a whim I thought riding about
how numerous are the title loan places
and we are getting where pharmacies
outnumber convenience stores

I used to see on every corner a bar
or a massage parlor
a fast food place

I am going so hungry I'm going now to
the corner to pawn my ambien
for some food.

http://youtu.be/RGFytiWwsRo
(this is a link to a video that I created for this poem)
Ridgewood (Where We Wait)
We take the most delicious train
to the Queens-Brooklyn border to get here
Where everything is liminal, uncertain, undecided
Even the foundation, Arbitration Rock, at the house on Onderdonk
Was buried for centuries, dug up, and chucked on another imaginary line
The streets are on a grid, and the border on a diagonal
making a stair-stepping hypotenuse of the confused
A challenge to put your time to good use
even on the oz-like yellow brick road on Stockholm
You hear Poles on the street muttering “Marnowanie mojego
czasu tutaj” through the bachata dripping
from the apartments above the stores on Fresh Pond Road

Two of the best restaurants in the boroughs
Rosa’s pizza and Zum Stammtisch mark
the north and south borders of the hill where we wait  
During the seventy-seven riots, Ridgewood
seceded from her stepsister, broke from Boswijk and Breuckelen
-
There’s racism here like carbon monoxide smoke:
at the Ridgewood Y, a man sweats through his shirt
revealing swastikas pierced through the skin underneath
and the Romanian dentist down the street drilling
says “Cred ca am pierd timpul meu aici”
through the machinery scream and burning enamel
she won’t say this if you understand what she means

Walking past the 99 cent stores and the pharmacies,
remembering that there is good, fast, and cheap
But you can only have two of them at the same time,
Crazy Loretta, under her navy knit woolen hat
in her pink sweatsuit and winter coat, smokes
her shaking hand-rolled cigarettes below the train
trestle grinning with her jaw-jutting through
her inch thick specs.  She waggles her chicken bone fingers
saying, “Hiya honey” when you walk by.
If you are brave enough to stop and talk to her,
she’ll tell you that her nephew plays
for the Texas Rangers and her daughter
is a doctor and she’ll probably give you bedbugs
She’ll tell you, fascinated, like a child: “when you squish them - the blood comes out”
She’ll tell you the same thing tomorrow - Loretta forgets.  
In her mind, a phrase like green smoke from her youth
Ich glaube, ich bin meine Zeit hier

The playgrounds are packed with children
practicing how to swear, the girls huddled
reading Twilight like the Bible, and the boys
huddled reading the girls like the Bible
A woman yells to her son to come home a third time
and mutters “Creo que estoy perdiendo mi tiempo aquí”

Buried in Machpelah Cemetary less than a mile from my house,
is the place Houdini is still staging his greatest escape
He has a wide audience.  Sometimes I think there are more dead
residents of Ridgewood than living ones.  The cemeteries stretch
the borders of the appropriate spilling into Christ
the King high school’s front lawn.  Driving Cypress Hills street,
the Manhattan skyscrapers rise looking tomb-toothed parallaxed and
blurry through ephemeral sepulchres, stones, and cement angels pointing at the sky

On one of the stones it says simply: Videor perdo temporis hic
I think we are wasting our time here.

I've got friends who work in pharmacies
And talk about nothing but addicts
And I've got friends who are addicts
Who talk about nothing but drugs
But what am I supposed to say
To my drug-addled friends
When you're the only addiction I have
And there's no cure for
My pharmacist friends to figure out?

The fat lady came out first,
tearing our roots and moistening drumskins.
The fat lady
who turns dying octopuses inside out.
The fat lady, the moon's antagonist,
was running through the streets and deserted buildings
and leaving tiny skulls of pigeons in the corners
and stirring up the furies of the last centuries' feasts
and summinging the demon of bread through the sky's clean-swept hills
and filtering a longing for light into subterranean tunnels.
The graveyards, yes the graveyards
and the sorrow of the kitchens buried in sand,
and dead, pheasants and apples of another era,
pushing it into our throat.

