Behind locked doors
in humidity, Steven
tried his luck with a
nose-full of buckshot;
Poor ****** lost.

"What do you mean you've never seen Blade Runner? My GOD! I didn't think there was a single person on the planet that hasn't seen that. They showed it to us in elementary school as an example of a prophetic, foretelling, social commentary."
"Well, I never was a fan of fiction or science, even though somehow I've still managed to live my fair share of both."
" Do androids dream of electric sheep? What are your dreams?"
"Electric...sheep?"
"Yeah, that's the title of the book the movie is based on, but like, I'm honestly curious about the second part. It's a better ice-breaker than your deprived childhood".
"You wanna' know what I dream? I dream of a world soaked in gasoline, and a lone, shadowy, figure masked by deceit and decay, filling the air with a rotten sulfuric smell as he festers in his own filth. I can't see this guy clearly, but I know him. I know him in my head and my heart and he just stands there, idle, in a place where he can see the silhouetted skyline of the entire wretched city. Trapped between his forefinger and thumb is  a match donning a dancing flame for a hat, performing a flamenco routine for two wild eyes.  Eyes that indicate a sureness of what to do, but make no use of intentions. They seem to sort of flip between question and answer with each dimming and brightening of the match's beacon.  The question appears to already have been answered, but has yet to be acted upon. He's tinkering with the notion.  Is this due to hesitation in the man's mind, or is he simply toying with the already squirming city? The final act is inevitable, yet the ulterior option, to extinguish the trigger, still stands...". He pauses.
His new partner's face has lost most of its color and his mouth is propped open with a jack made of sheer horror and curiosity.
"Well JESUS man! Aren't you gonna tell me the rest of it?"
"The rest of it is: I wake up".
He languidly looks around, takes a pull from the bottle, and proceeds to pull his mask over his face. His partner isn't sure, but he thought he'd caught a smile crack before his mouth was covered,
  "...and not like a haha I'm yankin' your chain kinda grin. This ****** meant it", his partner would recall later to some buddies in a bar.
"I wake up and wonder whether I'm the man, or the match".
He slams the magazine into his weapon and rips the slide back to load up the first round of ammunition. He exits the vehicle, and heads towards the disheveled building that has more or less sunk into its foundation. His new partner shakes his head, wipes his face with his paws of hands, pulls on his mask, and flicks the *** end of his cigarette whose embers have already begun to eat away at the cotton filter out towards the woods. He catches the light from the buckshot of the cherry out of the corner of his eye and imagines that match spinning towards the city.
"What the **** have I gotten into..."

I have ye to thank,
all ye actors and poets and marvels
(and DCs and everything in between)
for I have lived with ye, and amongst ye,
and ye have gently inspired genuine genius
in all ye holes in the wall
and all ye pens and strings and voices.

I thank you for the endless memories
of conversations of unnecessary furor and consuming hysteria
of brilliant surprises from elegant unknown talents
of tossed salad people and places and history and interaction
of a night lost in glowsticks but preserved in pictures
of a time my time in between periods of blank walls
of a blinding bolt forward in presence of mind.

For was it you
who told me about your grandfather
a man so brilliant that a mere conversation with the dean
at sixteen granted him admission to Columbia?
who told me of Canadian interlocutors
intimately engaged, only after your party had left?
who told me of amazing cliffside adventures
in education and nature's nomenclatures abound?
who discussed my heritage against that of a concrete world
of exploding dreams and collapsing stars at once,
where you take a bite but might get the proverbial worm?
or you, against that of a simple hicktown
where tractors run tandem with buicks in school lots?

Might it have been you
who watched with me psychedelic documentaries
and named canaries after variations of drug store medications?
who gallantly tolerated my most obnoxious outrageous disgusting
interesting unaffected out-of-their-mind friends?
who took me to absurd spots at absurd hours to breathe absurdity,
then churted we'd go, back the building we'd known?
who brought me in groups to feast on uncomfortable meats,
but between the awkward and networked gossip pipelines,
were enjoying the food and friends and flattery?
who drunk on dreams, droned on into darkness,
and dripped into ears of a man in his cave,
a man playfully perplexing you by pondering preposterous?

