A buzz-saw a buzzing
Looking back through time
It's no longer the problem
That I thought it was

The tap-tap-tap of hammer on nails
Sitting here smoking a cigarillo
Drinking iced coffee
And thinking of my prime

I make few friends
Sometimes I can't even trust those
Often they drive up
And want to stay which way and when

I'm having oral *** with my trumpet
While holding hands with the dark
I shout out to the heavens
My eyes so full of stars

I dropped a letter to my Doctor
Giving him my order
Soon I will be flush
Not bothered by anything

I always go through them
Way too fast
Then I sit there in the corner
Licking my wounds

Coolers of alcohol
Blueberry shisha
Blazing bonfire
I'm having fun
Who are you to judge me?

Empty beer cans
Ashy coals
Cigarillo butts
I'm a little dizzy
Who are you?

Spilt *****
Tipped hookah
****** advances
I can't move
"Who..are..."

That droll, little romance
was my first cigarette
an Indonesian clove cigarillo.
A year or two gone now,
but I still remember the sensation,
all the adrenaline and the drugs!

It was that nice, accurate drag,
that perfect ****
of smoke and nicotine.
Love was a potent buzz.
It had laughter.
The high.
It - the passion and ardor -  
...so good.

And the subsequent addiction!
I craved it,
took more than there was.
Smoked it to the ****
so fast
it was over before I realized it.
All that remained:
the fizzle of tobacco embers,
the quick-to-dry sweat
of the uninitiated.

Then the desperation.
I wanted it to work!
I smacked my lips for more of the sweetness.
Searched desperately inside
for only a sickness in my stomach
and poison on my tongue.

I’ve stopped smoking now,
but I will always be
just a little closer
to death
than I should be.

let's not be these tender creatures:
these tender creatures who delude themselves with:
oh all the love i can give...
oh all the love i am willing to offer:
the love a white knight
the love of a princess:
i once heard that people live in castles
in the clouds... where psychiatrists charge
the rent...
concerning a queue in a petrol station...
two men...
i must have been one of them...
the man in front... middle aged... pushing it...
besides buying petrol he
bought a tub of ice-cream and a packet
of condoms...
well... obviously his night is settled...
he'll ******* into some rubber and dream
a long dream...
i asked for a packet of 10 cigarillos
while also placing two bottles of the finest
beer available...
Franziskaner - weissbier...
i'm yet to find a better beer...
then again: no! Guinness is Guinness...
it's not a beer to begin with: it's a stout!

for the love of women: hardly...
rusty limbs and not enough: "target practice"...
if i were younger i'd be the "angry young man"
stereotype... how i'm growing older...
i don't suppose wiser is part of it...
i also don't suppose i can love women when...
#metoo etc.: by my standards: not, enough!
it's hard to love when you're not getting
enough practice...
freely: as freely as the 1960s made out "it" being
so readily available...
what a shamble of shackles of nostalgia...
and more: if there was a ****** revolution:
sure... it gained traction with all the women
and a minority of men...
hello: walking abortions...
hello: walking abortions with d.n.a. genocide
sputnik projects: at best while doing
the no. 1 & no. 2: subsequently the no. 3
on the throne of thrones...

i drank one beer and smoked one cigarillo
next to the police station...
it's getting nippy... isn't it?
my ******* are blistered from all the fresh
air as i cycle...
mind you: it's still June...
so cycling into the centre of Romford
to look at the slaughterhouses (night clubs)...
earlier in the day
cycling into central London and...
women... some in niqabs some in...
dresses that could be little more than
the skin they themselves don...
a city that seemed like nothing but
a playground...

if it means anything: i will feed a fill of feeling
melancholic... i just passed the numerous scenes
apathetically...
i don't even hold sway for a moralist's
disgruntling: a clash of competing arguments...
such is their freedom...
a few construction workers were doing a late
shift attempting to crane-lift a bulk of pipes:
one woman among them:
absolutely content with the banality of:
animate objects moving about inanimate things...