There were murmurings from the jungle of *****
with the empty women, with hot wax children,
with fermtented trees and tireless waiters
who serve platters of salt beneath harps of saliva.
There's no other way, my son, *****! There's no other way.
It's not the ***** of hussars on the ******* of their ******,
nor the ***** of cats that inadvertently swallowed frogs,
but the dead who scratch with clay hands
on flint gates where clouds and desserts decay.

The fat lady came first
with the crowds from the ships,s taverns, and parks.
***** was delicately shaking its drums
among a few little girls of blood
who were begging the moon for protection.
Who could imagine my sadness?
The look on my face was mine, but now isn't me,
the naked look on my face, trembling for alcohol
and launching incredible ships
through the anemones of the piers.
I protect myself with this look
that flows from waves where no dawn would go.
I, poet without arms, lost
in the vomiting multitude,
with no effusive horse to shear
the thick moss from my temples.

The fat lady went first
and the crowds kept looking for pharmacies
where the bitter tropics could be found.
Only when a flag went up and the first dogs arrived
did the entire city rush to the railings of the boardwalk.

I don’t ****
With the farm life
At these pharmacies
Affecting brains
Like the mad cow disease
These pills
CVS deal
Like the new
Dope man

Dopamine can be
As mean
As the M and M’s
The doctor prescribes
Dropping dreams
For a little bit
Of “rest at ease”
While the rest
Of these fiends
Lie
To themselves
And me

Meaning
The mean green
****
Killing machine
Can extract
The euphoria
You make yourself
By resting eyes
On your family

Your fam would be
Much happier
If you were
Happy
For yourself
More water is
Fine
I don’t need
No help
Championship ****
I don’t need
No belt

Pants sag
Like the bags
In grandma eye’s
Cries
As she tries
To pry dope needles
Out a dead man's hands
Handing himself
To the Devil’s food
We put on
A pedestal
Meanwhile stools
At the bar
Spin like the
Mind
Of a man with little time
Left
Right in the eyes
Of his children
He makes
A short trip
After one more sip

