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

as hard-hearted "pragmatism"
becomes the norm--
and it has--
our congenial presuppositions
about how we want to live
are taking a beating
but on his way to mars
elon musk clarified the moment:
"the fundamental weakness
of western civilization
is empathy"
ok, there it is
no more mr. nice guy
**** everybody

they may resent that i appropriate
other people’s lives for this scribble
well this ain’t journalism
there’s no who when where
only OH ****
they may not have noticed
art takes no prisoners

when i was a squirt
i hated winter
and swore that when i grew up
i'd move south
where they never heard of snow
but when i grew up
and saw who lived down south
i said **** it
i'd rather freeze my *** off
than hang with those people
and those people are probably just as glad
that i'm living in an igloo

i’ve come to see
people who are a pain in the ***
keep you on your toes

that macking wasn’t easy
the poor kid had it all
and had nothing

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

intelligence = pattern recognition
you’re intelligent to the degree
you perceive patterns
i’ve always believed that
but now i realize
patterns recognize patterns
they corrupt each other
it’s 2 a.m. and patterns diagnose me
they’re nodding to me across the bar
is it my imagination
or do patterns laugh at my simplicity
then stumble off in search of **** complexity
before last call?

the rib dinner with your wife
the cuddle with your daughter
watching tremors with your son
that show you did at sonny’s
rereading wonder boys
the night you were ****** up on ludes with your poet friends
dropping glasses off the table to torture the waitress
these were the peak and you enjoyed it all
you just didn’t realize it was the best it would be
the best it COULD be
you didn’t miss the moment
you just didn’t recognize what you were seeing
you think it’s all-you-can-eat
but the buffet runs out
you think there’s always more
and there isn’t
but there is this

he tripped over a pencil
and broke his ankle almost completely in two
he had a single tattoo on his scary belly
a big-busted beauty
"do you smoke and drink?"
"YES!"
"how much do you smoke?"
"PACK A DAY!"
"how much do you drink?"
'TEN DRINKS A DAY!"
"beer?"
"NO!"
he tripped over a pencil
it snuck up on him

"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

last week i had to put down my little cat peppy
after nineteen weird years of love
sadly now i can leave my boots in the hall
knowing she won’t *** on them

i don’t beat myself up
far from it
every line i write crackles
every note i play sings
but if i had to perform an autopsy
on the ludicrous things i’ve done
and smart things i haven’t done
bypassed opportunities
and episodes i might regret
or should regret
i’d lay blame on short-sightedness
and laziness
not stupidity
selfishness?  yeah
malevolence?  nah
and a low hum of fear
which keeps me human
so **** it
i’m perfect

even as it gentrifies—
all those boxy condos—
Pittsburgh will never turn
hipster chic (Williamsburg)
just pleasantly dorky
that’s cool, in its way

so young, so bare-midriffed
i’m taking her blood in biology class
we’re studying phenotypes
i jab her finger twice
but no gravy
i pinch her fingers
and blood spurts from two holes
as i’m about to poke a third
****
she’s as tight as she looks
yeah, bio students
should have more supervision
when extracting each other’s blood
but it’s some first date

judgmental and uninformed
as enticing as bad teeth
but i would be too polite to point this out

the popstar has his moment of success
and when it’s over, he doesn’t get it
he’s still the same musician
his latest tunes are as good as ever, maybe better
but for the audience, music is but one element
and not the most important
there’s the ambience of the era, the youth of the listener
the poignance, commotion and perfection of those years
that’s why the audience has a lifelong fondness for the performer
but little interest

eventually
all boats spring a leak
and every ship goes down
the ultimate port for each vessel
is the bottom of the sea

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

your bad habit is a problem
only if it's a problem

i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius
i'm a genius

hey, that guy's pretty smart

the election was rigged
the election was rigged

today i’m a respiratory therapist
treating covid patients in a city hospital
the denial of science in this country
is having glaring consequences
the punks that we were at age 20
wouldn’t have been surprised
at the militant ignorance
of some of our fellow citizenry
the difference is that back then
we would have laughed

put on the radio
let’s adore the latest sad fantasy
they’re selling us

we convened to play a book of hieroglyphic scores
bought for a buck at the yearly carnegie music library sale
collectively you could say these pieces by various composers
comprise the music of the spheres
we knocked the **** out of them on friday night
with drums, a cheap synth
and a ukulele plugged into a powerbook
playing these scores today
by forgotten or never known primordials
who channeled nature and magnetism
and yoked them to the concept of music
was like breathing life into the dead
reanimating them
i say death to bach and metallica
those greedy pigs
we honor the others
because we are the others

i'm standing in the rain
and every drop that hits me
is a detail of my life
utterly random
some smack me, some miss me
and that's my life
i'm soaked in accidental events

easy access to guns certainly factors into mass shootings
but an equally disturbing issue is why so many of us
feel compelled to slaughter vast quantities of strangers
i mean, it’s because we can
with all that delicious weaponry floating around
but still, it makes you wonder
i work with a guy who had a son at Virginia Tech
during the shootings there
my wife’s boss had a cousin who died
during the church massacre last year
i was coming to work five years ago
as the cops were swarming the building
on a hunt for the maniac
who’d just gunned down three people, one fatally
these incidents of random ******
have become so ubiquitous that more and more of us
know someone directly affected
that said
the way our government kowtows to the NRA
would be pathetic if not so flabbergasting
i assume the gun worshippers are against mass homicide
though i suspect they admire the firepower
but just as there’s a lot of car accidents because there’s a lot of cars
there’s a shitload of shootings because there’s a fuckload of guns
i believe that; i could be wrong
but i guess we’re lucky there’s no National Nuclear Bomb Association