mind you: i never liked nightclubs...
they never played the sort of music i'd like
to wriggle a dance to...

come to think of it... scribbling in katakana is
limited: for me... probably not only me:

lao che: jestem psem - i'm a dog...
i'll just focus on the noun for dog:
pies...
           i'm a dog: jestem psem...
oto pies: here-there: there you go: a dog...
beside the freedom letters:
the vowels and N in japanese...
you can't exactly find: two consonants coming
together...
i.e. you can't write: i'm a dog: jestem PSEM...
the rules are rigid...
consonant is followed by a vowel...

alternatively: KITA: a fox has a KITA...
a furry tail...
          キタ ... i imagine some relaxation
of rules: perhaps just a simple...
prefix-              -suffix labour in the chiral
mirror:

          TA- (タ)   could be mirrored to get at...
-AT (let's just use ƒﾀ for now)...

- nightclubs were an expected disappointment...
i was yet to visit one that
might have played:
'you will give your rifle a girl's name...
because this is the only *****...
you people are going to get...'
something akin to combichrist...
some... tool: stinkfist?

maybe my i.q. was below par...
  perhaps... the times i encountered women
they tended to run wild: mostly away from
my vicinity...
perhaps honesty was an acid...
it's not exactly easy to... show affection
to a cat encountered randomly during
the night: foxes are harder to come by...
running a stampede with a harem of nags
is even rarer: esp. if the stag is missing:
congesting traffic... i ran those deer back
into the forest...

no: clearly i'm not missing out on much:
in the flesh-market:
it's just a shame that there are so many
readily available colts willing
to be duped...

By this time of the year (In days of old and times past)
we would already be
                                    
                         ­             skipping off
              
               onto deer trails--------                
^^^^^^^^^^in the woods of Fairview park.^^^^^^^^^^
-
at
    the
          bottom
                   ­   of
Stevens Creek runs through
                         those
                                 steep
                                          hills.
-
We will dip our toes in the slow, murky water
(James came to town)
as the thick, sweet smell of my burning cigarillo
(and the whiskey fell into our glasses.)
lingers on the water's surface.
(It was a race to see who would pass out last)
It is here that we are young; No moss clinging.
(and be the one to see him off at dawn.)
-
That old ****-colored truck with the key broken off in the ignition
will take life with every well-used car I'm in. "The Brown Trout".
Marcus called from the 24-hour gas station on Eldorado
to tell you he broke the key in the ignition and couldn't seem to get the ****** truck started. We gave comedy its due.
What could we have done at that point but stumble into the blue?
I recall forty girls & boys crammed into an efficiency apartment that night
as the bathroom vent sapped the room of smoke, liquor stench
and Nag Champa incense, while the dense fog
of budding lust hung in stasis over our heads.
Boys on the exit living out their tree house fantasies;
drinking away boredom and skateboard injuries.
-
Phantoms of the apartment buildings
(Do you remember Dipper Lane?)
at the end of West Main tell tales of past tenants.
(I seem to have forgotten your name again.)
What does it feel like
(Did you hear something?)
to be a home away from home?
(I've been alone this whole time.)
-
It's four years later and the bikini tree has tan lines,
they cut down the ******* walnut at my old house,
and built my ark from its wood.
Supple leaves line the Sylvan Queen's Kermes colored hair
as we sail for higher ground.
Now the stinging sunlight cuts through the cracks in the wood.
-
I'm examining the border of a much larger picture.
Even now, the resolution grows fuzzy.
You are a leaf on the five-hundredth page of my dictionary. Ginko.
I placed you there on a particularly sunny day in July
when the Magicicadas woke up to the sound of Joe Cocker,
and we both learned the language of the spheres.

2/20/2015

"Lust too is a jewel
a sweet flower and what
pure happiness to know
all our high-toned questions
breed in a lively animal."
Adrienne Rich

So these days i find myself
scouring the somewhat stolid sure shores of
of seeming lust, which Adrienne Rich says is a jewel.
I don't see it
this lenten weekend.