****,
I guess
It boils down
To the bear essentials
Bear the bruises
With the heart
God gave you

Don't let them fool you

god i think i could die happy now if i could just stop thinking, but i am rage,
sleepless nights, fake premonitions,
i know its not real stop telling me its okay cause even if the ceiling stays steady i still cant sleep,
i know it will fall. i know i will dissolve.ill be fine after i write,
writing my name on a monument of trash,  
scratching out epitaphs on gravestones, dead but still twitching,
still electric, still choking on my own hands,
three am with gravesoil pressing on my lips and sleeping pills dont work anymore.
six am with the water so hot i can almost feel it,
red skin/black lungs, anode/cathode, electrical circuit and a broken bulb.  
current like signal fires drowned in desert light; please notice me im here please help me i know its bright but
my nightmares havent been banished by daylight in years.
december 11, 2014, thursday 10:41 pm: the people in my sketchbook are realer than i am.
there is gum in my mouth and it tastes like blood.
across the room i see an omen and welcome it home.i imagine my hair fades to murky gray.
i imagine myself at thirteen, i imagine learning to spit out poison
before it trickles down my throat,
i imagine i learned im not broken before i accepted it as something
i could never change.  
i think im sweet.i think im insufferable.i think i think about myself far more than anyone else ever will,
a placebo, a replacement for god knows what.medicine for an unknown illness,
downing whole pharmacies to **** a malaise, i cracked when i realized
i was not a work of art.
nothing beautiful, nothing to be admired. unnoticed at best,
smoke signals in a foggy sky, i am angry.im unclean.ive never had a dream about you,
my mind is polluted every waking hour but asleep im
unaware.in my nightmares strangers loathe me,
loved ones hurt me,
and those i hate are absent.im scared to have no outlet for my anger.
im scared to have no scapegoat for my hate, i don't hate myself.i dont.i dont. im so
talented,
im so gifted, im ******* blessed, why do i hate myself so much -
youre so happy i want to die.i want you to die.i want us to die,
i want the link between us to die, how do i cut you off when youve burrowed yourself into everything i love,
you tainted everything when you came,
you sunk your claws in the flesh of my arms and called it an embrace,
decided
this is a good way to live,
and i shake, spite and spit and staring down,
try to pretend you dont exist.
youre rotting meat.youre flies and falsehoods am i the only one who knows
you're a ******* fraud.you lied to me.
you said i want you to care and i heard i want to eat you,  
i want you soft and easy to swallow,
[even soft i would rip you apart. im vast. im endless and youre just a girl]  
you said say something and i heard appease me
before i tell them all how sick you are.
[they know!!!!they know, everyone knows, ive never been an actress and ive stopped trying]
in fantasies youre on the floor, youre crying and im laughing,
shouting every lie you told so you hurt
just as much as i did.just as much as i do.do you feel guilt?anger?envy?
do you write poems like this about me,
do you hate me too?ive never been good at assigning blame.was it my fault?
you were a burning coal and i was a stupid kid/you were a cobra and i believed you when you said
bites dont hurt.i want to be hurt.i want a reason to feel this sick.please, please,
directionless anger, unplaceable implacable pain,
hyperventilating in a quiet room[please, im safe, im safe, please dont, dont touch me, please dont **** me]
who are you talking to? i shrugged, laughed,
you know, i can feel my bones under my skin when i sit too still.
i can feel them shake.
im trying to drown myself from the inside out, im trying to become a shark
and not a girl.im trying to eat my illness alive but i feel so
soft.my teeth cut nothing.  
december 12, 2014, friday 1:11 am: the air feels like velvet in my throat and i think im choking,
winter always made me sick. summer makes me slick, slime,
a melting statue, tears and sweat and god knows what else.
its winter and im frozen over, fevers every night. your neck is so slender she said,
a swan's neck she said,
all the better for wringing, i know, i know.an unwilling martyr,
im not here to be killed.im not delicate and meek i am huge, towering,
thick-necked like a bull. try to strangle me now, i have no feathers to pluck,
only sharp horns strong legs and
unapologetic rage.i will trample you. ill gore you through dont come near.dont touch me.
you think i cant hear you breathing but i know youre there.  
i remember my dream and clutch the rails. plot gone, words gone,
but a face and soundless mouth and a smile like i know what youve done.
these words are too cold for my mouth.i freeze when i speak.
a void trapped within thin stretching skin.
black hole waiting for my chance to implode.
i can feel it between my lungs, pulling.dense mass.collapsed star walking the crust of a
blue planet.when i die im taking this with me.when i die im taking you with me.
you thought you could just  watch me wither?you thought i would burn out,
i am cold as empty space and i am wearing myself raw and
when i burst
i will not be the only casualty.
i am so scared of  my own body. i am so scared of my own mind.
sleep doesnt come easy. december 16, 2014, friday 12:04 am: i am trying to tear down my own thoughts.
trying to fell redwoods with bare hands,
ending with ****** fingertips,
splinters beneath the nails.a childish fear of churchbells,
metal at the back of the throat body of christ in the hands, when i blink i see stars.
when i ***** i see coffee grounds.
the valley is flooded with fog and i think im dreaming,
fantasies drying like mud on my boots - gauze and gods,
surgical tape like a prayer.
caribou hearts
rotting in your cellar. do you understand? im trying to explain. wringing my hands to squeeze out the sin,
they can smell the blood i disgraced.see how easy it is?i can play along.
they play a dirge when i walk down the aisle.funereal,
an ossuary body fit only to hold my bones.
january 1st, 35°F,
i am a forest fire.im washing my face in magma, hot and hurting and numb.
burning off the skin. searing off the gauze.

I

in the dark starvation is real.
In dark, the emesis that fills my
cheeks is a currency I soak inside, animal
coinage, the fine
bulbous talons of Sepiidae.

Savagely, pelagically
starving made me rich when
Muskrat’s claws pull apart delicate meat.
Sad Spanish blood, I would like you
to panic about what has been lost.
No body, no crime—we are all cannibals; so the muskrat ate
flesh from the dugong-heavy remora

a parallax of sorts occurs
when I cannot find my own entrails—
perhaps they are ruminating in my gut—
boiling in my optic nerve.

