the sonofabitch tremor
  from a tall cup of americano

i am somewhere in the heart of Libis
  feeling the libidinous snarl
  of trucks, the poignant treason
    of leaves slamming against each other,
  the bamboozle of the youth

   this is my 5th poem sliding out
    of my whetstone mouth
   sharpening the dull blade of tongue
    as the harum-scarum of the swivel
   door crafts a rising hullaballoo.

    spilling coffee on my ****** white
     this sonofabitch tremor
    terrorizes the purity of the *******
       clenched against no succor,
    eyes squinting in lachrymose fretting
      palpebral shade of tossed out gray
        caprice of clouds — no
  
   more coffee
      for me,
          these words nudging me
   keeping me awake with
      persistence.

The silver fog slithers around
my ankles, slowly winding up
my legs with a serpent's silk move.
Squeezing her fingers, my mother
and I approach the barn-red house.

It breathes heavily and its exhale
reveals a backyard cemetery.
As the mist settles, a limestone
hand reaches out to ****** her away.

Down the street the dollhouse neighbor
cannot see me screaming, weeping,
I call for help.

Brown-green water drips from
the bathroom ceiling--
the plumber continues plumbing.

Sweat beads form on the tip of
the fat priest's nose, as he climbs
the broken stairs, he continues preaching.

The porcelain girl wears her mother's
brown-stained ivory prom dress.
Chanting, Sonofabitch. Sonofabitch.

They cannot see me--
I flail my limbs.
They cannot hear me--
Their own cursing drown out my voice.

It was confused and dark, dark, so dark,
dark like when Charlie got drunk for the first time, came back, and stumbled-open the door long after Sam had screamed at everyone to leave her the f--- alone.  

And Jesse is standing there, swaying slightly with the beer and the pounding music, and Charlene feels her ribcage shiver with each bass beat.  The pale light oozing off the stage silvers Jesse’s angled face like water, soaks the black shapes around her, pools in each eye as the constant ripple and shudder of the crowd shifts her hips.  Somehow her thin, bare shoulders speak her excitement, and in the dim shuffle of the audience she’s half drunk and lovely.  “You know that calc test is tomorrow,” Charlene screams over the straight roar of chaos. “Don’t remind me! God!” Lovely Jesse laughs and her hand sketches a lazy gun that jerks at her head -- don’t remind me, God don’t don’t don’t --  and Charlene clenches her eyes shut and still that flashes, dark dark dark, her loose-jointed fingers flicking up, twitching in sickening unison with her mocking head, again again again-- don’t remind me, God,
don’t remindmegoddon’t remind megod god oh God,
Sam loved drinking herself sick, stumbling home with her arm ‘round Charlie’s neck, slurring alcohol love and despair to her ‘bes’ fren, besh’ roomate evr, Charlene a.k.a. Charlie.  And “a.k.a.” as Sam loved to call her, was always there to pick Sam up and clean Sam up and sober Sam the **** up.  And every stupid drunk party night that semester she told Charlie over and over again: ‘listen, a.k.a., here’s a funny story: a girl went to buy her mother aspirin cause her mother had a terrible ******* headache and she bought some from her dear second cousin Kurt the cashier who was a trublueblooded Eagle scout mama’s boy back from college, that sonofabitch and she came home, but her momma didn’t have that headache anymore and gave her a mostly delicious popsicle and it was red strawberry, the end.’  And every stupid drunk party night that semester Charlie watched and listened as Sam made up new stories about aspirin (always ending with popsicles).
See, Charlie was always there. Charlie never drank.  And Charlie, she always listened to the stupid f---ing drunk-strawberry-popsicle story.  And Charlie never gave a **** about Sam, did she? She sure didn’t, no, Charlie didn’t.  

“I’m gonna go find the bathroom” Charlie screams into Jesse’s ear and plunges out into the sea of dark shadows circling her.  The door struggles open, then she’s crushing it shut, crushing splinters into her palms, she’s bending over the counter, both hands white-pressed onto its imitation marble, choking down these sharp sparks of nausea bursting like fireworks inside, and the music’s faded out, its just the thud of that ******* drum that pulses over and over and over --god stop it-- fills the room, rattles the stalls, over and over and Charlie’s convinced its a heartbeat, its Sam’s heartbeat, thud thud thud, god its going on and on and pounding, OH GOD, charlie screams, IT STOPPED, no no no no SAM no SAM SAM SAM OH GOD it stopped no no GOD
next song. drum starts again. and the room is inside of the drum, it is the inside, the taut air’s quivering with each beat, taut ribcage quivering with each beat. Charlie is inside a drum. beat beat beat drumbeat heartbeat thud, thud, thud,
god I look awful, Charlie’s looking at her face in the dim vibrating mirror: blue shadows under her dull eyes, pale, dead-tired, dead-drunk, and so f---ing dead-alive,
she goes back to Jesse, wriggling through the black lumps: lovers making out, heavy spellbound listeners, uneasy loners, angry drunks, drunk as-- drunk as Charlie’s first drunk night.