I didn't give anything up,
maybe i'd switched from walking out of dorms into
walking out of cars, right? I laugh as I say this, not really ready
to say I am empty since I was taught to never lie and I do not feel this
after all,

More like a solid breathing discomfort at the squelching snow
on my solid leather workman's boots
lighting a cigarillo with a spark lighter and wondering what
you're up to.
My love's not so easily gained, i'd written once in a diary entry

and I suppose maybe it isn't,
but maybe it is the weather because
things didn't go as fast as I had liked this past
baptismal season but they still seemed fine.

He met her at a bar
in San Pellegrino
Yeah, like the water
but there was more wine
than water there

She was flicking a guitar
that she called "Bambino"
Her papa taught her
but she wasn't the kind
so easy to share

They slept inside his car
outside an old casino
The nights were hotter
than he'd ever find
anywhere

He said she'd be a star
but what the hell did he know?
**** gypsy daughter
broke into his mind
then left him there

She could only go so far
on his euros incognito
The polizia caught her
the guitar left behind
she'd tied him to a chair

She'd emptied out his jar
and his last good cigarillo
Shouldn't a brought her
she's serving time
Bambino in his care

He met her in a bar
in San Pellegrino
He said she'd be a star
what the hell did he know?

I've never been addicted to anything.
A couch and a beer is home with you.
Cigarillo smoke is better when shared.

But I've never been addicted to anything.
Your skin electrifies my senses.
I hallucinate your voice when my mind is free.

Well… I can quit when ever I want.
Your lips make me shake at night.
Your eyes give me the nods.

I just don’t want to right now.
I’ll fight all the demons
for another bowl of you.

Anything, anything for another hit.
Your curves are crystal.
Your smile is nicotine.  

I've never been addicted to anything.
But my mind is full of the thought
of what cold turkey would do to me.

My eyes are the shapes
Of avocado pits
Silver as a new peso
Blue as the Pacific
On the first day of summer

That's what
Madre says.

My arms are fat
Like pork *****
Plump and squishy
They're tanned like
Padre's work boots
He shines them
Every night
Con un cigarillo in
The right corner of his mouth

If madre is asleep
And I wake to ***
He's usually out there
Lit by the cornmeal porch light
The cow milk moon
The bullet-riddled sky

Ey boy, he calls out to me in a whisper
I say nothing
I just go

He picks me up
Like a small dog
Or a fat cat and
Puts me on his knee

You know we going soon? he asks me

I shake my head no, saying nothing

Beyond those hills. Over them.

He blows a thin river of smoke through his lips
The air is still
The smoke hovers there, uninterrupted

He takes his cigarillo from his mouth
Hovers it over my fresh, soft caterpillar lips

Open your mouth boy. Breathe in.

I do what I'm told.

Smoke. Fire. Burning.

I start to cough
Padre's hand is over my mouth
He laughs as he pats my back
With the palm
Of his other hand

The inside of the hand
That covers my mouth
Tastes like tobacco
Tastes like dirt
Tastes like the salts of salt
Tastes like work

You ok, he chuckles, You ok boy.

He wipes a tear from my cheek
I look into his meditative eyes
They are jagged, creased, as if
There is a silent earthquake of fear
Rumbling inside of him right there

Where we going? I ask

New home. He coughs
Jams the cigarillo back in his mouth
Gray smoke rolls over his face
He does not blink

Our new home, he says.

I used to find a pop bottle
And cash it in for a two-cent grab-bag.
Three could get me a five-cent
Wine-dipped cigarillo
To smoke in the dug-out on a Sunday afternoon
With my best friend.
We went door-to-door
Collecting bottles, clothes-hangers and baskets,
Get fifteen cents and play a game in the pool hall;
We traded old Supermans for older Batmans.
Successive generations decrie
Their loss of innocence,
But this one tweets, twitters and instas;
I see ultra-sounds of small penises, and more.
There goes the last surprise.
I'd rather loose innocence than privacy,
For after that,
All you've left
Is the skin of your teeth.