But–I found little boys betting quarters for eating bowels
of goat. I was small enough to fit through
playground gates so I could swing
swing in earthquakes, and portents
ride out this day on the waves—to succeed

foothills, grasses, and bath salts
by the creek. I got my quarters.
They asked me who made me as Mountain
Dew dribbled down my chest.
Infant teeth shattered my infant

fists and I did not eat divvied livers and
Victim watchers.
I wrote on
my protruding
viscera
proverbs from my ancient days


–extraordinary porch things, depleted
Phosphorus, and, on bendable limbs
I catalogued my windscraped knees.

How does one so young
become
so fed up with
hunger.

II

Starving made me easier to tie.
easier to lift.
my ancient autopsy of starvation
made me feel gutted out
like Finished
ice-cream containers.
Made me able to hold my breath for
up to six minutes—starving
made me full of Household Gods and rickety
rosaries,

small brown globular clusters,
1 arcsecond of stress
capable of aligning me
with spring-loaded washers

I pop one nut—two—
Dental Work can be a rhizome,
ordering wee-soldiers from
its tethered nodes without
lactation, laceration, infection into
my sleep-deprived throat,
Choking on bird chirps
and x-ray bursts

below the cradle where
my android sleeps. I
have named him The Alabaster.
(Synching The Alabaster.)
The Alabaster–Allie–is a kind of boat
that I have hole-punched into; like
children of the deep I have hurled
nearby rocks into its lungs.
I have wrenched crumbs of my honeymoon
sidewalk, for a beast that panics.
I would trade
the last of the dugongs
for a muskrat’s smile–
now there exists a cult for Plastic
that the spotlights started,

and in the night it will not
end with the filter feeder sinking
to the depth of the imagined water column,
spinning in the Gyre disposal.
There isn’t a colander large enough
to sift through the pejorative waste.

I knew the night would be fraught.
It makes my fusiform body necessary for
transport. Makes Monophyletic solid consumption
trucks and ACE arms reach for
well-behaved spearfish bodies.
Makes days disappear and cold
seem like simmering.
Makes staying out of sight
a trim.

And I told them,
the Fusiforms and Balusters, that
the spearfish would devour the hero who comes
from afar bearing the gift of travel–
Tully-Fisher, with his cottonseed oil
“Manufactured in USA” in
compounding pharmacies.
He made me.
And I told him:

to Tell me to trawl for something less
plastic than my second
self–that I which exists
in Mary Poppins cannons, compact
intimacies, medical and portable–

to dig within my throat, discover a nurdle
that failed to photodegrade during the the day
the Sirenia sang,
the Muskrat gnawed off his leg and hand
fed it to the remora.
III

My mouth is parched
for diagnosis of rickets, for
my un-mineralized bones.
I need RR Lyrae, Statistical π,
population “II”s
to stand in for my night.
I need Sweetened,
Spoonfuls of BB pellets and
Spoonfuls of cepheids to help
the tetany go down,

myopathic infants and
ricket Rosary symbols only work
in sacrifice–In this sense,
I have constructed a panic
architecture–Craniotabes are too
vast. Prions and viroids have seeped
through,

Infections more than dreams,
for injured muskrats who yearn for
the last real mermaid’s smile,
or tears if that would smash open
the cluttered ocean and scatter
the unwanted hosts multiplying
in my spinal fluid.

In day there is no more starvation–
the remora bring me
Libations and admire
my six pack rings mobile.
My connective obligatory.

Under my fingernails are thin
crisps that may somehow create equilibrium.
Although I nibble them regularly
I can’t always swallow.
Surrounded by a dense fog of fleas
my tongue is itching.
My teeth are scratching, scraping
away the space that will always be there.