It must have been you
whose beautifully woven music reached my ears,
enveloped my being, seldom alone, and even when solo,
scattered brains with banter and brilliance combined...
who, with an open door and wide smile,
welcomed me to the mind's great opera house,
and gave audience to my own logical saga...
who in the weekend's weak end became crazy dazed amazings,
lazing in listless lack of activity, or senselessly celebrating
sins and kinship, all ways seeking erasure...
who gave me so many names against the grain,
jrosay or nerp or j or jackattack or just plain jack,
your classmate hallmate roommate or just plain friend...
who sat and sang and slew, dragons myths, moods,
and hit and clicked and ripped and spilt, toxins, guilt,
and hurt and failed and walked with me...


at least i hope it was you
you who paved platforms and bridges to raze amazing
and left vast caches of spectacular aptitude
or you who spread brilliance like plagues defined loosely,
grossly self-aware in great stares of embarrassed arrogance
and defeated demons crying freedom and bleeding love
you gave worlds great engravings, new meaning
to be me in new worlds new dreams new things
nooses spread shredded across mind fields
you lovingly led leaders over languid anguish
dangled carrotsticks and heritage bringing peace
you found you finding a place in space in winding time
under universal roofing aloof of stinking sewage
found a truth around music and beauty

shopping cart hearts that gather dust and poetry
blissful obituary tears splashing across my memory
loco rangers of brilliant oblivion armed with toothy news
slaying my molded upbringings refreshing genius

fair chance soul trade and daylong flatlines
double barreled shotgun roulette
blank charge buckshot
noisemakers both

that trigger
firing
you
?

The seven day prayer candle burned out
seven days ago, and the twisted blinds

are held together with chopsticks and moving tape
after snapping in an unresolved haunting.

The nights enter like gemstones and exit like rabbits.

Truth sequestered from skin; I get a haircut
instead of another tattoo.

While shaving my neck with a straight razor,
the bald Albanian barber asks me:

"Which is scarier: people or mirrors?"

Before I could reply he shook his head:

“Trick question. They are the same thing.”

Walking home, I tore up the if-I-die note I had hidden

in my back pocket, and taught the pieces to dance
to the silence of buckshot screaming into a black hole.

The choreography was as patient as pregnant pauses
breathing into paper bags.

To the neighbors, smoking cigarettes on their stoops,
the shredded paper just looked like litter.

I love my life.
All of it.
Every time the sun warms or
Burns; the rain soothes, or
Stings with angry ice; barrel-hot
Buckshot, I
Thank. Thank for the
Weather.
I love my life.
All of it.

It's an art.
All of it.
Every time the axe rests above
Your neck mid-air,
Wink at the masked one
Holding the handle.
Thank. Thank for the
Swift awakening
Awaiting.
Add years to your dreaming.

It's an art.
All of it.

I love you, poet.
All that is you.
You hold an opposing answer
In each hand, commanding
The chooser to hold
Your gaze and keep
Asking.
The best readings rest between
Every line drawn.

I love you, poet.
It's an art. All that
Is you. **** well
All of it.

Sleep safe.
Add years to your
Dreaming.

I'm drawing a blank, here.
Let's spill it all out.
We love everything altogether as it is. Even the things we hate.
We love to hate them. I do. You certainly do.

No relevancy here, please don't even try to understand
This hastily scribbled bunch of swirls
I am just trying to meet my psychological demands
And dance across continental rifts
Deep-sea madness floods

Your brain on the walls
All your memories on my favorite sweater
It's so beautiful to watch your life flash
After your eyes are turned round
And they get all bloodshot
Like my buckshot.


This doesn't make any sense anymore.
What am I doing?
Seriously, guys, what the ****?!

It's so hard to watch the good ones turn sour.
Beautiful and poetic.
"I hate the way things are."

I will never be enough of a man
To dowse my saffron robes
In cold gasoline and set it aflame
In buddhistic conviction--
My dreams would scamper
From my burning head to find another,
My flesh would crack and burn
Like old parchment
In rough palms.

I will never be enough of man
To eat buckshot out of
A hollow cold steely gun
My mouth wrapped around the
Reaffirming thickness--
My eyes would dart and then close
My ears would ring and then collapse
Like an old building
Consumed in flames.