undated

Autumnal leaf air,
with the historical cut of princetonian guile
I walk toward the dull exonerated street
she looks heavenward; asks for a cigarillo
   tahiti bean
we never questioned our being,
        we just floated and
the capsicum katana slicing our
      corneas into julienne,
I tell her I can't, I quit,
never knowing quite what to do
smoking in june outside a wedding with the boys
she cuts me off, fast it's back to
thinking of  melting flower pots and broiled
   confectioner's sugar in my tiptoe mind-
   my toes are flat on the ground I walk with a gait,
          lifting my heels as if i myself seemed an aristocratic soul
                                                             I look up
                                                                  she has walked away
                                                                                              toward the
                                                                                                          candy store
to buy licorice

Copyrights and patents
"What up reality?"
"Whatch you got for me today?"
The Marksman ****** on his cigarillo
His voice was distinct
A whirring voice
Vocable word choices
A man of great aptitude
Never blinked, never winced
With acute paranoia
And a metallic nucleus
Daft
He heard voices
Egging him on
Baiting him
Taking ****
Nuisances
"How's the ulcer oh glorious gunman?"
They said
"Hurts doesn't it?"
"Ready to give out?"
"Put that plastic bag on your head and end it"
The Marksman pivoted and headed toward the kitchen
And made a stew of whatever he could find under the sink
And ate it
"Hail to the chief and send my complements to the chef!"
He put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger
He was buried and had the most dignifying funeral I ever had the privilege of attending

      -Tommy Johnson

tattered flags, wedding dress trains
white fringe, cached in dirt road
like baggy jeans, converse worn like religion.
Stockholm syndrome, always ran away

never left home, delicately telling
time wearing, down eight years
down in the basement, duct-tape cuffed
to a chair, bandage torn off slow

like a drag, on a thick cigarillo
from fat lips, fat teeth
fat, you know the drill
ear didn't clover though, despite her Irish eyes

she isn't lucky, enough
to have scars, that we can see
green with liberty
she is tall, held fire until it shattered

in '17, now she has flash backs
when men in black, held a pen
to her nose and clicked, now
she's just a rumor,

"I hear she used to represent freedom"

"I never knew her"

I believe,
if the statue of liberty had a voice;
and she does...

I believe,
if the statue of liberty had red heels;
she could run...

I believe,
if the statue of liberty was a mother;
and she was,

she would have died,
a loud, running, mother,
too young.

If there was a sword that cut the knot
I never got the joke

never smoked a cigarillo or
blew blue rings that curled like arms
around a girl I knew.

Took some different winding track which
took me back through vocal chords
Christmastime and leaping Lords
and apples in the stockings hanging
from the
mantlepiece.

and when the black cat got my tongue
it made me swear,
not much fun when dad found out
a clout and bed
no supper,
though fed up,
how strange.

That merry dance down the river banks
splashing through the stepping stones.

What now?

creaking bones that tell the tales
of ships that sailed
of dockyard nights and when
Northern lights shone in my eyes
to me it was no great surprise
I loved it all.

Watching the fog as it lifts clear of the day is
like watching a life drifting slowly away,
slowly meandering
hither and yon
( hither and yon are words soon to be gone)

and a Mexican with a mandolin
pulls on a cigarillo
as he pops a cloud with a pin,

daydreams and Sunday

Church

in this house of a higher creation
it's half past six and time to
get your skates on,
ps
Babylon does not come after Epsilon
but it's all Greek
which is nice,

I step out into the cold night,
the town creeks under a blanket of Fahrenheit diamond.
the smoke from my cigarillo wraps around my face,
pleasing the senses with the aroma of tobacco
and wood stoves glowing in the January night.
an ally cat passes in to the night,
I sip from a bottle cognac, as it coats my tongue and warms a breath.
the sound of jazz drifts in the air, leaning against a street light,
waiting for the 2 am freight, and a hi ball ride out west.
bags packed light and foolish, a whistle blows, snow set in.
I hop my car and head in to the darkness
to see new places.not knowing where I'm bound