The antique aisle at the local international
superstore is handing out shriveled
heads of past didactic patients.
But I tell them it’s not what’s there that matters
it’s what’s not there. And in my case
there’s a surplus of nothing that
I can live without.

we
don't want any of your ******* sorrows
we don't want pretty frowns and lip biting sympathy
don't want a ******* protest song
no no no we don't want a hand on our back
we want one wrapped around this sledgehammer
to help us knock the walls down
and not to look at us in the pharmacies
and the grocery stores
and the waiting rooms
and the therapist chairs
whispering
a lazy generation
*******
you know what my earliest memory was?
two planes slamming into silver sticks of butter on a warm sunny day
and getting pulled out of kindergarten to watch
as pretty red and black confetti jumped out of the smoke
a lazy generation
on too many meds
where were we
when you shoved coke up your nose
in a ******* disco tech
that was gonna burn down before  1993
you were our parents
the nirvana generation
feeling so good about themselves
and shoving their music down our throats so long that we can't remember how to sing for ourselves
you had teen pregnancy and world wars
this is ours
my war is waged between my hands
one that has a wire hanger whipping my back
and the other that doesn't feel guilty
but would rather not have my roommates see and report me
that's all i got going for me is a good education
sure; people love me that's great
pick up a ******* hammer
and help me knock these walls down

Waiting for the big restart.
Imagining a corner pocket with the lights off, all drinks served room temperature. Harmonica in my pocket, an acoustic leaning on a seat made of worn leather. No politics, no war, no religion, no John Lennon songs necessary. Just empty homes and never-watched, stocked pharmacies. Walk-ins preferred, no prescription necessary.

Boredom would be our only enemy, bibles our note paper. God packed up and left. It's a great neighborhood to raise your kids.
Nobody needs a bomb shelter when the bombs have all fallen.
Sitting in a lawn chair, with a good friend and no cares, watching nature retake her world.

I am waiting for that day to come.

Least said and nothing to mend
nothing to defend and no one to lend you an ear
and light continues to bend around the posts of the day,so whatever you say is distorted,reported by magnates controlling the press and however much less there'll be more, and the implausible causes of any decisions are picked over by vultures and revised into later editions.

Free press
get your free press depression read about free press aggression and say what you will,we'll all read our fill until we can all read no more and no less than no more.
Barons in Wapping now moved
and Wapping will be another new century, of debatable consumables sold in charcuteries and pharmacies and no more free press to distress the dressing rooms in boom towns and where once printers stood they will now sell returnable (deposit required) wedding gowns
it's no wonder I feel down and need a little lift as I sift through the remnants of yesterdays news,my own views irrelevant as I ride on another elephant all painted in white
another bending of light which we fall for.

There's always more than is less,
more to depress and distress me and drinking Darjeeling leaves me with the feeling that it could always be more
another front page to enrage me
another bent light to distract
and if you don't know it we're all being attacked by the news that we pay for
I think that's a bit more than I can take
I can fake things myself and don't need some gnome or some elfin in Tooting or Fleet Street to sell me a rag that tells me of nothing that I want to know.
So I'm going
We're all being snowed by the establishment gurus whose raison d'etre is only to abuse us
I've had enough of their bullshine
if light's going to bend I'll make sure that it's my light that glows
and not some nosepicking,cityslicking, lickspittling critter who couldn't see beyond his...
..well enough of that
I'm out of the next deal
if you want to get real you will be too.

Marching band
of spiraling springs
shifting eloquently
getting a little loopy
off of fumes
cars will make you loony
if they're around too much
on top too much
screeching to a fault
we love it when that happens
that tragedy of fact
where all is exactly as it appears to be
but you sure wish it weren't,
wish it were all a lie
all pretty
all movement and shadow
no fallacies or pharmacies
just us
you know
it could be nice
for a bit
to be a brain in a jar
in a basement
in a house in a town in a world in a galaxy in a universe
that actually exists
to **** it
to there and back
it's more satisfying
than a crying *******'s last song

I
A scream scares the day away and makes the night a dark eternity.
Mating calls lurching behind barstools talking about nothing and jumping deeper into conversation over the bovine carcass at Applebee's.
Desolate honkytonks fueled by Percocet and chlamydia, fat musicians and anthems of Beer drunkenness hanging over the toilet to ***** their soul away for a buzz.
Coal diggers and gold diggers painted in black and red and the pinks drips down their leg to a puddle of shame. Crying in the corner for a fix with their broken knees and backs and their black lungs and their pharmacies of solutions that end up being their prison. Poisoning the air with the smoke of death and masculinity with broken hands punching the walls until the blood pours.
The **** of the body and land in unison in mind, flutters from our corner of the world to the coast
then to the heavens where it again rapes. Where it forces itself upon the consciousness of a nation
That buys it up and sells it again for naut. Souls of the lost gather for your final baptism in pain, together,
Ready and willing for more.
Trailers like tombstones in the distance at the end of hollers buried beside their dignity in the mines. Eternal monuments to good enough sprouting from every seed wasted in the divine Goddess who is reduced to the ***** of Hazard and surrounding counties.
Repeat the cycle of suffering.
Churches of skeletons praying for that divine **** of death,
reap what ye sew,
Harvest of the men in plenty,
eat for your fill!

