A fighter jet turns on the afterburners
but no false absence confuses me

The antidepressants I take
dull what I recall of pain

Though a ghost of it remains
though I see mostly clouds

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

Like a crack addict,
The poet chases a cheap high

And when it wears off,
Feeling worse than before,
He’ll do anything for another fix
Which means writing down
Whatever ****** pops
Into his head

Sad

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.

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?

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.

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

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 *******.

A live lobster.
A *** of boiling water.

Don't do it.

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.

One of the flunkies
at the journal/review
will glance at your submission
just to say he did,
reflexively hit the REJECT key,

Direct your 3 or, worse, 5 dollar
bribe into the coffers
and think to himself SUCKER.

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.

The needle, the vein:
conspirators.

The body, the brain:
accomplices.

The sweet poison:
irresistable.

Ten years of sobriety?
Those good intentions?
A child's balloon
snatched by the wind.
Gone.

It would be cool
To be a rhyming fool
To rhyme sappy
With happy
To rhyme hullabaloo
With Picachu
To rhyme resurrect
With circumspect
To rhyme yellow
With mellow
To rhyme dirigible  
With incorrigible
To rhyme hellacious
With salacious
To rhyme Jocasta
With pasta
To rhyme moon
With buffoon

And best of all
To make the call
To rhyme maybe
With baby

Then salute the purple cow
In the audience and take a bow

How rich am I?
I wrapped my Royce
Around a tree
And walked away
Without a scratch.

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.

To any of you women
who ever voted Republican
in a Presidential Election

To Susan Collins
who claimed to believe
the assault allegations
of a credible women
(sorry sweetie, doesn't matter)
then gave a thumbs up
on the Supreme Court nomination
of a lying, would-be ******
who only failed because
he was too drunk to pull it off

To any of you pro-lifers
who are fine with telling
an eleven-year old ****** victim
to carry a child to term
(sorry sweetie, that's your
problem not ours) or
"you shouldn't have let
yourself get *****"

Congrats and have a nice life

She’s 79 years old.
She weighs 350 pounds
And spends most
Of her time in a wheelchair.

Every month she sends
Money to her “boyfriend”
In “Australia.”

He promises to visit.
He just needs a little more time.
He just needs a little more money.

It was three years ago.
Then two years ago.
Then last year.
Now it’s this spring.

Don’t try talking to her.
She knows he’s coming.
Just a little while longer.
And it will be joyous.

Shakespeare was just kidding!
They lived happily ever after.

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

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.

Is boring and hard.
There are those
you despise.
There are those
who despise you.
In the cattle car
classrooms and corridors,
you cannot avoid them.

The teachers are smart
but not too smart.
You, of course,
are not so smart.

The hours pass
like a slow moving
train filled with nothing much.
It is difficult to pay attention.

You will eventually move on,
but not really.

This is your life.
You will learn to like it.

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

Get used to it.

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

Sssshhhh! It's a secret.

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.

She comes to my dorm room
from a frat party,
face flushed
stinking of beer.

She rubs herself against me,
tells me how much she loves me,
misses me.

I let her calm down a little
before I ask her,

"So, who've you been
making out with this time?"

I'm with Brother Beavis
on this one

Listening to the song
"Shiny Happy People"
makes me feel kind
of shiny and happy

Listening to it makes me want
to step away from the ledge,
to take the gun barrel out of my mouth,
to unhook the hose from the exhaust
pipe and open the car windows,
to put the cap back on the bottle of pills,
to pull my head out of the noose,
to put away the razor blade

Yeah, I know it was written tongue in cheek
and meant to be ironic, satiric or whatever

Don't care, it makes me feel good

Was not as bad as some
people say it was

It was worse

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!"

Checking out YouTube,
never seen so many people
being crushed, destroyed,
annihilated, wrecked, obliterated,
owned, eviscerated and so on.

Whew!

Cruelty disguised as satire.
Very clever.

And, no Cartman
is not a cutesy Archie Bunker Jr.
He's Ted Bundy
only much smarter.

Starts out as a Democracy,
everyone participating but,

sooner or later,
the jocks take over

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

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

Very helpful!

You give them money
and, for a minute or two,
they pretend to like you.

Most, if not all of them, despise you.
Who can blame them?

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."

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!

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

Millennia pass.
Stars explode.
Empires rise and fall.

What a way to go.

