Is not a test or a game
or an experiment,
it's an inevitability.

Don't want to play?
Too bad, you don't have a choice.

Fix it. I can't fix it.
Fix it. I can't fix it.
Fix it. I can't fix it.

I can't fix it.

After the editor
dissected my manuscript
with a sharp red pencil,
he handed it back
and I said, "you killed it,"
to which he replied,
"it was already dead."

Because I can never be honest,
I cannot write my memoirs.
I cannot stain the pages with the truth.
I can only tell lies.

Yeah, there's a mime,
a sad clown and, at the end,
the lingering shot
of a balloon, string trailing,
floating skyward until
it's a mere speck on the horizon.

But really it's about ***.
It's always about ***
and the pseudo-intellectual B.S.
you've come to expect.

Still, I've seen worse.

Newly crowned and she's
already looking forward
to growing old and ugly
so she can reflect back
and remember how it was
to be young and beautiful

You're only a coward
if you crap your pants before
they hang you

A spare, not an heir,
you are the back-up plan,
an afterthought, a contingency.

Get used to it.

Forgot my Social Security Number,
couldn't find my card
so I logged onto the Dark Web.

Very helpful!

I thought Mrs. Asp wise and inscrutable,
sitting in her rocking chair, bespectacled, knitting
and saying little, deep in her own thoughts.

Turns out she had Alzheimer's.

I asked him
the secrets to
a happy marriage
so he pulled a note card
from his wallet
and handed it to me

It read:

The Rules

1. Don't beat the wife
2. Don't traffic the kids
3. Don't kick the dog

Good advice.

After the ******,
they dissect the corpse,
exposing the organs
and viscera and pronouncing
them hopelessly diseased

Satisfied, they wipe
the blood from their hands,
drive the body to the family home
and dump it on the front porch

Take a "moderately gifted" child,
expose him to a crazy stepmother
and let nature take its course.
Mission accomplished.

Victory in the morning,
cancer in the afternoon,
dark night on the way,
these are the dominoes falling,
this is your past catching
up to you our ruling elite,
America's so called Best and Brightest.

Not pretty enough to be a model,
too pretty to be a poet
my mother thought, so she
became an executive secretary
in the days before computers,
typing ninety words a minute

And she was an inch
taller than Sylvia Plath

Faster than an old fashioned slide rule,
stronger than any AI,
able to leap tall algorithms in a single bound,
he is the master of all things technological.

Unafraid of math, science, AP exams,
poking fun at dumb jocks and mean girls,
getting the better of hoods and bullies,
defender of outcasts and the downtrodden,
a purveyor of all that is intellectual,
he is the hero we need in these difficult times,

So, give it up for Super Nerd!

You wanted a ticker tape parade.
You wanted a Rolex.
You wanted a closet filled with designer clothes.
You wanted a trophy case the size of a yacht.
You wanted to be Lebron James.
You wanted to be David Bowie.
You wanted friends in High Places.
You wanted an arena full of screaming fans.
You wanted The Grand Prize.

What you got was a quiet country road
and sensible shoes to walk it.

That's more than enough.

What shocked her most
was how angry they were,
as if her very existence was offensive.

The gang of armed men
and their dogs hunted her down,
cornered her in an abandoned shack
outside of the city proper.

They dragged her by the hair,
ziptied her hands,
as if she were a threat,
as if she could fight back.

They beat and defiled her,
then put a bullet in the back of her head,
dismembered her body,
cut up the pieces and scattered them
across a fallow field.

A year passed before
they allowed her loved ones
to search for her remains.

When her family came to the field,
to everyone's great surprise,
all they could see was green.

It ain't no rock concert folks.
So if you wanna get drunk
and holler for "Freebird"
half the night only to pass out
before the band actually plays it,
you're in the wrong venue.

In this reader's opinion,
a good poem is one that, upon re-reading,
gets better and a bad poem is one
that only gets worse

In regards to the incident in question
and its unfortunate aftermath,
I want to assure the public
and anyone directly or indirectly
involved that I have conducted
a thorough and exhaustive investigation
on myself and have come to the conclusion
that I acted entirely properly and that
I consider myself completely and unequivocally
Exonerated, case closed, and thank you very much.

Let's not kid ourselves,
it's a vice. Not
as destructive as snorting coke
or repulsive as Big Game
Trophy hunting but still a vice.

A quick high
that quickly wears off
followed by gloom
and postpartum depression.

Craving.
Hit.
High.
Withdrawal.
Depression.

The cycle repeats
ad nauseam.

Tried to quit.
So did you.

Sound familiar?

Yes, it's a fundraiser.
Yes, it's for a good cause.
And yes, you're a team player,
a good sport, maybe a patsy.

So you put some lipstick on that pig,
a little mascara, a little blush,
then close your eyes
and picture your high school sweetheart.
You even dare a little tongue.

Sorry folks, it's still a pig.

Pet owners: got a dude,
a feller, a sweet male
cat, dog, pigaroo?

Choose tiny snip,
not big rip.

think about the clinic
and your boy,
your bestest buddy,
waking groggily
to the shocking absence.

Say no to mutilation.
Say yes to a vasectomy.

Let the boys be boys,
Save The Nads.

It starts out with a cup of Joe
that becomes two, three, four, more

It starts out with a cigarette
that becomes two, three, four,
a pack, two packs, more

It starts out with a beer
that becomes a six, a twelve, a case,
shots in-between, more

A snort, then two, three, four, more
A pill, then two, three, four, more

Until you're in as deep as the criminals
in power who started the war

Flames--
and a kiss, eyes closed,
mouth opening--

Millennia pass.
Stars explode.
Empires rise and fall.

What a way to go.