                                                            II
I­t has been a cold winter, and I have traveled to the land of my heroes, who live now only on the page and in spirit alike.   I have bussed cross nation, gone to Boulder and Denver and dear Allen Ginsberg I found out the time. I search for the street where I can find you, curl up in your beard, hear your stories, and hitchhike with you to Nirvana. I have snowshoed high and happy with friends and have no regrets only that I didn't stay longer.  Played music on the top of mountains and felt them dance under me. I have been reborn with life and friends and it is good enough. Dislocated souls connecting in the ephemeral plane somewhere between Kentucky and Colorado in dreams and though and music and poetry and body and soul.

step into my office, take a seat
come talk to me
tell me about your disease
your anxiety and your shaky knees
your addiction to drugs
even in your dreams

I'm the best at what I do and I know it

i see
i hear
i mend you
help you heal
your pain and agony
but what if i told you
a secret
one guaranteed to lead you
straight back under black's blanket

                                                        i'm a fiend                
                               i get my fix all day for free
       in fact, i get checks made out in my name
                    the more i use, the more i'm paid

I am the best at what I do and I do know it

i do see
i do hear
i do mend you and
help you heal
but what i don’t do is
feel.
that's why once i help you and i see
you sober and well and clean

i will break you and watch you bleed
you will feed my sadistic disease

that could be you if you were
me
a sociopath
too smart for streets or pharmacies
so inhumane
enough so to fiend
for a scot-and-drug-free DOC
for
your pain and agony.

- end

messy hair
stragglers that float in the sunlit 7:47am air
cause trouble, **** subtle  
*** with cops and killers
bikini flowers windowsills
xanax lovers loom
ugly paisley wallpapered  motel room
making out in pharmacies
I want to leave because I cant breathe

The valley is still there although the dolls have gone,
for now.
We used to plough through Pharmacies to staunch the needs of our disease and on our knees we'd pray to gods
making rods for our own backs and dolls were stacked up two by two in the flying embers of those who knew the pain,
and fired down throats to fuel again the fires that burnt inside.
I rue the tracks laid down and splayed on limbs that now grow old,rigid,cold and folded tight against my chest
but the dolls knew what was best in those testing times and track lines only serve to tell how well I knew them all.
Through those furrows made I fall and hear dolls call to me in the closed down empty pharmacy
where life is stifled in the green and black capsules which fooled us all,
the valley's gone for now,the dolls are sleeping tight,the night has faded,a jaded yesterday has given birth to a bright new day,and so
I shall stay as quiet as I can.

depression is
lying on the bathroom floor
crying at three am
listening to sad music
cutting open veins
calling a friend with no answer
mending wounds

recovery is
therapy rooms
doctors offices
pill boxes
pharmacies
angry parents
losing friends
finding yourself

relapse is
not an option.

I've never known anything
as dark as that November
When blinding brightness
vanished
replaced by a creeping darkness
which infected
wherever I laid my
thoughts.

Except for maybe
that December
When as others were fighting for their
GPA
I was fighting to
Keep my head above
water

Christmas break came
and I went
home relieved to
have made it

As my friends went to
places of worship
parties
malls
I went to
doctor's offices
pharmacies
my bed.

The office with its leather
couch, friendly dog
and a sweater-loving doctor
who listened
and listened
and listened
but never spoke
as I talked
and cried
and yelled of
my fears
obsessions
doubts.

He never said much
But finally wrote for me
some numbers
and one complex name.

I was saved.

I've never known anything as
dark as that
November
and
December