Sam was so ****** that night and Charlie dragged her home to their dorm, sick of Sam’s tangy alcohol breath and her sagging, skinny weight on her shoulder. “I’m sick of your breath, Sam.” sick of it, god Sam, just stop it, wish that breath would go away, I mean,
it was blowing all over my cheek Sam, cause your **** beautiful face was lying on my neck-- that’s why I said that, I didn’t mean that, Sam.
And then you said ‘well, all right Charlie, I’ll tell you a funny story Charlie,’ and I said ‘oh god Sam, not again,’ and you said ‘no, its different this time’ and you said ‘one day there was a little girl who went to the store to buy aspirin for her mom and the cashier took her into the back of the store and hurt her and she came home and told her mom and her mom slapped her and told her to stop talking ***** and shut the **** up and then that little girl’s throat sure did ache, Charlie, even after a popsicle it did. And Charlie, Charlie, a.k.a. Charlene, sure did hate her breath. see, that’s my story and isn’t it a funny story...”
you drop your drunk roommate on the gritty hallway carpet, give her the key say
‘’bye Samantha", goodbye samgoodbye, bye bye Sam, "I’m going to go get drunk don’t be too much of a ***** while I’m gone.’

floormates told Charlie later that Sam screamed at everyone “hey, all you motherf---ers, leave me the f--- alone,” then laughed, slammed the door. and they did leave her alone.
Charlie came back *****-drunk, touched the doorknob and heard the shot, the door opens,
Sam’s falling and Charlie watches her beautiful, bony wrist flick back as she gets blood all over and ruins her face and Charlie sobers up really f---ing fast.  She always was good at that.
There's a note on the desk in Crayola washable marker (purple): "well, a.k.a., I guess I am being way too much of a ***** while you’re gone. you’re welcome. sorry for ******* it all up again as usual"
*Thanks for that Sam, thanks a lot Sam thanks thanks f--- you

Omigod, Donald T. ****,
You unconscionable creep,
You are disgusting enough
To cost us all sleep.
If lies were US dollars
You sonofabitch
You would truly be
Obscenely rich.

It’s not enough for you
To have gold water faucets,
Crystal mirrors everywhere
And marble floors in closets
Now you want to play at
Being a savvy politician
Stands for Christian principles
From the *******.

Omigod, Donald T. ****,
You unconscionable creep,
You are disgusting enough
To cost us all sleep.

With a changing cast of women
You call your lawful wives.
And you’re the one who wants
To control our very lives?
You utter your vituperation
At poor and the non-Christian.
Is having the world hate you
Part of your final mission?

If lies were US dollars
You sonofabitch
You would truly be
Obscenely rich.

You also want control of
Our country’s financial hopes.
If we fall for that stupid tale
Then we are a nation of dopes
Because you have bankrupted
More than the Monopoly game
Would allow a toddler to have
And that is quite a shame.

Omigod, Donald T. ****,
You unconscionable creep,
You are disgusting enough
To cost us all sleep.
If lies were US dollars
You sonofabitch
You would truly be
Obscenely rich.

No, Mr. T **** please do
What is proper and fitting;
Call up the press and say
That you are finally quitting.
Tell them you were just testing
To see what the others would do.
So, kiss our collective ***** goodbye
And take with you that dumb hairdo.

Mother bear in a waterfall
With bigger thoughts than blonde harlots
Eating porridge,
Fallen starlets with outer space in their hair.

Just you wait;
I'll be the happiest little sonofabitch
You've ever seen.

Some small consolation, if any.
That weekend we spent with our
Necks perpendicular to our spines,
Of course I still remember the films we watched.

I condition my hair with split infinitives
And live off the poisoned dew that settles
Every morning in my closet.

Turn your little black dress inside-out,
I've got this magic idea for a recipe
But we're going to need some ants
And that crazy Harryhausen dream you've got up in your attic.

Ten or twelve little blond kids up
On the cliff, each ten or twelve years old
And dancing with a flame-Buddha called "Home".

Let's spend this week underwater,
I'd much rather give up my weight and my due
If it ensured me any small hour
With you. Oh, god how I love you anymore.

I may have told you this a while ago,
But did you know the first Pledge of Allegiance
Put us some good height above God?

Sometimes I find the sugar in my gas tank
Makes for a rough start in the morning,
Not that I particularly want to go anywhere,
But it's what I've thought that counts.

He's a bit upset that I skipped movie last night:
But I can't play horizontal baseball
With my violent, violent imaginary friend.

The Rubik's cube beats deep in my chest
Without a hand to cheat and rearrange the stickers.
Claude enunciates something queer into my ear
And turns off the lamp with a snap.

You think you are someone of great strength in mind,
as you belittle all the people around you,
for the sake of not appearing kind,
because it was the only thing you knew.
Taught to be tough and a big boy,
you can go and use a gun as a toy,
become accustomed to the ability to destroy.
As you see nothing wrong from stealing the light in one's eyes,
being the artist of their demise,
as you ruin their families lies.
BANG, BANG, BANG,
goes the gun in your hand,
over a dead body you stand,
just as you planned.
Put that hit on that sonofabitch,
it went off without a hitch,
now you a man who put someone in a ditch.
The only sacrifice is morality,
but you are so young, you don't see the brutality,
only the gangster mentality,
so you can live in the violent normality,
not realizing that you have lost touch with reality.
But that is a life that no longer belongs,
replaced by coke, *** and bongs,
you will never know that what you do is wrong,
until you hear the bell's gong,
and it is you who is gone.

Dewey Dell Bundren
Had her baby
And ran off to college
Worked single-mother hours
To keep her ****** apartment
And never missed a class
She married the first theology professor she could find
The kind
With the horn rimmed glasses
Drinking imported scotch
Discussing literature around the fire at night
She got a degree
At Northeastern
High honors in history
She never knew all those books were about her
And the people she came from
The places
Had their stories told
In the pages
Shaped everything she had ever known
She was grateful
For her history
And once a year made the trip
Back to Jefferson
Mississippi
Put flowers on her mother's grave
Still tasting
the bananas
Hearing herself saying
"Hadn't you ruther"
Still hearing Jewel
Cursing softly
"******* you, ******* you"
"You sweet sonofabitch"
Still seeing the mules
Swollen
Floating
Bellies up
Past Cash and the coffin
Leg broken
In that biblical spring flood

You stupid sonofabitch.
I hope you burn less than you did when you were here,
and that maybe you finally caught up with the monster you were chasing.
We still drink to you
on days like this,
Glasses raised to the day you showed up,
Broken bottle on the back porch to forget the day you left.
Oh, and pay your mother a visit sometime, she misses you so.
She's been saving lives in your name for years now,
but the kids are still dropping like flies.
Tell her it's okay,
that she's done her part.