I will never be enough of a man
To wrap a rope round my neck
And stare blankly ahead
To seize the day
From God's hands--
My face would bulge
My limbs would twitch
Like a dying rodent
In the throes of cancer.

I will always be enough of a man
To kiss your lips
With my own and feel
Your curves in my hands
And look at the sun--
My trembling hands falter
My eyes can't see to feel for you
Like a blind pianist
Playing the blues.

What makes you think
that the suffering will stop
if you take off the top
of your head
with a shower
of buckshot
or slice the artery
longways
or down
those pills
with a gallon of wine
fully dressed
lying in bed
with a note
pinned to your chest
What makes you think
the pain will stop
just because your dead?
I hate to break it to you

Here's one for all the suicidally depressed people.
First of all, if you're thinking about ending it,
Please know that I love you, and I really hope you don't
I've been there too, and sometimes all it takes is
One more day to think before you decide that it
Really isn't worth it... BUT: if you've thought long and hard
About it, and you decide to follow through: be creative.

Don't just say "goodbye cruel world" and swallow a
Bottle of sleeping pills, or slit your wrists in
The bathtub, so that your landlord finds you
A week later after wondering about the smell.
Instead, rent an exhibition space in a trendy art district,
Hire a PR team, and pour your investments into,
A highly publicized event, that will be billed as
"The Performance Art Piece of the Century".

Don't worry about how you'll afford it, either.
You can easily take out several loans from
Various banks and payday lenders,
Max out your credit card, bounce cheques etc. etc.
It's not like you'll ever have to repay them.
Once you follow through, you'll default by default!
Then, well, that's their problem, huh?
Meh, serves those greedy ****** right for
Crashing the whole **** global economy
every few years, like they seem to like to do.

Instead of a suicide note, write a manifesto,
Complete with a detailed statement of purpose,
Instructions for preserving your work, and
An incisive aesthetic critique which decries  
"The subversion of artistic autonomy by
The market society", and the uninspired
Throwaway commodity form
That art has become as a result.
Blame Andy Warhol, people will get it.

Then, when the big day comes, and
You're surrounded by those pretentious
Clove smoking, soy latte sipping, Prius driving,
Tofu eating, turtleneck wearing, Soho art district types,
Get a gun and put a canvas behind your head, so
That when you pull the trigger, it splatters an
Aleatoric masterpiece that even ******* would fawn over.
Now, for maximal effect, you're gonna wanna use
Hollow tips, dum-dums, or buckshot in a sawed-off.
If you really wanted to play on the chance operations thing,
You could line the cylinder of a revolver with both
Full metal slugs and hollow tips, so that there's an
Equal chance of the shot creating
a controlled burst or wide array splatter, but
These are just suggestions, It's your art, you decide

This spectacle would make headlines, for sure.
Then, instead of being just another statistic,
To be neatly lumped into a sheet of numbers,  
Stuffed into a folder, and quickly forgotten,
You'll be remembered for generations to come
As that tragic visionary, whose passion was so
Uncompromising, and whose artistic integrity,
Was so utterly unyielding, that you were
Even willing to give your life for it.

Now, one last point of contention, to
Add a bit of weight to the argument:
You remember Thich Quan Duc?
He was the monk who set himself
Ablaze, during the Vietnam War,
In an act of protest. Of course you do.

Nobody knew him the day before,
Except maybe his fellow monks, but
Now his image is immortalized, and
Immediately recognizable decades later, as
The picture that defined a generation.

...but,

Do you remember the man, who was
Fed up with his dead end job, and one
Day finally decided to end it all?
Which one? Who's that? Exactly.
Now, perhaps I've made my point.

Just a thought...

It was a Sunday morning
and by gosh what did I see
I think it was the Easter Bunny
staring out at me
He had a basket filled with eggs
and chocolate butter cups
But when he saw my shotgun
he knew his time was up

He dropped his Easter basket
and fell upon his knees
He looked into both barrels
and said “Mr. If you please
I'm just the Easter Bunny
come to spread some happy joy
From house to house
and door to door
for every girl and boy"

I considered his objection
as I held him in my sights
If he was the Easter Bunny
then I didn't have the right
But his head would sure look pretty
mounted up upon my wall
Right between the Tooth Fairy
and Santa's jingle *****

I pondered this dilemma
and I chose my words with care
"I've shot a lot of critters
but I never shot a hare"
I decided I would let him go
I'd let the moment pass
But when he turned to run away
I shot him in the ***

So now he's mounted on my wall
above the fire place
Between the red nosed Rudolph
and Cupid's smiling face
They'll be no need for colored eggs
come Easter time next year
The Easter Bunny's on my wall...