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

Dear God-Fearing, Pro-Life Evangelicals,

This is why you held your collective noses
and voted for a ******, corrupt, creepy,
money laundering, freeloading,
traitorous sociopath. Your fat, ugly,
***** grabbing, Putin-loving ******
came through for you. Congratulations!

When he’s not sexually assaulting women,
Insulting war heroes, the disabled,
Veterans, Gold Star families

When he’s not hoarding
Classified documents, cheating contractors,
Hiring illegal immigrants, stiffing employees,
Kowtowing to dictators, chumming around
With Jeffrey Epstein and lusting after young girls
Who remind him of Ivanka at age thirteen

When he’s not committing tax fraud,
Filing for bankruptcy, peddling nuclear secrets,
Mocking evangelicals, threatening election workers
And his own vice president

When he’s not promising to build a border wall,
Selling products made in China,
Using campaign funds to pay his lawyers,
Conning his supporters into buying worthless
University degrees or contributing to his bogus
Charity foundation

When he’s not losing money hand over fist,
Packing the Supreme Court
Or trying to destroy the democracy,
I kind of like that little two-****** dance
Trump does at his campaign stops—

It’s kind of amusing

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.

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

Meghan McCain
is correct on this one.

The Chinese elite raised
on repression, torture
and butchery, carry on
with repression, torture
and butchery.

But Big Money talks
and the IOC plays
a game of let's pretend.

And Peng Shuai?
Her ****** is probably
first on the list for when
they harvest her organs.

The song that got me,
The song that captured
My imagination, the song
I played again and again
And again—

Now, I can’t stand
To listen to it.

For Brian

Yeah the pay’s okay, but it’s five long days
Of hard, ****** work plus, maybe
Another half day, then it’s off to the bar
On a Saturday night to get completely blotto
And try and forget the whole lousy week.
Maybe you get in a stupid fight
Or pass out or whatever, anyway
You wake up with cotton-mouth
And a terrible hangover.

Your high school sweetheart, who lied
To you about birth control
So that now she’s a stay-at-home mom
With two kids for you to support,
Is already up and out of bed
But she’s cranky. You groan and mope
Around, spend the day doing
Household chores or watching the tube
While the kids make a racket,
The clock ticking down all the while.

Come Sunday night, if the wife’s
In a generous mood, you might get
Lucky but don’t count on it if it isn’t
Your birthday or a special occasion
And in bed, before you drift off,
It’s all you can do to hold back the tears
Because this what you have to look forward
To for the next thirty or forty years
Unless you fall off a ladder first
Or have a heart attack.

No wonder you’re four times
As likely to unalive yourself
As someone in the general population.

One taste of that
Heavenly meatloaf
And, for a moment,
It all became clear to me

And I forgot about
The three days I spent
In the Iron Maiden

It's called Staying Alive
Even if you don't particularly want to

I have an idea!
Let’s do something
Really, really original.

Let’s get an Olympic Ring tattoo!
Better yet let’s get Olympic Ring tattoos
For every one of our body parts.

We can hot tail it to the tattoo parlor
Downtown in our Ralph Lauren outfits,
Pick up a six-pack of Coca Cola on the way
And pay for it all with our Visa Card.

What say? You in?

I'm sorry. I have done
all that I can for you.
The surgeries. The chemo,
the bone marrow transplant,
the cocktail of toxic drugs,
each treatment more desperate
than the last, were to no avail.
I have consulted with colleagues,
scoured the medical journals.
I have wracked my brains,
explored every option.
If I could, I would move
Heaven and Earth to find you
a cure. But, alas, I cannot.
I am not God. I am only
a poor human being.
And so I must let you go.
I commend you to the angels,
to your friends and family,
To the hospice caretakers.
I wish you the best on this
your last journey the one that,
sooner or later, we all face.
I have failed you. forgive me.

Sandusky, Cosby, Madoff:
the wives riding the gravy train,
turning a blind eye

Sandusky: hiding upstairs,
ears finger-plugged, humming
to herself--whatever the Big Goof
was up to down in the basement
with those young boys
none of her business

Cosby: Disarming
his accusers with fake charm,
posing as a good friend while studiously
ignoring all those silly allegations,
as if her Dearly Beloved Meal Ticket
really was America's Favorite Dad
and not America's Most Famous
Serial Roofie-em First ******

Madoff: Hiding assets,
mailing her kids a million dollars
worth of jewelry and trying to keep
it a secret, on TV, she's so, so sorry,
never suspected a thing (okay Pinnochio)
moving now into a pricey mansion,
snacking on caviar again

And the victims? Too **** bad