I guess I just miss you.
That heart of gold is still the talk of the town, but I remember the black fingers wrapped around it much better,
And I want you to know that I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I didn't save you.
So tonight I'll drink
Not to the ashes on the mantel or the flowers on the grave.
But to you.
Happy birthday, Matt.
Wherever you are.

When he entered the room, she was naked. She sat stripped of her mythology and the bare curves of her hips made his hands shake. He hid them in his pockets like seizures in winter and told himself it was just the morning coffee.

"Jesus Christ..." His jaw slacked and tightened and he waited for a response; something witty like, odd time to pray or not quite, but maybe his cousin or oh, honey, he moved out years ago, but we still get his mail.
But soon waiting gave way to waiting, as waiting is wont to, and things became uncomfortable. Her deadbolt eyes. She blinked in slow motion, no lash out of place, and he felt foolish.

See, he never expected her to be a woman, and he almost said as much, had the look on her face not shut him up beautifully. Besides, at this point he was pretty certain that cities definitely don't speak--not English anyway--and even then, his concrete dialect was, at best, as atrocious as cracked pavement. He lisped with too much wind and not enough asphalt.

He looked around for somewhere to sit but the only chair wasn't even really a chair, it was a stool with a questionable third leg that sat over-turned and tucked in the far corner and he found himself at an impasse. Retrieving it would not only involve taking his hands from their linen hideaways, but she hadn't even offered him a seat and he didn't want to be rude; he being a man of manners with the cotillion lessons to prove it. On the other hand, there was a more-than-decent chance that his knees would buckle at any moment. He cleared his throat.

"May I?" he motioned and crept around her with a weird, dainty tip-toe. He would later reflect on and regret this odd step choice because it was undeniably ladylike, unlike this lady whose face seemed carved from marble and gave nothing away; she just cast her eyes slightly downward. He uprighted the chair that wasn't really a chair and checked the sturdiness of the questionable leg and shrugged in questionable approval and dragged it back to where he was and returned his hands to where they were and felt, aside from the girly walk, that went surprisingly well.

So it was in silence that he was left to sit. Sit and think. Think about small things, trivial ****. He thought about the small stain on his pants and hoped to God it was toothpaste. He thought about the itch in the dead center of his back where he can never scratch without looking like he has a severe case of cerebral palsy. He thought about his pockets, full of trembling leaves that fluttered with spare change winds and hung delicately from his autumn tree arms. He thought about bigger things too, like how if two people on exact opposite ends of the earth simultaneously each dropped a piece of bread, for a brief moment the whole world was just a really big sandwich. But mostly he thought about the difference between hard and mean.

Hard is the bottomless tumblers of American dream fathers, breathing scotch like fire and promises that were only ever half-way held true. But mean... Mean is a different kind of machine entirely. Mean, he realized, is one solid kick in the nuts past hard. Hard is when your ice cream drops mid-lick and falls in the cinematic drama of a-hundred-and-twenty frames per second to the unforgiving pavement, and even though there is a split seconds chance to reach out and catch it, you don't because, let's face it, sticky hands are gross. But mean is the little junior sonofabitch dog that comes a-waddling on in, laps up your deliciously sweet sidewalk treat and stares you right in the face while he does it. Mean makes you realize the sticky fingers would have been worth it. And before he could decide which category this Angel City would fit in, she stood, with a slight smile curling at the corner of her mouth and one hand behind her back. She slinked over to him with snake ankles and reached out and ran her fingers along his jawline and hooked his chin upward and kissed him.

It wasn't the delicate, thin-lipped kiss of embarrassed virgins and ex-stripper-turned-born-again-Christians. It also wasn't the Californication kiss filled with carnal tongue that he might have expected had the idea that she was going to do anything but intimidate the utter **** out of him even crossed his mind. It was somewhere between the two. Between shelter and apocalypse.  Viperous with a tinge of motherly protection (which, actually, gave him some confusing feelings). When she pulled away he felt the slight clink of metal against his teeth.

A bullet. Round and smooth, he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger and watched his fingerprint peel off and mark the lead skin with little, oily mazes. He looked up to her, unsure of what to say or what to make of whatever the hell just went down. She stared silently because, you know, that's her thing and he felt he had to say something because, you know, manners.

"I thought we said no gifts." He laughed. She didn't. He felt like an idiot immediately. Then, like the other half heart of a best friend necklace, she drew from her back a snub-nosed revolver. Her thumb flicked with outlaw elegance and the empty chamber rolled open.

"Let's play a game."
It was all she said. He didn't pay attention to whether she spoke in impeccable English or if the words were lit in the electric neon of Sunset Boulevard. It didn't matter and he didn't care. He didn't even notice when he took the gun and slid the round in until after he spun the chamber and slung it shut. When she lifted his arm without touching him and he felt like he was her marionette. When the snub nose found it's way to his mouth, he was certain of it. The feeling of the metal barrel against his bare teeth made his skin crawl and his stomach turn, yet even still he grinned.

He grinned because he saw his hand and his hand grinned because it wasn't shaking, not anymore.

He grinned and cocked the hammer back.