With buckshot in his rear

Fred’s a peddler of dreams
Between caked on make- up grins
And a dime sack of ****
He puts holes in logic
Like gaping buckshot wounds
While he sells his wares
To a corrupt, pretentious, college indie scene

The kids who sat in the back of high school dances
“Jesus I wish they’d play some Rooney!”
Are now ******* on the tongues of frat guy’s
Who’s favorite songs are narrowed down to a lists of hits
Played by Journey!

The same girls who dressed for cold New York days
In a California heat storm.
Who listened to Bob Dylan and The Doors
But now they’re covered in the sweat of a ******* without the hope
Of *******
Listening to Jay-z
Not because they like it, oh no!
They need to dance
And at least he sings
On key
While kids who made
Wordless promises
Sit in the back
Dropping LSD.

Fred’s a peddler of broken dream
Reach your hand in his satchel
For a fist full of glass shards, and rusted cutlery

He speaks in Biblical urban
Like “Thy shalt not give in, give up, sell out, buy in, peace out!”
And fred is a prophet on E
He’s the only holy man who’s ever meant anything to me
Or spoken a word more then the lessons I learned on Sunday’s PBS specials
I need Fred like a savior needs second chance
And I can find them at the bottles of these sugar coated alcoholic
Drinks.

And I’ll fade to a dim reminder like the scars
On the wrists of the girls and boys who wore the
Nightmare before Christmas hoodies, and understood so well
When they were younger that the only way
To achieve anything
Was to slice themselves under dull razor blades
In bathtubs payed for by parents
Who’s love was occupied by a 200 $ pay cut.
But now the bloods dried and the scars are gone
So 200 miles away and they haven’t learned
A thing
Or done
A thing
And when anything was possible
They need a multiple choice, with an E
For all the above

Fred these are my sacrifices, no love
These are old and weary so now I can sit
And watch the girl drown herself in alcohol
Fred to you I give her.
Put her in your bag of broken dreams
And sell her back to me as a blood alcohol
.40

Fred these are my payment in things I don’t own
The guys in meaningless vintage clothes
Dropping acid
And convulsing in chairs
Until their nothing but blink stares
And steady green lines
With the white noise swan song, and the time
4:40 am
Put him in medicine bottle
Marked “Lysergic acid diethylamide- For mild post college depression”
And Me and you Fred can share a nice chuckle.

Fred’s a con artists
He’s got an empty bag of *******
He’s got all the money he needs
He’s the **** all poster child
He’s the God I always imagined
He’s the best part of the week
He ‘s a lie caught between
Some tongue and cheek
And if I only knew what he said
Was a cautionary tale
And not some well thought out pitch or sale.

Well then Fred’s a messiah
Handing out second chance
In his knapsack.
But his advice
Is deafened by the constant hum and irritating beat
Of a floor drums that’s moving the youth into an early graves.
-Kevin T.

You had two pet rabbits, one named Mickey the other Maurice,
who lived on lettuce bits and behind thin metal bars.
A caged environment set up on the study's wood floors,
with books and a red couch to keep company

and your mom, because she would finish her graphs and stats
on the mahogany desk living in the corner of the room
and she liked the rabbits purr and delicate noses
and would hold them and pet them

when she put down her pen and moleskin and accounts
because, although caged and bought at Pet World
in the strip mall across from Adult World
on the other side of Interstate 67, these rodents gave her comfort,

reminding her of Maine and Jonathan
who abstained from going and killing for sport
with his brothers when they went, in pickups
with buckshot and murdered deer and rabbits,

because she still missed Jon and bought these fluffy
white creatures for 47.99, a good deal,
and they came with a little rock house
that they could sleep and burrow under

like Jon and herself, snuggled in Maine,
away from Palo Alto. So every time I come over,
to have *** and eat dinner and listen
to what you learned to play on piano,

I stop by the study to see Maurice
and Mickey and feel the presence of Jonathan
and the sticky suburban sadness of your mother,
while keeping a secret promise close to my heart,
that I'll never become an accountant.

in the penguins luck the furnace begins
at reprograming the news. Picture frames on 2 x 4s , three
photographs and glass bottles in the most decadent of matrimonies.
Three-hundred million dollars.
And the race riots show 'em who'll take the dampit from the mound of
Soot stained elements, canvas, trash bags, electric guitar riffs, giraffes, bingo, the drip-drop on the drop cloth. Easing into the new processor.