Confused? Don't be.
The one with the most money
When he/she/they dies wins!

It's a temptation to roll
out the vocabulary,
have a parade.

On the other hand,
sometimes less is more.

Can't decide?
You're not alone.

Look,
the bridge to that
lame old life in flames.

You did it, finally.

So, go on celebrate.
Before the moment passes.
Before you reconsider.
Because there's no going back.

In a parallel sliver of the multiverse,
infantryman Tim O' Brien
steps on a landmine near the hamlet
of My Lai in Son Tinh District,
South Vietnam and Boom!
A Great American Writer
never makes the list.

It's always a surprise
to discover that someone
you barely know
hates your guts.

Starts out as a Democracy,
everyone participating but,

sooner or later,
the jocks take over

and, for everyone else,
that's all she wrote

Is like a Higgs-Boson particle,
it bursts its way into existence
then disappears just as quickly.
Gone, gone, gone.

You're a short, ugly, unattractive man?
You don't deserve a girlfriend.
You don't deserve respect.
You don't deserve anything.

So why don't you just crawl off somewhere and die?
I don't want to have to look at you.

So spake Her Royal Highness Billie Eilish.

Robert Pirsig knew
what was really going on
but he promised not to tell.

Sssshhhh! It's a secret.

Yet another close game
decided by a bad call.
Why bother?
Forget the game. Forget the refs.
Flip a coin.

Ask a lab mouse.
If he could talk he'd tell you,
"better than *******."

Use a credit card,
cut it into lines.
Snort it, chew it. Or spike
it directly into a vein.

Check out the slip of a woman
seated at the corner table.
She's smoking a cigarette
and shoveling spoonful
after spoonful of the stuff
into her coffee cup.

It's ubiquitous,
in soda, in lemonade,
sprinkled onto donuts,
baked into cookies.

Fudge, cotton candy,
creme brulee.

"One lump or two?"
asks the hostess.
The reply: "Just keep 'em coming."

The PSA: "This is your brain,
these are you're eyes widening."

Better than ***?
Ask the man
in the leisure suit talking
to the pretty woman at the bar.

"Give me some sugar,"
he says playfully.

She grabs a handful of packets,
drops them in his lap.

He grins. "Thanks doll,
you're a lifesaver."

So it came to the point
where nothing else was working
so we ******.

We ****** crazily, frantically.
We ****** desperately, despairingly.
We ****** without rhyme or reason.
We ****** without hope.

We ****** until we were exhausted.
We ****** until we were both sore.
We ****** and ****** until we
could **** no more.

Then we broke up.

Still want to pony up?

Do me a favor.
Take three ones
or a five out
of  your wallet
and flush the bill/bills
down the toilet.

Don't give the litmag
the satisfaction
of doing it for you.

They scream as horribly
As anyone else
When they themselves
Are tortured.

If they sit you down and
Inform you in a certain tone
Of voice that you have options,
You might as well reach
For that strategically placed
Box of tissues--

You're going to need it.

Treat us like children
or, worse, idiots

Like we're recently
sprung from The Clinic,
our lobotomy scars still fresh

They tell their clients that this
dumb-down strategy works

Sadly, they're probably right

Sorry, can't.
Too much to be done.

Got bills:
a mortgage, loans,
a boat.

Got kids to clothe,
a cat to feed,
a wife to entertain.

Got a lawn to mow,
hedges to clip,
a car to wax.

Got an office party
on the docket.
Bowling league,
tennis at the club.

Got quarterly reports,
license applications,
weekly meetings.

Got vacations to plan,
family to visit.

Got books to read,
trails to bike,
birds to identify.

And all that good air
to breath.

So no, I can't die.
Not today.

Sometimes the best ideas come when you paint
yourself into a corner,
it forces you to sprout wings
and fly your way out.

He survived the firefights
and near misses,
so many that his brothers-in-arms
thought he was charmed,
invisible to Death

Came home after
his third and final tour
and died with a gun in his mouth

In this one, the psychopath isn't Hannibal Lechter,
instead he's intellectually challenged.
But that doesn't stop him from causing mayhem.

Feel free to go with it.

It's an event and you're fully invested:
the gala at the museum,
the marquee match-up at the arena,
opening night at the theater.

You circle the date on the calendar.
You buy tickets close to the action.
You listen to commentary.
You cheer and follow along.
Yes, you're fully invested.

Just don't look away.
If you do, you'll realize,
it's already over.

Just double the regular price,
slap on a Fifty Percent off sticker
and call it even. Hah!

What do I know about horses?
What do I know about the female point of view?
What do I know about how mathmaticians think?

What do I know about Quantum Mechanics?
What do I know about the Appalachian Trail?
What do I know about a mother's rage?

"Write what you know," advises the manual.
Okay.

So let's forget about the horses.
And the article on Reverse Transcription.
Oh what the heck!
Let's just forget about the poem altogether.

Forget it.

I said, "it's not that I'm lazy,
it's that I don't like work."

He said, "it's not that I don't
like work, it's that I'm lazy."

We pondered that
for a while, then decided it was
a "po-tay-to/po-tah-to" type of thing.

So we shook hands,
wished each other well,
and went our separate ways.

So, yeah, Lear
had three lovely daughters . . .

And, yes indeed, Ahab
was obsessed with a white whale . . .

And, sure enough, Scheherazade
feared for her life . . .

And, uh-huh, Lucifer tried
to stage a revolt . . .

And so it goes,
mixing the sacred and profane,
the sublime and mundane,
in prose both fancy and plain.

Offered up to you, the listener,
the reader, the consumer

by various authors
with their various agendas

"Friend, lend me your eyes,
your ears, your undivided attention,"
they implore

It's up to you whether
to accept the invitation or not