I remember climbing out my window,
skulking off into a violent blizzard.
Lost in teenage anguish,
my feet carried me forward through the storm.
Two a.m. and a mile I out I realize,
I'm walking towards her house
Panic slammed my body like a tidal wave,
my nerves vibrated,
shaking the bitter cold.
I carried on determined.
No plan of action,
just full of **** and vigor and something...
Something I hadn't yet known.
The walk up her street is done with tremendous effort,
like swimming in jello.
Standing outside her house,
I'm suddenly aware of another obstacle.
I don't have a cell-phone.
Which window is her room?
Assuming it's upstairs, this is fifty - fifty you sonofabitch.
Take the risk.
I throw a small stone but hear it explode like a firecracker on the window.
Silence.
I reach for another when a soft voice calls my name.
We stand in the street and talk for a while,
holding one another.
I'm sorry, I can't stay, they probably know I'm gone.
I just... I just wanted to say goodbye
I walked backwards the whole way down the street.
Streetlights and snowfall created an amber aura around her.
That,
was the first time I knew what love was.
Sometimes I think it was the last time, too.

I tell him about the 90 year old that made a home in my body.
Say "I feel more than the nineteen years, I feel more than your nineteen years."
He takes it as evidence towards what he calls my "superiority complex"
makes a joke about thinking I'm so much wiser than everybody else as I stammer with arms crossed trying to find the words my nineteen year old vocabulary does not know.

This has nothing to do with being wise you sonofabitch, its about an exhaustion that paints the dark color around my eyes and the sigh that lives in my belly you ******.

He interrupts, laughing "What do you mean? Your bones ache or something? haha hahaha." Loud, obnoxious, not the first time,
not the last. I want to say yes

yes
yes they ache ad they creak
and they burn and so do my eyes and so do my insides and so do the words I say and the way I say them and the way it scares others when I say some profound ****, I almost sound like Gandhi, like Bukowski, I just never learnt of a beautiful way to disguise my pain. Not enough so It could sell.


I was better off alone when the ice made a security blanket around my heart-better off with no pain.
He shines a mirror on all my missing parts, calls me ****** up.
Stand next to me just to lean over in his height, superiority complex runs high among privileged nineteen year old straight males.

The ice thawed but he came with no gloves
I found the bruising less tolerable than the cold this time around
Less bearable than the lonely beat my heart learned to sing.
Its the same story he just repeats himself as another boy who says the wrong things and makes me feel
exhausted for every having opened up my icebox full of secrets.
Every conversation is an emptying out and not the cathartic kind.
The kind that leaves the ninety year old in me shaking with nothing left inside her but rotting gums and eyes that have seen too much ****. Nobody is supposed to make you this unhappy. This is not what I asked when I asked for you to make me feel something.
Every time I say your name Matthew, it almost comes out Nathan, in my head. Nathan with his accent, and the same humor, same jokes. Nathan the boy I emptied myself out to just so he could leave bruises on the uncovered parts. It was so easy to to leave somebody I never gave a **** about.

Matthew, I only say your name so often so I remember it, so I say it right, so I remind myself you are not the same person. Matthew sounds allot like Nathan when your drunk or sad which I am most of the time these days, you sound allot like him with your laugh, sound like your gonna leave bruises on all the parts I lift up to show you. I know this.

This is a fact. Like I know I wont ever cry for you until I'm all thawed out.
Matthew, for  your painstaking insensitivity, for your lack of understanding
Matthew for you not understanding all the creaking in my bones is just screaming

Save me
Fix me

Give me one reason why you're good for me because I cannot think of any and
*I so desperately want to

In a land where only rich folk have chins; lived  a man. Ugly and Dim. He was as bright as a flashlight in the afternoon hours. A terrible thing, having thoughts devoured. A drought crossed the land where Ideas once grew now lies a place for neither me nor you. We heard of boy. Quiet wealthy, quiet rich, but deep down a real sonofabitch, who rode ‘gainst the grain and then disappeared. Never to be heard of again.  What a shame to lose the lose the mind of young Ugly and Dim.

I heard a tall tale, or call it a fable; for the lessons quite clear.
It’s a lesson about Ugly and Dim, two brothers in fact who had such an act at the travelling magical show. Dim had the knowledge and Ugly had the looks.
They’d learned their tricks from the book called Don’t Pay Your Dues, and they wound up  all burnt .Except their shoes. Which stood centre stage, where would-be magicians light up in flames, a blaze of ashes.
Such gasps from the crowd as Ugly and Dim began to singe,
and turn crisp and begin to burn, that’s how they fried.
Some soul cried
“I can’t tell if they’re dead or alive!”
As the skin slipped over the skeletal bones
Ugly and Dim were exposed.
Liars and tricksters of illusion will meet an ill-fated conclusion.
Ugly and Dim will see you again, in your moments of moral confusion.

Ugly and Dim; the architects of such modern wonders of
“How things are today!” and “How they oughta be!”
Over 1 million copies of “It’s a you or me mentality!” sold!
Ugly and Dim are ever so bold for the romance  novel: “How Love Gets Old”
Ugly and Dim are you and him,
or her and I, and us  and them.
Sometimes I cry. I’m ugly.
Sometimes I don’t know answers, I’m dim
Sometimes I wake up and I make it through another day.

There may be a heaven
And maybe a hell
But there is one thing
I know **** well;
There are devils around
And they do their worst
To put the working man
Into a poor man’s hearse.
They hate poor people
And kiss the royal ***
Of those who they think
Represents real class.

And real class to devils
Is money beyond belief
So they side with the creeps
That hate welfare and relief.
They know what they are doing
And they do it every time.
They gleefully participate
In global-scale crime.
They pump up bank accounts
Of the obscenely rich
And call the working a man
A loser sonofabitch.