She who settles the wages of crickets with ether and single-barrel vanilla buckshot and maple. Incisors and cynical stereotypecastes and the shadows of the other mugged and loose canonical charades the worser and worsening play their ad keywords at in the sketchmakers many movements her dactyls fine and her fingertips many. Sweet lines of breathing and setting.

Her love it knows no boundaries
I buy for her a cat
My darling keeps a basking shark
In her woolly hat

How many sticklebacks
Are beat up by the frogs ?
My dearest keeps her worn out stones
Underneath her logs

Her touch is like ...a million tons
of rubble from the moon
To charm a thousand dragonflies
Like buckshot as they swoon

I walked across the ocean
To breed her for a while
Out in the Antarctic
Zebra's  que-ing..for a mile !!

My darling sweetlips Octopus
Oh come and marry me ?
But dog said " I FORBID IT " !!
So i'll have to wait and see

Or shack up with a Tortoise
Whose name is Ethel bytheweight
I think i have... should go now
Cos ...she always makes me late !!

I set adrift my chocolate log
on seas of peas and cream
laughing as my head fell off
I dreamt...the strangest dream

Beneath the calm
Of moonlit leaves,
Lying lovers
Shoot the breeze.

When in the moment
Of the mode,
Between the rhythm
Of stride and strode,
Shoot off your mouth
And not your load.

Corner thugs
Will deal you drugs
To smoke or snort
Or mainline shoot.
It's a slippery *****
Of lost freewill,
The up is high,
The trip's downhill.
You're in the cross hairs;
Drugs shoot to ****.

The shooter feigns
Heeding advice,
So craps himself
On loaded dice.

The lawyers grin
Without remorse;
They shoot your savings
Throughout divorce.

The pool hall hustler
Cues his cool,
Looking for
A snookered fool.

Naively, when the children play,
Yell, “Ah shoot!” instead of say,
“Ah ****.”
We say that's okay.
Like saying, “****!”
When they can.
It's in the Bible, see?

Sports Illustrated
Puts out a shoot
Of photoshops
In skimpy suits.

When we say
We shoot meat,
Do we stalk roasts
On city streets;
From our hide
On city blocks,
Do we crossbow
Down our chops;
Do we rope *******,
Then use buckshot?
It's euphemistic,
A rich spadeful:
"We shoot 'em all,"
And that's no bull.

Plasma stains
beneath family portraits
Dust collects
on top of fingerprints

Bit’s of hair, fingernails
jammed in braided rugs
Just knowing
creates a foul stench

Oh, the spatter
that splattered when
Buckshot went off!
It’s been 8 years ago today

Claimed crazy residing
were once he had killed
And he always
plans to stay

Neighborhood strays
never sow to his lawn
They scurry by
whimpering in fear

For a body was missing
the law never saw,
Not even
the protruding ear

Grocers delivering food
strewed cross the yard
And the mailman
hasn’t stopped by in ages

It is said “who gets too close
to what rests inside,
Will be next posted
on the front pages

