Is a lot
more fun
going down
than it is
coming up

Love it.

The faster the tail wags
The quicker I fold.

The more the tail droops
The more I raise.

And at the end of the night,
I walk out with a bagful
Of doggie treats.

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

So I went in with my Halloween mask
and colostomy bag
and I pointed the nozzle at the teller,
told her it was loaded
and, for sure, that got her attention,
she handed the money over pronto,
then I made my getaway clean as a whistle

Ever **** your pants? Not this dude

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

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.

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!

Has a wonderfully
***** mind.

I'm surprised she
wasn't born a boy.

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

I wanted to see the world
With fresh eyes so I had
A scientist clone me a new pair

A surgeon remove the old pair
And connected the new pair

It was a delicate operation
And it took weeks to recover

But when I could finally see clearly
Again, everything looked the same

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.

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.

When you're not getting
mugged, *****, tortured,
shot, beaten, choked, stabbed
or otherwise terrorized,
Life can be kind of boring.

Bring on the boring.

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.

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.

Are we talking absolutes here? **** right!
Those rich, slave holding white male landowners
made it clear: "the right of the people to keep
and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
and never mind that "well regulated militia," crap.

You're eighteen years old and a law abiding citizen.
Or maybe not. Either way you are "the people"
and anything less is a slippery *****.

First they come for your nukes,
then your rocket launchers, then your bazookas.
Then it's your hand grenades, then your assault rifles
and, before you know it, they'll take away
your right to breath, eat and blow stuff up.

So stand up patriots. Tell them crazy Dems "Hell No!"

Before I pooped my pants
in front of a live audience,
long after the age when
such a thing could be done
with impunity and without
embarrassment, I considered,
even obsessed over the possibility
or, rather, the probability of just
such a an event occurring until
it became, not merely possible
but inevitable, a self-fulfilling
prophecy so that, when it did
happen I was prepared--

I had on an adult diaper.

Before I won the big jackpot,
I'd pretty much lost my faith
in human nature. But after word
got out things changed.

Some of the jocks who used to
slam my head into the lockers
in school called me up to chat
and see how I was doing. And
the girls who'd shot me down
and laughed in my face over
the years texted me on facebook
and asked if we could get together.

Even my mom who ran off
with her affair partner and went
no contact for twenty years
got in touch and said she wanted
for us to reconnect.

Everyone's been so nice!
I guess people aren't so bad after all.

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

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

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.

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.

I'm fine with them until they start
******* and pooping all over the place.

Check out those filthy hippos,
in the zoo or in the wild,
flagrantly crapping themselves
on land or, worse, in water swimming
through their own ****.

But, oh, those sweet, darling animals.

Okay, I dislike the idea of eating them
or stealing their milk but my patience
is sorely tested by the lazy cow
who couldn't be bothered to step out
of the middle of the river before
unleashing a thick stream of ****
that went on and on and on while
placidly eyeing our approaching canoes.

And I was going to go swimming later.

Monkeys hurling feces.
Horses, pigs and chickens fouling
their own nests, stepping
in their own crap again and again
even when they could easily avoid it.

I suspect that, given the chances, they'd
foul up the planet as badly as we have.

Just took my third dump of the day
and I'm tired of wiping
but I'm too lazy to take a shower
so I'll have to take my chances out
in the Big Wide World

Which means taking my heart medication,
which means obeying traffic laws,
which means being extra careful
crossing the street, which means
not antagonizing the cops or the homeless

But if I get struck by lightning
or hit by a meteorite or a stray bullet
or attacked by a grizzly bear
chances are I'll **** my pants
anyway which makes worrying
about it at all kind of pointless

"That was wack,"
the twenty something said,
referring to something I can't
even begin to remember
and it was the first time
I'd heard someone say it
without air quotes
or an ironic smirk
outside of the movies
and someone else called
him on it, saying "that was wack
to call that (whatever it was) wack,
and, so, the argument was on,
because the word itself
was already on the verge of passe
even for a bunch of bored
small town white boys who
were not remotely hip or gangsta
until somebody passed around
a joint and we forgot all about it

It's not just that I ******
It's that to achieve even
modest competency
I had to play a piece
so many times that
I couldn't stand to play
piano anymore

So I sold the **** thing

Rambo Jr. mugging
for the camera, little rooster
cocking around.

See his backward cap?
See his AK-15?
Isn't he the coolest?
Isn't he a Sport?

Looking for trouble?
No, begging for it.

And finding it.

So that, when the little
Dork trips over his own feet,
he comes up firing.

Isn't that what he came for?

In court now,
in suit and tie,
his chubby white face
reeking of privilege.

On the stand, coached
by his high-priced lawyers,
not quite as dumb
as he looks on video.

Such a nice boy!