They buy the politicians,
Who are devils themselves,
And push helpful programs
Onto a dusty back shelf.
If it doesn’t make money
For the greedy one percent
Then any such bill proposed
On the floor is never even sent.
So, I do believe in Devils
Not so much of the rest of the book.
If you don’t believe in Devils
Turn around and take a good look.

making a playlist titled you you you
taking a pill at the **** zoo
******* fools wasted on the pavement
chasing waists on the pavement

i'm tired of these ******* games you're playing
tic tac toes on the cusp of my aortic valve
**** hippocratic oath falsifying fingerprints

i am to you, just an oddball goodfornothing sonofabitch
semi-sweet curvature of the lungs
tar-coated nail-biting feminist *****
some uppity analyzing self-righteous bore

well *******, too, then
*******, too
i'll do alright in the world, got some chew
that i'll spit out a rhyme with, all that hullabaloo
i am those whos, on a dead *** dandelion making wishes on elephants (such buffoons)
and finding that donkeys are nothing but mumbling tools

This was the year we
All got our Lost Boys names.
(No, not the vampires...we're Lost.
On Neverland.
In Neverland?)

          Pillows McGee first, I think.

"That's mine--you can stick it wherever."
"Awww...I want a Happy Trail."

Or maybe it was
Lucky.
For he truly was a lucky sonofabitch that night.
"It's nice when a guy gives your ****** back when he's done."
What's the most important ingredient to a friendship, Lucky? "Another person."

True dat, Lucky. True dat.    
    
                *  all nod  

                             Smokestacked! She smokes! And she's stacked!
Inspirational. Charming.
"I'm always on a quest for a ******."
VERY ADAMANT: "I don't like ****! Snakes are okay!"

      Forking Ariel
had quite a bit to drink. She wanted to know why she wasn't a lesbian.
She wanted to **** on the end...but none of us can remember the end of what, anymore.
We just wrote it down because it sounds filthy.

     We like filth.

Forking Ariel lost her box at some point. Probably around the time
     she told us

she doesn't **** the end and she doesn't just grab it.

...otter pops?

FLASHER!
         "I'll get it with my teeth."
Yeah,* you will.

Flasher gave the last Lost Boy their name:
"I'm gonna have to go for Bushless Red."

Lucky: "That sounds like a cigarette. There's nothing I like more between my lips than Bushless Red."

             Bushless Red hasn't had a Happy Ending, apparently, but she likes her cigarette commercial. She's
Painful, Feminine, and Appetizing.

"I say we all do it on the bed, because--" ...giggles uncontrollably.


                    Dear Diary,

                               Today, I discovered that heaven is in Cillian Murphy's pants. Or Forking Ariel's.

                                                               ­       Also, an important ingredient in a friendship is another person.





~Bushless Red.

Is it strange,
do you think,
that today has been
so terrible
and I still have
a smile on
my face?

Believe me,
even I think
it strange
considering
that the blueboy
was content
to submit falsehoods
in his effort to
fill this city’s
coffers with
my children’s
Christmas presents
before they’ve even
been thought of

Even I think it odd
that despite a myriad
of disasters, including
a coffee-****
that moistened
the seat of my
trousers and sent
me scurrying
for the john,
and subsequently
the exit,
I’m still able to
grin.

Despite my chagrins,
in light of a day
filled with folly
bordering on
misery,

the silvery sliver
of hope shows
through.
I’m standing at that crossroad
waiting for The Devil to appear,
and I can tell that Ol’ Scratch
is close, close enough
that I can feel his gaze
inside this, a Wednesday,
a “one of those days”.

When the oldest kid
has puked his bed,
and I’ve got one more
mess to clean up
besides the one in my
drawers, but my shine
won’t dull, no matter
the ache in my skull.

‘Cause when Pitch is asking me:
“Boy, what’chu gonna do? I’ve been
havin’ a fine time messin’ wit’chu!”

I’ll say to Ol’ Pitch, that
sonofabitch…

“My fine, forked-tongued, fiend,
you can’t have no more of me,
for I’m hollerin’ down old dogs, you see?

Them dogs’ll run and hide,
I’ve got a fine crew by my side
into Thursday we will ride
and leave this ******’ day behind!”

This is why I still smile,
because in just a little while
I get to have my rest
My lover’s head upon my
chest, my children in their nests.

Of tomorrow I’ll dream deep
while in the dark, I sleep
pondering possibilities,
probabilities, and simply
other reasons to…

smile.

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

He, the rumpled bumbler,
Stumbled, mumbling, bungling
Through his self-made jungle
No mote of humility, his abilities
Were not inclusive of subtlety.
He settled for a public identity
Of propriety and normality,
Obvious hospitality but falsity
Like the nose on his face, exposed.

What a verbose, but artificial
Government official he was.
His cause was never for us
It was for that he was notorious;
How laboriously he dissembled.
But he resembled his opposition
Then took a position of submission
Until his mission was complete
Then he beat his feet in retreat
To those he knew could beat
The highest price and that was nice.

Twice as nice for rental cars
And pretty movie stars
Who weren’t too humble
To stumble the red carpet
With the rumpled bumbler,
Mumbling, no longer bungling
Through his self-made jungle.
Still no humility, a perfect facility
To take from the poor, give to the rich
And not care who calls him sonofabitch.

AARP keeps sending me ****
Letting me know I'm getting old
Buy this insurance
"Die Happy With Us"
****
"Don't leave your loved ones in debt when you die"
****
"No one gives enough a **** to pay for your funeral"
Sonofabitch
"A place for Mom"
What the ****?

Come get me!
Thou great Valkyries
Demons of hell
Angels of Heaven!