She ****** in the cigarillo smoke
I ****** in my chest and
in my best accent
said
'hi honey'
she
looked at me for a moment
and sent
me packing

exhaling
my belly bounced to the floor
came back in
and
bounced once more

not funny
I'm boning up on my chat up line
it's about time too, someone said, 'you
should have done it years ago'

When I step outside the
Air’s thick like molasses,

The asphalt of our driveway
Appears to melt and steam
And be this sort of semi-liquid,

I half expect my dad’s car to
Get stuck as he’s pulling out for
Work, but he leaves without
Any lasting imprint,

I wave goodbye and walk back
To the garage for my bike,

Every plant and animal
Is lush and thriving
At this time, basking in
The conditions,

The grass is thick like buffalo fur,
And near the lakes, cattail springs up
Like hormonal teenagers,

Blue Dasher dragonflies
Hunt mosquitoes on
Purple Loosestrife,

Fox Squirrels burrow
Maple Seed inside of
Quaking Aspens,

Rhubarb grows wild beneath
Fields of electrical lines,





I spend these days riding down
The Bass Ponds hill to throw
Molotov Cocktails made from
Mini bottles and lawnmower
Gas,

I go to the Mall of America and toss
Orange Julius onto W.W.E conventions,

I stare at a man who wears a Vietnam veterans
Hat and smokes a cigarillo inside of McDonalds,
Threatening to shoot everyone inside,

I break into my old middle school and
Hoist chairs onto the desks like a poltergeist,

I am in baseball tournaments
And pick-up basketball games,

I swim in lakes, rivers and ***** ponds,

I impersonate mothers over the
Phone when my friends get caught
Stealing and the owner wants to handle
It without the authorities,

I stand on a pedestrian bridge
And spit on cars that are caught
In evening traffic,

I hear Cricket frogs howling for
Their lover as the summer quiets,

I watch the sundown string
Out like warm caramel,

The end to this long strand
Of sunset is the nighttime,

When the moon and stars
Flicker into distant vibrancy,

Where coolness settles in, and
Headlights become necessary,

I return home to see the driveway
As a pitch black mass without a car,

So I go inside, take a shower, and
Remember when I used to swim into
Bathtub laboratories as a child,

When I rose to the top I saw my mom
Blurred because of the shower door, sitting
On the toilet with a book in her hand,

She made sure to laugh when I laughed,
And always asked what I discovered
While on my journey down below,

I made sure to pretend that one of
My toys was the stolen linchpin
To some world-destroying device
That would have put our lives in
Jeopardy,  

I haven’t taken a bath since she died,
So when I leave the shower I know she
Won’t be there and I know the world
Is in danger, but I’m not sure if he is
Back yet, so I tiptoe to the top of the
Stairs in my towel and listen for him,

After getting dressed I make a
Grilled cheese and eat it with
Potato chips,

I sit on the head of the couch
So my peripherals will catch
Any signs from the street,

The night is getting old and
The cars driving by become
Few and far between,

Nearly every pair of headlights
I see is either from a semi-truck
Or squad car,

At this point I decide to stand outside,
Thinking that if I’m out there I’ll act
As a sort of magnet,  




By my front door I see moths become
Icarus, fluttering too close to the porch
Light, soon to be cracked by their fusion
To the bulb,

I am pacing now and imagine
Him nodding off on his barstool,
Setting his sights on a third
Nightcap being served by a tender
That is desperate for tips
And isn’t worried about his drive,

He’s crashed before, and I’ve been
In the car with him when he’s
Swerved off the road,

I’ve told him to watch out and
Stop and that’s a red light more
Times than I can count,

I wave goodbye to him every
Morning as a reminder that I’m
Here and alive, and that I’m
Waiting for him to make it back
With his headlights on,  

When I finally see a car turning
Onto my street, I run toward
It so fast I feel as though there
Are wings on my back.

No more
cigar, cigarette cigarillo
don't smoke no more legal ****
ain't chasing a dragon
don't speed me up the street
oh my god I'll tell you though
My Zippo is litigated to candle