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

an arrogant conductor hires me for a show
it’s a cultural exchange, as we’re from different tribes
he gives me guitar music, a D chord with 4 staves
i ask him how he wants it played
"as it’s written!"
but the 4 bare slashes tell me nothing
it’s like working in a restaurant
and getting an order for chicken
"how you want this chicken?"
"follow the recipe!"
and the recipe is a picture of a chicken
so i cook it the way i like it
basted with latin flavor
oh, he’s ****** after the show
but the audience eats it up

i was a vegetarian for a short time
smoked a joint and watched a documentary
about the factory farming of animals
when i saw them snip off the faces
of a box of baby chickens
so they could be stacked up
without pecking each other to death
i said to my wife "that it’s, we’re done"
we gave it up after a couple of years
i feel bad for eating meat but i just can’t stop
however
i figured out a way to pay for this transgression
a strategy to balance the karmic score
when i’m ready i will slither into a lion’s cage
and let him feast on my carcass
it’s what i deserve for all those chicken wings

as american society continues to disintegrate
to absurd levels
i predict the new of threshold of battle
will be traffic signals
"how i drive is MY business
red lights are for democrats"

relaxation is an art
which would make me
Leonardo da Vinci

resnick!
for years we worked together in the hospital
i knew him as a villainous old coot
but a stud in his youth
and a rake all the way through
smoking relentlessly in the oxygen tank room
which didn’t blow up, but just coughed
cascading merry cynicism with wicked timing
"for chrissakes," he’d say, seeing me carting equipment
"i took less than that with me to vietnam"
tom told me a ***** joke about rodeo ***
that i repeated on a book tour
(since i’m the ***** poet)
and which turned the audience so hostile
my poems may as well have been covid
tom came on to all women:  staff, patients, family
"hey little girl, you want some candy?"
so over-the-top creepy that it was acceptable
if you squinted
he was triggered especially by denise
a young nurse:  blonde, petite, shy
when she walked by, his admiration calmed him down

now tom’s gone to that great ashtray in the sky
and when i see denise in the halls
i smile and savor tom’s unshackled lust
his peculiar resnick love

i look death in the eye
and say "give me a cough"

had a ****** french meal
dull, heavy and not cheap
but like opera
french cuisine is out of my ken
maybe it was marvelous
all i can say is opera’s not for me

why read a book about richard feynman?
because if it’s well-written
you feel like you could be richard feynman
and that would be cosmic

regarding Plato’s Ring of Invisibility

what could be ventured with invisibility?
Plato ponders filthy ***…  unbridled thievery…
well i tell you
when i think about invisibility
i say i’m already there
as are we all
i’ve got my body
which hardly instigates much commotion
but my thoughts are unseen
ulterior, inscrutable, out of sight
buried in a concrete bunker
i’m a secret agent on a secret mission
which keeps me busy far beyond thievery

level one trauma
woman attacked by two pitbulls
they brought her thumb in a bag

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

that lawn mower
is heavier than it used to be
and tonight i’m paying the price
i see that old age
won’t be the easy transition i expected
i should have known
but i’m a blithe optimist
my trouble will be a diminished capacity
that day by day, takes me by surprise
some days more violently than others
well you gotta live your life
i’ll have to discover my limitations
the hard way

you can tell the joke about the guy
who drooled four tablespoons of toothpaste
but you can’t make someone happy
if it’s her day to be sad

alcohol and *******
and ******* at his wife
he chose to jump out of a sled
and land on his head
his christmas present to himself
now he’s tethered to a ventilator
with a bolt in his brain
his intracranial pressure
is scaling mt. everest
that there santa’s elf
is the textbook definition
of ******* up

five minutes into our morning shift
in the emergency room
we get a fella gunshot to the chest
it might be 7:05 am sunday morning
but it's still saturday night around here

play in a great band and no one wants to hear you
write a fine poem and no one wants to publish it
even published, no one wants to read it
looking fine but no one’s looking
got a big **** and no place to put it
******* in front of me, can’t squeeze them
i tell you, it’s a miracle anyone ever gets off a load

she does the crossword puzzle
with such skill and intensity
it MUST cross over to other dimensions
she’s saving countless lives
on some transfigured planet
she has to be

i’ve decided to know everything about everything
perhaps a tragic endeavor
but i’m optimistic
i’ll follow newton’s 1st law of motion
first a smidge of research
launching observation
floating on instinct
sailing on forever
that should do it
my mind is rippling with patterns revealed
i know about you
i know about the rain
i know about you and the rain
my secret knowledge
is that YOU have secret knowledge
and here’s good news
i will be charitable with my wisdom

there’s one murderous tree
putting itself in front of every car
it’s a serial killer
there’s one crippled kid in the ICU
he’s in every bed
one set of frantic parents pacing every hall
standing shellshocked in each room

it’s a neat metaphor
the single kid and singular set of parents
when there’s zillions of each
but i’d watch out for that son-of-sam tree

i think guns are a pandemic in america
but if every ******* has a gun except me
i figured, at minimum, i’d better learn
how to load one without killing myself
the instructor eyeballed my sandals
and said nope
then handed me crocs and a glock
he taught me what i needed to know
and after firing a hundred rounds
i can say that if you ***** with me
your right knee is going down

i bought a plunger and a bottle opener
it’s all an intellectual needs

i lived with laurie anderson’s keyboard player
back when you heard of laurie anderson
i think the woman’s name was lucky
just roommates, no romance
we shared a loft in times square
that year in new york we were all musicians
but lucky was a star in her own right
"at my level, you don’t have to audition," she said
"oh yeah?" i said
"at my level i don’t give a ****"
we weren’t the hanging-out kind of roommies

old age is a cul de sac
you can rev your engine
but you ain’t going nowhere
except the junkyard
ha!