i work with miley, a west virginia hottie
one night we're all sitting around
(not miley)
and someone says
"did you hear about miley's boyfriend?"
this afternoon he'd been speeding on the turnpike
deliberately doing 80 past two parked cop cars
they chased him, he stopped, got out of the car
waiving a semiautomatic, wearing body armor
they capped him five times in the head
then found the car full of guns
wow
we're stunned, taking it in
i break the silence
"so you're saying miley is available?"

some jobs require brutal effort
the hammering of nails
stomping on the necks of “citizens”
vacuuming cash from the pockets of “consumers”
men assaulting women they "love"
me, i float gently towards my mission
colonizing the subconscious of this city

we make plenty of mistakes in our belief
intellectually we know these things are not true
but a deeper part of our brain is certain they are
we’re going to live forever
we won’t
we’re the same person we were when we were young
we’re not
our employer gives a **** about us
he don’t
our social media activity counts for something
not in the least
the president is more important than the first grade teacher
nope
he’s just some ******* who won the lottery
all these certainties swirling in our brain
gently nudging us over cliffs of absurdity

he’s so sharp
and gets everything wrong
like a superb computer
without enough information
for its calculation

the patient is quadriplegic
he has epilepsy, cerebral palsy
seizures, chronic aspiration
and he's blind
but mom has it down
she's always been on top of it
from day one (24 years ago)
why mom isn't running the world
instead of these evil bozos is beyond me

let's begin by saying
if you wanna be a hip patient on this unit
you need to have covid AND the flu

i'm extubating a 30-year-old
who'd been complaining the week before
that his life was going nowhere
and he wanted his mom to do his taxes
the discussion culminated with his brothers
shooting him multiple times
all in front of a 5-year-old

i spend the hour before lunch
squeezing a 400 pound fella into a CT scanner
his oxygen level tanking to scary low numbers
he's not a fan of laying flat

after lunch i pull the plug on a guy who
when confronted by police serving a warrant
for ****** and child ****
took out a gun to **** himself
the gun misfired and when he brought it down
the cops felt inspired to help him out
by serving him a buffet of lead

when the addled car accident victim asks for his wife
we explain that she died in the accident
he weeps
half an hour later he asks for his wife
we explain that she died in the accident
"oh i know"
half an hour later he asks for his wife

when i start the shift
a patient is reported to me
as mildly demented but pleasant
"sounds like me," i say

yeah yeah yeah
it’s tough staying true to your true love
but people have no problem being faithful
to appetites and abstract ideas
they have deathless devotion
to *******, pizza, star wars
shopping, automatic weapons, jesus
i myself have been happily married
to jumping jack flash since i was 12 years old
i’ll be in love til the day i die

i checked
with my fellow medical professionals
and we all agree
patients who’ve been shot—
even when it’s much after the fact—
they’re always cranky

bomb-sniffing dogs, towing cars
ripping down my poems
scooping the homeless from storefronts
herding them into the park
i’m surprised they’re not hosing down anyone
with ***** feet

Rami Malek is radioactively brilliant
as the most alienated soul on earth
in the mindblowing first season--
nostalgia for Occupy Wall Street
when the evil overlords
were under the radar
not flying AirForce One--
and hackers were omnipotent rock stars

"try a few more," i encourage
i’m doing a breathing exercise
with a young multiple GSW
"you ain’t no doctor
and i’ll stop when i wanna ******* stop"
an amiable attitude
directly correlated
with multiple GSW

there is no “music”
the word is a vague endearment
applied on a whim
“music” is an adjective

if you can't play your set drunk
you can't play rock'n'roll
no judgment
straight fact
take it from a guy
who rehearsed down the hall
from the ramones

CMB Cold Spot
Unfinished Symphonies
Mr. & Mr$. Funky
Dose
Abstract Impulse
The Moustache Brothers
The Secret Music Society
The Open Improv Lab

i’m tired of my imaginary friend
he’s been loyal
always there for me
but can’t we be done?
i need my liberty
and i know he’s sick of me

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

it’s not much of a mystery
the law says police can **** you
if they’re afraid of you
they’re terrified of black people
so there you go

a relentless weekend in the ER

i kid you not
a man fell off the couch
and we had to rush him to the OR
to pry off half his skull
and staunch the bleeding
to keep him alive

we had another fella
6’6 with the biggest head in the universe
probably 400 pounds
he hadn’t bathed in five years
he was a white man and his skin was black
the nurses scrubbed him clean later in the ICU
an epic endeavor
he couldn’t walk
amazingly he had a girlfiend
who shoved him from bed to chair
to toilet and back for years
supplied him with pain meds for years too
the big guy’s in big trouble now
needs a tracheostomy to keep him breathing
but can’t get one because his neck
is as thick as a chimney
and he’s young—35
his mother and sister came up from florida
they hadn’t seen him in ten years
and had no idea how he’d deteriorated

and let’s not forget the uber driver
who had a heart attack while driving
poor woman never made it
out of the trauma bay

now it’s monday
i’m eating a frozen pizza
watching Paris, Texas
Wim Wenders, Sam Shepard
and Harry Dean Stanton all agree
this world
and every world
is tough to navigate

you gotta do what you gotta do
and even if you DON'T gotta do it
you gotta do it anyway
it’s necessary

as i walked down the hall to the cafeteria
at the hospital where i work
it hit me
i will NEVER get what i want
i had a big laugh
and got a cheeseburger with extra pickles

necrotizing fasciitis
the fat man’s cancer

looks like it’s time for new scrubs
i ripped out my last crotch
picking up a 400 pounder
(off the floor, not in a bar)

dreamt about a hermaphrodite
maybe you can teach new tricks
to an old stag

if you can walk away
nothing happened

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

"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

an 80s tune with zippy synths and chirpy vocs
a song for happier times
you couldn’t sing a tune this bright now
there’s no audience for it

my fellow respiratory therapists hate everybody
nobody gets away
we have a new fella
good looking, young, sculpted, groomed
a nice guy and decent therapist
"oh, the model" says brenda with idle contempt
it’s a beautiful thing