But you **** well better know,
AARP
Has got my *** covered!

everybody watch the **** out
there's a nineteen year old trying to get profound over here
it all started when I was kid
thinking
why am I not one of those poor bloated African kids on the TV?
why am I an English school boy sitting to close to a TV?
meaning
meaning
meaning
meaning that there has to be some reason for all of this
but I got older
dumber
jaded and bitter
and I think I've figured it all out
no really just hear me out
the meaning of all of this
from womb to tomb
is that there isn't one
deep,
right?
but life is like a cartoon fight
a cloud of dust projecting fist
boot
asterisks
wavy lines
and we're all in that melee
and we're all going to get our teeth kicked in
life's one tough sonofabitch
and it's been doing since before there was a before
my point being
you can't beat life
and you can't avoid it forever
all you can do is hope
that when that ball of cartoon extravagance has settled
you'll be clutching onto the things you need
the things you want
the things you love
and you'll still be able to stand back up

She chewed her
nails relentlessly.

They were all bitten
down and raw looking,
even on the sides near
the cuticles.

She was always talking.

I swear to Christ that
she never stopped talking.

She told me about her children.

I told her that
I didn’t want to
know as much as
she was telling.

“Fine.” she’d say.

She’d shut up for
about half an hour
or so, then since the
goddammed kids were
off-limits, she’d start
in on Jesus Christ and
how great He was.


I asked her how long
she planned on talking
about nothing that had
anything to do with
anything.

She’d ignored me
and kept on talking,
telling me about
how she got saved
and how she’d
given her life to
The Lord.

“That’s great.” I said.

I asked her about
a guy that I knew
that she’d been going
around with for
awhile.

“Oh, that sonofabitch?”

“Yeah, him.”

She was so easy
to wind up like
that.

She could swear
like a sailor,
or a *******
merchant marine.

I always liked
it when she’d
say ‘****’ or
call someone
a sonofabitch
right in the
middle of an
otherwise
theological
gale.

I can’t tell
you why I’d
get her going,

but something
about it was
really
satisfying.

Maybe it was
the irony of
it all.

None of it
matters anyway
as long as the
tab gets paid.

*
-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Why are you shouting out loud?
Are you saying I am too proud?
Do you think I am undeserving?
If so, it is completely unnerving
That you don’t want me to own
What you see as yours alone;
A sense of dignity and hope.
You must see me as a dope
Who can’t see you getting rich.
You are one shallow sonofabitch
If you think just calling me villain
Will somehow make me willing
To give up my own free voice
So that only you have a choice
About how much I will make
And which decisions I take
About my own home and body.
Can you really be that shoddy?

Well, yes, I have learned you are.
You think you are a superstar
And are immune to decency
That your star is in ascendency.
Well, I really hope that it is not
And that your tail gets caught
In the door before it slams
And we see the last of your scams
And your nepotistic buddy deals
And get back to what is real
And proper for our poor nation
Instead of graft and intimidation
That makes wealth for a few.
Nothing for me, all for you.

A,

pretentious guitar wielding battle warrior quoting Nietzsche,

listening to old songs they don’t play on the radio anymore

and burning at night, burning alive with smokey lungs and charred fingers

and curls soaked terribly from desert rains in May,

lankey arms exposed for hours at a time in hottest weather, basking in sunlight,

still keeping pale but maybe his eyes darken a little.

marron, they say in french, those pretty eyes with lashes like down,

so long you could sweep the floor with them.

what a baby-faced angel sonofabitch smelling sweetly of **** in the afternoons,

a walking catastrophe Dean Moriarty flailing arms around,

a terrible dancer.

a terrible lover. a terrible terrible boy.

involved in a *******, no doubt,

by God he has all the little girls under his thumb,

under his bleeding fingers as he serenades them

songs they only know of because of him.

all the ***** characters from smokey back rooms in the 20’s, 50’s

he knows them all

and hammers out their songs bang bang bang on his guitar like a visionary

of jazz, ***, pills and powders all secrets hidden behind his eyes.

The ******* child of the stars

I am forced to hate him

But my love for him gnaws away at my sanity

all his friends are cracked,

deadbeat downtrodden unlistened to voices of our time.

he says he is a pacifist, but he’s killing us all.

I know I am a bad kid,
Things I did were awful
So I deserve every slap,
Every punch, every insult
Like “little *******” and
Sonofabitch. Everything.
Call me what I am as I
Have been appallingly bad
As a child, as an offspring,
An embarrassment to you.

Show me that ugly face
Of disappointment and hate
Because I was never a great
Reflection of your love,
Of your concern, your care.
After all, you feed me
You give me clothes and bed
And let me go to school.
I am a worthless fool.

I don’t deserve more,
And now, every smile hurts;
Not just desserts for crimes
Ones I committed all the time
Every day I now understand
Why your hand hit my jaw,
Slapped my face so often
I’m a disgrace, a shame
I don’t deserve your name
Or for you to look at me.

After all, look at me.
I’m horribly fat, look!
Those disgusting bulges
in my lower backside.
I disgust myself, completely
I look at myself and heave.
I wish I could leave and go,
Find someplace else
Where I can’t see myself.
So nobody else has to.

I can’t take back the wet beds
The expense you always said
Was too much, the touch
I craved back when I was young
The breath in even my lungs
Offending because I am bad.
I am a sad example of kids
And should be hid somewhere
So you never have to spare
Another moment on a bad kid.

Thou.
I can't think of a more romantic word.
and who was the genius who first said "thou"?
who distinctified another human being from all the other
"it's"
and realized that whoever that was, that first
"thou"
saw the world just as he did?
and perceived him just as he perceived them?
brilliant *******.

He,
Whoever he was,
was the first man to grasp true
empathy.
To identify with another human not as an object,
or an animal,
"but as another of himself"
an extension of himself.
himself.
itself.
thyself.

It is one of the oldest existing words,
and has not undergone any major change in tenthousand years.
Perhaps this is evidence that we were,
in fact,
built
in pairs.