The chatty judge,
half-senile, loves him.

And the white jury?
They do to.

So the little *******
gets away with it.

Plenty of them out there, forced rhymes,
non sequiturs, contradictory lines,
mixed metaphors, just plain nonsense.

But the music catches you up
and, sooner or later, you're snapping
your fingers and singing along,
mouthing those ****** lyrics
as if they were the finest poetry.

"Get out of the garden!"
No, it wasn't God yelling
it was the angry old man
next door and this wasn't
"That" Garden it was
the small vegetable
garden in his back yard.

And it was two young boys,
their pockets full of carrots,
radishes, turnips and not
Adam and Eve who made
a run for it.

Later, they tossed
their ***** into the gutter
because neither one of them
much liked veggies.

"I'll never tell" or "I'm telling"

Like two sides
of the same coin--
heads, tails,
neither choice bodes well.

Which is more disturbing?

I consider one way,
then the other
and conclude:

They're both really creepy

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

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."

Not a thought did I think
Not a word did I write
No tea did I drink
Not a foe did I fight

Not a mile did I walk
Not a page did I link
No door did I read
Not a putt did I sink

Not a patch did I ****
Not a meal did I make
No book did I read
Not a meme did I fake

Yet here I am, here I sit
Excuse me while I throw a fit

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.

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.

If I'd known, I wouldn't have died

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.

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

On my deathbed,
my bony finger
will reach for
the keyboard
like Adam's finger
reaches out to God
in Michelangelo's famous
Sistine Chapel painting
and hit, "Delete All."

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.

Bandits. Extortionists.
Corporate pirates.
The worst of the worst.

New year? They jack up the rates.
Springtime? They jack up the rates.
Summer? Autumn? Ditto.

Expenses the excuse.
Inflation the excuse.
Hell, they don't need an excuse,
they're Big Cable *******,
so **** it.

Customer Service?
Incompetent or worse,
rude aggressive, dismissive
and incompetent.
A joke.

Tired of dealing with you?
They hang-up or leave
you hanging. Dead air.
You're welcome Buddy.

Shameless. Insulting.

Done with the b------s.
Good-bye and good riddance!

Zombies prefer young brains,
still pink, loaded with nutrients
and yet to be corrupted by life experience.

Zombies sit in their cars
outside grade schools, middle schools,
salivating, waiting for the dismissal bell.

They practice pick-up lines.
"Hey, how's it going?"
"What's your name?"
"Come here often?"

Zombies haunt online chat rooms,
posing as youngsters.
"School ****** today didn't it?"
"Wanna play video games?"
"Wanna meet up and hang out?"

Zombies sit on park benches in front
of the playground, watching, watching.
They bring their puppies.

Don't be a zombie.

Crowbar's "Existence Is Punishment"
playing at full blast, tears soiling my face,
thinking how "I gave my heart and soul to you"

Only to have my love betrayed,
only to be broken like a Ken doll and tossed aside

I could set myself on fire,
I could hang myself from the tree outside your window,
I could slit my throat on your doorstep

I could do any of these things but I won't,
because my selfish darling, I know this much:
you simply wouldn't care

They say he was born running
and, a little later, he proved it,
toddling around in a diaper,
a fake grin on his face,
later yet, gripping hands and kissing babies,
making promises--a milk bottle
in every fridge and plenty of Gerber--
he couldn't keep, riding in the parade,
waving at the crowd, always hustling,
chasing votes, always on.

Poor *******.

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

An exhibition and
Michelle Kwan skating
to the Tori Amos song
"Winter"

Not yet knowing
that the Olympic Gold Medal

she so desperately craves
and deserves will
forever elude her

I apologize in advance.
For the stale cliches,
mixed metaphors,
lack of metaphor,
for the generic flowers,
the pretty butterflies,
the mountains that
inevitably invite climbing,
for the references
to Icarus and Sisyphus,
for the name dropping
and dubious allusions,
for the lack of creativity
and imagination,
for the lack of skill,
for the lack of distinction,
for everything my poems
are not and never will be

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we smart?
Reading at three,
learning poems by heart.

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we clever?
Writing stories at six,
what an endeavor.

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we sharp?
Staging plays at nine,
a bit of a lark.

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we keen?
Making movies at twelve,
blocking out scenes.

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we the bomb?
Multitasking at sixteen,
skipping the prom.

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we a lock?
Making bundles at twenty,
buying houses and stock.

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we the ****?
Rich as Midas at thirty
getting high, getting lit.

Aren't we precocious?
Aren't we sick?
Bankrupt at forty,
we're losing our schtick.

Aren't we precocious?
But where is our head?
Not even fifty
we're spent, then we're dead.

Mirror, mirror on the wall
who's the most wicked of them all?

Putin.