how are you?i hope youre well.im damp and sore, but
living.
ive been walking through the rain all day.i know i'm foolish.
i know it rains all the time here and water just makes the blue bleed from my hair.
my shoes are soaked. my knees are muddy,
all my sentences keep breaking before
i can complete them.
sorry for not being pretty while i cry.
he led me through the woods while i slipped in the mud behind him.i dont want to be here.i want to go home
but i don't know how to leave, i need you to lead me back.
sorry.i know its not your job to
clean up after my mistakes,
i keep killing myself for unworthy causes.
tell me how much you need me.tell me you don't love me.
i am not grinning, i'm baring my teeth at my reflection.
he keeps speaking to me.im just trying to watch the rain,
would you do the same?
you're uncomfortable with silence, i know.
your shoulders, sloped, broad but weak.
my lips,  wet from rain, sticky from smoke.
hot-headed and cold-handed, i burned my tongue
on the inside of my own mouth.
when i held your hand, your fingers froze
and broke off one by one.
{frostbite never tasted so sweet.}
did you say that or did i think it?i thought we understood each other.
im biting my cheek and wondering why nothing feels right.
this is the fiftythird glass of water
i've drunk today.i can drink things other than guinness.i know
you dont like me when im drunk.
you dont like me when im high.you dont like me when ive been awake for 72 hours,
biting my knuckles and bleeding on my best shirt,
but thats ok.
ive been fracturing bones in dark rooms all my life.
i broke my shoulder on a closet door,
hiding from a celebration,
no crying so no one hears.
my mouth tastes so bitter, no wonder
you never wanted to kiss me.
don't slam the door so hard.i feel it in my skull like it hit me
and not the doorjamb.
don't ask me if im hungry.in my mind,
ive been vomiting for the past two weeks.
i am piercing my tongue with steel.
i could say it started two years ago
that i fired a shotgun in my mouth and
the wounds said they loved me enough to stay and
ive been spitting buckshot ever since.i could say
two years ago,
i kissed someone who didnt care and now,
just the taste of strawberries makes me want to tear out my tongue, but
you know already know
my mythomania is less a disorder and more
a habit i cultivated
to convince myself i was worthwhile.
i like to pretend something made me this way, something made me
see myself as a broken lock
and not a person.
it hurts to admit i've been like this from birth.
im deconstructing clocks in my head.
im extracting your loose fingernails like
garden spikes from soil.
ive had this dream before.
im descending distorted stairs in the dark,
im walking on sheet ice.
im sleeping until the sun sets and waking up in a cold sweat.i dreamt that i couldnt stop dreaming about you.i dreamt of
gently pressing needles through my tongue
while you read my diary.
i am a house half-constructed.a candle half-lit, and you are a forest half-grown
or half-burned,
sometimes it's hard to tell.
i am waking with knots in my hair for the first time in years.im combing them out.
im drying my hair and thinking of you.
im throwing out my umbrella.

A man tore himself apart
It was just the other day
Limb to limb, bit to bit
****** pulp, sinew askew
And now he sits and wonders
Was he always in such discord?
Or was this a fabrication
A fabrication of the mind
Or of the absence of a mind
Self diagnosed insanity
A man who had reached an end
A break, a crack, in his psyche
Exhausted every nodule of sense
Along the highway of consciousness
But how has it come to this?
What was it that sent him into madness?
Was there an actual affliction?
Or did he see his reflection?
He took his manifestation of monotony
Blew it to pieces with a shotgun blast
Picking out buckshot with broken fingers
Each pellet another unanswered question
How many times can a man crush himself
Before he's pressed too thin?
How many times can his world be flipped
Before he knows which way is up?
How many deaths must he endure
Before he feels alive again?
But he can no longer take action
After all these mindless meltdowns
He lays on the forest floor, motionless
Becoming one with the earth
Buried in leaves and branches decaying
The dirt below him is cold and wet
Insects crawling and colonizing
Marching through his rotting flesh
And it all feels romantic and beautiful
Sunlight and serenity fall upon him
Feeling nothing and everything
And then nothing again.

I’ve lead this nation through its greatest
Civil unrest,
Like the last hand left clapping at
Curtain call,
I stand tall, a little too tall, stove pipe
Black hat,
Huzzahs and here here’s, I’ve had
My share,
And my critics would rather load
Their revolver,
Than blow buckshot with their brains
And tongue,
Which is why I’m stuck inside my own mind,
Comatose, near death, and all I can think of is my
Little boy.