Which raises the question of who the first "thou"
was
and his relationship to whomever first said it.
I like to think they were lying across from one another,
he and his partner
or she and hers
and it occurred to one of them that the person opposite them
saw
them too.

Thou art.
as I am.

Next must have come "we"
or some variation thereof.
Thou,
I,
thou and I.
We.
Us.

What was the brilliant sonofabitch who first uttered "us"?

I wonder if he died alone.

Penelope was angry with me,
earlier this week I had ripped up
a story that I’d been working on for
a long time.

The story was about an ex-con, with a heart of gold,
he wandered around Nevada and righted a few wrongs
along the way.  

The coolest thing about him was his name and the fact that
he was a little banged up.

In my head, he was kind of an older guy, a ***,
kind of greasy, you know, shifty, reckless, a guy
maybe you could relate to, and he walked with a cane.

Big deal, right?

Penelope didn’t think so; I mean she was smart enough
to know that this story wasn’t my ******* magnum-opus
or anything, but she got ****** because I flipped out, started yelling
about how I was a no good sonofabitch, couldn’t write for ****,
and should give it up and take up ******’ basket-weaving or something.

She tried to tell me that I was being a ******* and that I was a good writer;
pointing out that I’d made it into rags like “Clues”, “Dime Detective”, and that once
I’d even been published in “Web of Mystery”.

But I wouldn’t listen and I told her that she was full of ****, and a pain in the ***,
and that she could do better than a hack like me, and I told her to get the hell
away from me or I might lose my ******* mind and strangle her.

So, she did.  She packed a bag, got in my car, and took off for her cousin’s house upstate.

Now, here I was, without my car, without more than maybe twenty-five bucks to my name,
and without the girl of my dreams.

I was just about to throw my typewriter out the window when the phone rang…

“Penny?”
“Nope.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, ya dumb ****!”
“Who the **** is ‘me’ and what the **** does ‘me’ want?”
“It’s Dale, ya *******!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”

Dale proceeded to tell me about how he’d just been picked
up by both “Amazing Stories” and “Tales From The Crypt” for a
six month run of short fiction in each and he then tells me that
they’ve seen fit to advance him two-hundred dollars each.

“Eat ****, Dale,” I say, and hang up the phone.

About thirty minutes later there’s a knock at my door.
It’s not Penelope, unfortunately.
It’s Dale.

“I don’t wanna eat ****, Chuckie-boy.
I wanna eat a steak.”

I tell Dale to go get a **** steak and that I’m not planning on going anywhere.
He won’t take no for an answer, so the next thing I know, we’re loaded into his jalopy and heading downtown.

The first place we go is Rico’s.  

Rico’s has pretty good food and they know what to do with a KC strip,
so Dale’s pretty jazzed.

“Chuck, you getting’ a steak?”
“Nah, I was thinkin’ about the club sandwich.”

While we ate, Dale told me about how he’d gone about the writing of the pilots
for his two series of short stories, about the correspondence between himself and the
editors, about sending in edits and revisions, and about finally getting his acceptance letters,
signing the contracts, and getting the checks in the mail.

I listened, sure, but mostly I let my thoughts wander to how Penelope and I had done, and been doing, much the same for the past several years.  
I would mail manila envelopes back and forth to “Mystery and Suspense” and she would do her monthly allotment of sentiment scribbling for The Renaissance Greeting Card Co.

Neither of us were hacks.  We got some checks in the mail, same as Dale, and more often.

What chaffed was that Dale had gotten a contract for a run of stories.

Dale had gotten what I wanted. And, I couldn’t handle it.
I had forgotten about all that I had done, all that I had achieved,
I had dismissed all of those manila envelopes, all of those little checks, I had forgotten how they’d added up, how they’d kept me alive, fed me, sheltered me, how they’d sustained me.

And in the dismissal of those envelopes and all the good they’d done me, I’d managed to dismiss the only other things that had done me any good at all.  I’d dismissed myself as a writer, and I’d done the very same to Penelope.  

What a fool I was.

When we’d finished, Dale paid the check and asked if I wanted to go to Auggie’s *******
and have a look.

I said that I didn’t.

I thanked him for the meal and asked if he’d mind dropping me off at home.

I told him that I had a lot of work to do on a rewrite,

and that I had a telephone call to make.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

It’s this recurring waking-dream,
especially on these blustery nights.
I can almost see the sheen of the mahogany
surface of the bar top.
I can almost feel the weight of the tattered
rag that sits on my shoulder.

Barryman’s is a place to come in from the cold.
There’s always a fresh carafe on the burner of the Bunn
machine.

Or, there are stronger drinks.

This is the place where you can talk to anyone about anything.
And, no one is ever wrong, because we all know that we all know
that everyone is full of ****, but we like them and ourselves anyway.

Well, there was that one time that one poor ******* got the boot.
Everyone remembers that one.  

He was hollering about how Winston Churchill could’ve made a better
cup of coffee in spite of his drink of choice being blackberry brandy
and how Kafka was overrated.

So, he was out on his self-righteous ***.

Oh, how he did howl for a while, this ****-drunk sonofabitch;
but then we remembered that we’re all a bit like he was then
from time to time.

And, we retrieved him, his muffler, his hat,
gave him some coffee, a copy of “Catcher”, and a seat
by the fire.
*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

She knocks on his door in the pouring rain
Shaking her umbrella, muttering an expletive,
It's only half past ten but she knows he's inside
"Open up, you sonofabitch!"
A face glares through the red and white shutter
"You know he's dead, you old witch!"
"Just wanted to hear it one more time",
she walks away, cackling wildly

You put the whole world
In his tiny greedy hands!
Is he the type of leader
Who truly understands?
Or does he dole out money
To friends who are foes?
Do really want to quietly wait
And see just how it goes?