White walls, white women, and **** in my
Bed pan,
Through my shattered cranium, I can still see
And think,
Slack jawed and glaze eyed, this isn’t right on
My son’s
21st birthday, who will be there
To buy
His first beer, or cool glass of
*** punch,
Mary Todd abstains from the savage
Fire water,
So Edward, knobby kneed now, please tell
Me who?
To share a malted Schlitz, or fine Pabst
Blue ribbon,
To teach you the proper way a man sips
The foam,
How to crush the julep leaf before crushing
It in,
Your table will be full of well wishers and
Whiskey drinkers,
Your belly will be full of well whiskey and
Sour mash,
Your woman, how beautiful she will be,
Glossy eyed,
Your brothers, yes, your companions will
Be there,
Alas your dear ol’ Dad will not be present for
The speech,
As I have addressed so many
Times before,
But you can tell the story, of fore score and seven
Beers ago,
Your father lay vegetated, weak, tired
Of dying,
With the thoughts of honey hops and
Bitter barley,
The sweet wheat, and your transformation
Into manhood,
You’ll be as lonesome and lost as the
****** Confederacy,
Child, know that your father can not tell
A lie,
That on that day, I will be tapping
A barrel,
In the land beyond the sky, stirring the foam,
Humming happy birthday.

You knew I wouldn't see you
But it didn't hurt any less
Returning cold embraces, warm caress

I knew it was too good to
Keep you from all the buckshot
I forgot, you can't cover the spread
Now I'll have to pattern another gun

One more choke, another run
Cause you weren't true
I lied when I thought of you
Now I'll cry, but know I'll get her soon

where are my ugly people?
shuffling with holed shoes,
defunct ****** organs,
crossed eyes.
those whose strides echo their
genetic abnormalities,
a leg an inch longer than the other (like me),
arms fat with blood,
skin resplendent with eczema
boils on eyelids,
dilated pupils,
escaping from the mirror with
horse tranquilizer
and enough ***** to sink
the state of California.
where are my ugly people,
too long under the delusion of
"finding inner beauty"
by the pretty ones;
straight teeth,
combed and styled hair,
brown and ivory skinned
drowning the streets with their
cackling and condescension.
we should scar their faces
with buckshot,
carve those empty smiles across
their high cheekbones
to be an omnipresent companion.
show them a bit of our own
benevolence;

where are my ugly people
like me?

there are different ways of making love
sometimes in mysterious places
all of you reads this poem
we might just touch bases

let me tell you a story
of a chance I took
After it was said and done
I never took a second look

One night me and my partner
.drove down a country road
it was dark as it could be
and things was about to unfold

we ran across this cornfield
so we stopped and we both said
we were in a pickup truck
so we climbed into its bed

we did not see no trespassing signs
and did not see no house
so we were in the middle of the Act
and tried to be as quiet as a mouse

then all the sudden I heard something
and I told him to please stop
but he just did not listen
then we were put on the spot

and then there was a flashlight
shining in our face
along with a long barrel shotgun
as we stared in total amaze

the farmer gave us a warning
and told us to leave his property
and then we left out of there
which scared the heck out of me

so all that read this story
please watch out for the dark country roads
please rule out the cornfield
because you might get the buckshot
by the heavy load

grass, gas, or *** nobody rides for free
cops and robbers and the indian hides for me
my *** ate grass got gas and then shies on me
my horse got sores got shot, and dies on me

all us poor kids didn't mind to be a tribe
eenie meanie mighty moe never helped us hide
tony two tooth's daddy likes to run around
his mom is gonna play too and "hunt him down"

one two buckle in my shoe, toys in the attic
hopscotch buckshot semi-automatic
piggy goes to market this piggy stays home
then, this old man comes rollin home all alone

sorry coach but this year i can't go out
daddy blew out his knee and my shoe had a blow out
richie rich called his stepbrother a snitch
sweet summer hits with a hickory switch

jump back charlie jack you know how we feel
bacon comes from a hog boy not from a meal
hoppa fence it's 50 cents for stolen fruit
poppa top drop no deposit no returns pollute

Ah' what it
is like
to fly
watching the
world as
you go
by
buckshot coming
at you
from all
sides
surviving
so glad to
be alive
free-falling
gliding
without a
parachute
Ah' what it
is like
to fly
watching
the world
as you
go by.

but I’m just buckshot
caught in a sonnet,
and there’s just too many
shotgun shells
in my diction.

There’s gangrene
in my carrion verses;
each word, a gaping
wound of its own
shrapnel design,
****-filled and leaking

through wrinkled
notebook paper.



A putrid smell instead of
cheap perfume lingers
on sealed envelopes, —
dried blood
in lieu of a wax seal...

waiting to be opened,
and pressed to a numb chest,

where the infection
can spread again,
and again.