Are you just fine with
Your head in the sand?
What will it take to see
This country is out of hand?
Will you be satisfied
With half the planet corrupted
As long as you have beer and
The football game uninterrupted?

Did you stop learning
When you were thirteen
What lack of due process
Can ultimately come to mean?
Did sleep through the classes when
The Constitution was taught?
Or will you blame Obama
For what your ignorance cost?

Then will you ***** and moan
When things don’t go your way
And go vote for some actor
As long as its not a black or gay?
Will you wave your Bible then,
The one you have never read,
When a modern Armageddon
Come crashing down on our heads.

Do you think this government
Is of the people or of the rich?
Do you find yourself calling liberals
A stupid, shameless sonofabitch
When they try to wake you up
That you have elected a cult
With members countrywide
That are robbing us as a result?

Are you just fine with
Your head in the sand?
What will it take to see
This country is out of hand?
Will you be satisfied
With half the planet corrupted
As long as you have beer and
The football game uninterrupted?

The thirsty throat of my thought never lets me think
It swallows up each idea into the dead mass of depression
Selecting what joys to **** dry each day
Headaches and hangovers help me forget my forgetfulness
The remiss panic attacks assist my fugue state
Then my own failure and impending irrelevance does me the honor
Of piercing the center of my skull like a rhino's horn
Grateful I feed it my fears and futilely fake freedom for my family
They can’t know, they have problems I know, I wont let it show,
Friends, whether fake or “for real” worry for me,
Disgraceful
Im not some sappy sonofabitch looking for sorrow
Just wake me when I’m already late and disappointing you tomorrow

Oh don't gimme that look again babe,
that sideways glance you sneak through
those curtains of grapevines you cultivate so well,
kinda like you got some sort of suspicion
that maybe I used to be a blues player
or a James Bond villain.

I sure as **** ain't no Nick Cave
but I got a couple of bad seeds
you might have been lookin for.

Think of this as a forwards backwards
inside out message to you
and maybe I'll show it to the future,
that is if there is a future
worth showin this **** to.

I tell ya one thing though
and even though this'll make me
sound exactly like what I am,
that is to say one arrogant sonofabitch
that wants to give, I mean
really give something to you.

I want to give you whatever you'll have of me
because I don't write poetry

I live it.
And it hurts most of the time.

Except for that select couple of seconds
when you walk me back through your history
and you forget what I used to be.

I am big and strong, you are weak,
I’ll make you turn the other cheek,
And if you say one word I will ensure
That the misery you now endure
Will be as nothing to that which will ensue
If you don’t do what I tell you to.
I have the god given right to tread on the weak
For I have found him who you all still seek.
He is the god of the powerful and rich,
He is our exclusive, almighty sonofabitch,
He does not want anything to do with any one of you,
He is our god alone, and he commands us to,
Maintain all power in the hands of a tiny few,
Because god does not want the unwashed many,
To have access to a single extra penny,
No, all the wealth of the world belongs to us,
This is the way it is now, and it always was.

Tom Higgins

That poor little *******
sat at his typewriter
and thought to himself: “What do I write about today?”

It was an odd, off-feeling, thing that he felt.
Sometimes he told people: “It feels like it feels when you are sitting there, reading a book or something and you suddenly have to take a ****. But, instead of the feeling being in your guts, it’s in your brain.”

The problem with saying
that kind of thing out loud
was that the poor constipated writer
always and almost immediately
felt like he was telling people
that he was full of ****
or otherwise a *******,
based upon how it all sounded to him,
and he was sure to everyone else
as soon as the words escaped his lips.

The stagnant little writer
went outside and smoked a cigarette.
He was trying to think
of a new way to think.

He thought: “Most of the time I write
about stuff that happens to me
or the things that I see as I’m wandering
around town.
Sometimes, I make things up, telling stories about characters that I’ve based loosely on people
that I’ve met via work,
or barflies I’ve sat next to,
nursing a beer or whiskey.”

Usually though,
the poor constipated writer
ended up writing about writing,
or standing outside smoking cigarettes,
or sitting in some bar,
next to some ******
who wanted to talk about politics
or religion
or some other nonsense
that wasn’t worth listening to
and then what was that poor
little plugged-up *******
supposed to do?

Well, nevermind.

I bet he’ll just do
what he usually does
and go whine about how
boring he must be as a writer,
how nobody ever gives
a two-penny farting ****
about anything
he has to say.

Then, I can already imagine it, can you?

He’ll go into that cold little room
at the back of his house
and he’ll continue to do
what he’s always done.

He’ll write stories about the streetlamps
and the moonlight.

He’ll write about that girl that he knows;
the one with the strawberry hair
and the thousands and thousands
of freckles.

Then maybe the next day
he’ll write about the old lady
who’s lights got shut off
by the power company
and about how he called
the power company
and said: “Listen here, ya sonofabitch!”
and they turned the lady’s power back on.

But, that poor little constipated
writer is in a place where he feels
like nothing he writes
is worth anything at all,
so he might as well
give up.

Or not.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

and it can't be justice for all if you only make amends with the things you think you love. for the rest, it's uphill both ways. good luck, goodbye, and good riddance.
you smug sonofabitch. i'll have you know my father died right along with the rest of them! wide-eyed and wild the day he was born! i think i've earned the right!
you're not righteous, or enlightened. nothing you love is original. you're a cynic, a parasite, a bore. a festering wound that should have long been a scar by now. you're only happy when you're miserable.
it's easy to draw them in, you know. even hold them for awhile.
eventually, the rot sets in. then it's as it ever was.
the flower may wither, my child, but the roots stay strong and deep. we'll be back. as it ever was.