Lightshow battle for capsules of fame
DJ buckshot bass heavy blast beats
You are evil; do you now realize it?
When you come here, you are pacified.

No voices, no words, no useless games.
A constant pounding in your head
The frequencies rising and dropping
Speeding up and slowing down
Record hopping
Sample stopping
Echoes from squealing vocal boxes
A drink for the woman behind the mask.

Flash that peace sign. Smile gaps.
It's beautiful.
Tragedy, in essence.
Huge eyes glinting brightly
Raving spirals encasing them
A look of constant fear, or dread, or excitement
Or maybe it's all three.

This is the love of my life.
I feel like I can finally admit that to the world.
You are the love of my life.
She's better than that.
Numb brain.
Bunk in for years.
Never wake up.
But never really sleep.

Every night the bracelets glisten
Take it all off before you go.

Now pick what's truly important:
Your mind or your body.
You'll feel better with sleep.
But if you ride it out, your mind will thank you.

Blue hair.
Shine on.

Dear God,
*******. I am tired of this conversation in my head. I have a cold shotgun barrel pressing to the roof of my mouth. I can pull the trigger with my big toe. Watch me. I can't listen to myself anymore. I lie in bed at night wondering why this stupid **** flies from my mouth. If I am created in your image; you must be really ******. They float on dopamine highs around me riding waves of happiness and completeness I have never known. They sing hymns to you with tears in their eyes. Music playing just for you. Tell me god, do they lie alone in their beds at night wondering if you are real as I do? I am jealous of their childlike faith. I would give anything for their ignorance. They are only human though ,as I am, and I do not see you in the small things or in the big things. Where is your reply letter? Yes No Wait. Yes No Wait. Yes No Wait. Did you know god, that 12 gauge buckshot waits on nobody?

Start slow, deep breaths, shallow steps towards an end, means wrapped in chains and gasoline, the smell of fire itching its way up your nose, the taste of blood tickling the back of your throat, take off running, the forever kind of running, the dead set straight ahead hell bent full body immersion in a fever, pray for your wake, pray for the ones left behind and not for the ones ahead, the journey is holy and nothing, nothing is sacred, let the wind tear holes in your jeans let the cold slice your chest into portions, you are born whole and spend the rest of your life in grieving for that feeling, you search for it everywhere that veins ache and hearts bleed and spirits wait and debts go unpaid and lights stay on, all the time, to ward off ghosts, you cry for it, you write for it, you scream and you pound your fists and you take up arms and you become, in this way, enemy of everything - other, mirror self, target in crosshairs, mugshot, *******, and you fill your days of rage with buckshot and sawdust, while your nights of lust kiss prophecy onto window panes and cheeks and alley ways, read this, understand this: The fury is the only language you have that can't be used against you, no one will ever correct the grammar of your fists, no one will ever tell the barrel of a gun it has misspoken, and when it speaks there can be no mistranslation:
*******, understand me
When I leave I will take this sky with me and never return,
When this burns down I will never think about it again,
I might be full of hatred, but I ain't no god of war
I will throw this feeling away and I will forget where I buried it,
I will make a home in the ruins of something greater than myself,
I will make better from worse or die trying,

We burrow where they lie, our fallen brothers. Old sweats and fledgling crow bags, both. In death as in life, they have our back…and so we plough on into the abyss by the light of a caged phosphorus flare, hot metal spraying the midnight hour like some vengeful fay’s buckshot.

A human scaffold supports us for the distance of four miles. That’s Piccadilly to Hampstead; Circus to Heath. The length of a lifetime…of  hundreds of lifetimes. In the winter when the rains come and the trenches run like a quartermaster’s latrine, the soil sloughs away to reveal the ossuary within. It is then that I, in my now customary delirium, imagine that I can reach out to shake their hand again.

This body
These limbs
Those second hand organs
Part buckshot
Together forming a symphony
Of bad decisions
Inflating the punching bag lungs
Behind my sewer grate rib cage

Persuading my blood
To stay on track
With the veins i've been given
Finding embrace in fires
I can't put out yet
Boiling reasons to feel again
Falling thrift shop short
Heart lunging out
For new parts