poems 1

loveless

nothing to do and nowhere to go
while the white clouds
dance circles in the sky
and maybe the sunlight falling on the red bricks
is trying to tell me something
about the passage of time
or maybe the people walking by ignore me
cuz they think I'm insane
or maybe I'm the invisible loser
with nothing to show
but the sad ghost of my mediocrity
at any rate
I've got a three-day beard
5 bucks in my pocket
and a mind full of laughing clowns
so either my luck gets better real soon
or else it's already up.



animal kingdom

so many strange things
like that one time in a Kroger parking lot—
a young man walked up to me
and asked if he could pray for me
he said that God told him to pray
for the first man he sees walking with a limp
(I walk with a bit of a limp)
I said sure
so he put his hand on my shoulder
and sent a prayer on my behalf to Jesus
when he finished
he beamed with evangelical ecstasy
I said thanks
he said something I don't recall
and walked away.
so many strange things—
I was watching football one Sunday
the second game of the day
when I felt something weird in me
and wondered what it was
then suddenly it hit me:
every second that I watched that game
I was getting dumber
both in mind and in spirit
so I turned off the TV
and stopped watching crap of any kind
soon thereafter.
when I think of all the crap TV I used to watch
when I was a kid
(my poor brain!) hour after hour
it's a wonder I can think at all.
so many strange things—
my insane family
the white trash and their kids
and their dogs—
so many things I'll never understand
and I've given up trying.



idle hands

I hear
the seconds
tick
from my watch
on the nightstand
as I lie in bed
doing
nothing at all.
doing nothing
is what I do best.
sometimes
I talk
to the faces on the walls.
or I sit
by the window
and stare
out at the parking lot.
sometimes I go
for a walk
and give the finger
to complete strangers.
so if you see me
wandering the streets
lost and lonely
be a good soul
and offer me
a goddam ride away from here.



cherry blossoms

don't know what I'm doing here
as the clouds swim through blue sky

it's good to drift through life
whether you're a cloud
a whale
or a Bodhisattva

and you can ponder the meaning of nothingness
till your eyes devour the Hiroshima sunrise

cuz it helps when there's nothing around
but screaming insanity
and angels are falling from the sky
on broken wings

and at times such as these
there's really nothing left to say but
OM.



look up at the clouds

if I'm an idiot
well, it runs in the family
so it's good enough
just lying on the couch and letting the TV drone.
the sky doesn't care if I get a job.
the Americans march off to war
as I try to glue together the pieces of my mind.
I fear and I sweat.
I go for walks along the beach by the lake.
I hate ominously.
I stare at women and girls just to make them nervous
the same way people used to stare
at my crooked legs.
I look up at the clouds as the wind rises.
I fear this story will have
no happy ending.
so when you leave, please turn out the lights
and close the fucking door behind you.



pardon my french

it's a blessing
just to sit by the window
as the soft light
comes down like
the hands of
some Goddess
there were times
I was so insane
so totally out of it
I'd lie in bed for hours
and just stare
at the ceiling
I was getting to know
Death
or something close to it
but all that is past
I'm much better now
(I think)
as I hear
a lone songbird
somewhere out in
the cold
morning sunlight.



reality bites

I once saw
a black-and-red
drawing
of a young man
with his fist in the air
supposed to be a Commie
or maybe an Anarchist
it was real heroic
and inspiring
but the pathos
of revolutionary fervor
doesn't count for much
when they make you sweat
40 hrs. a week
and the boss's wife
won't even give you
a blowjob.



saints and terrorists

you can call them terrorists
if you want to
but just remember that
terrorists are people
who fight for what they believe in
it's good to have something
that you're willing to die for
better than rotting in Ohio
among the white trash
but I'm neither saint nor terrorist
I gave up on all that
there was something in me once
that made me want to make a difference
but it crawled away on bloody stumps one night
and that was a long time ago.



black night

you can feel it
breathing
and the stars
whisper
loneliness.
the past is gone
but it lives
in the hollow
of yr mind
like scars on
yr wrists.
Buddha said to
cast aside
the ego like
falling leaves
and
you'll realize
some day
that
nothing
matters
at all.



red lanterns

the place had red Chinese lanterns
and a Chinese barmaid
I asked her
how much for a shot of tequila?
she said fo’ dolla’s
it was dark
and the tequila burned a little
and the sunlight was coming in
from the street
it was just me and the barmaid
and no one else
with the bottles lined up against the back wall
so that the whole thing looked
like some kind of altar
a bar is a place
holy as any other
just without all the dogma
and all that other bullshit
I even thought I saw
the Buddha
sitting under the red-and-blue neon
I think he was counting
how many drinks I’d had.



new red rose

I drink in the wine of black flower night
while Uncle Sam dances at the ends
of the rich man's strings
while the banks tear down foreclosed homes
and piss on the homeless
and the Black Bloc march through the streets
to be laughed at by the corporate media
there is sadness in the arsenic dawn
cuz the forces of evolution have failed us
the forces of revolution have failed us
the armies of greed rape the children and the sky
and all that's left is the smoldering ruins
from which a new red rose waits to be born.



go ask Alice

lazy as a caterpillar blowing smoke
into the curtains
I see a sky full of third eyes
and hope is the thing that flies away
and lays a white shit on my shoulder—
while the patriots fight and die
in Afghanistan
I'm lying on a bed of dreams
growing shoots and vines into the walls
wondering what it's like
to be a starving yogi, eating
only a palmful of grain every day
till you're all skin and bones
and beautiful brilliant shiny eyes
that see the true reality—
and while the bodies pile up
to feed the madman's itch
while they throw saints and Buddhas
into the prison-industrial complex
I say to the old bearded fuck
with the stupid hat
Fuck you, Uncle Sam
you're an old whore
withering your tits
in the rich man's broken sunlight.



what an asshole

my grandfather was a drunk
he retired from the army as a lt. colonel
so I hate soldiers in general
but Amercian soldiers most of all
cuz there's only one Empire
I leave nasty comments for them all over
the Internet
you can probably find some of them
what I like best is
when I get replies to my blurbs
mostly threats and insults
when I get the notifications in my email
I laugh my fucking ass off!!!
it ain't much, I know
but it's still a tiny bit of resistance
to the Empire.



stone

birdsong in the summer dusk
and I can count the good times
on the fingers
    of one hand

looking back
on all the screaming
all the insanity
I often wonder how I made it through
all that

I often go for walks at
this hour with the purple glow coming down
    from the cosmos
but not tonight

I see people walking
drawn by the city lights
and as much    as
    the stone image of some God

        I am alive.



one poet to another

read a few poems by
nila northSun ‘bout
growing up on some
Indian reservation
with plenty of alcoholic
diabetic relatives
living on government food
riding round town in
dusty old pick-up trucks
getting drunk at bars
going to 49's
after pow-wows
and getting drunk some more
which is a helluva lot better
than growing  up
in New York where
all I remember is the homeless
some of them winos
walking round
talking to themselves
and the steam coming up
through the grates
under my feet
and all those dogs
and all that dogshit
it was everywhere—
I especially remember
the dogshit.



fire in the min

the insane
have their own
asylum
inside
their skulls
they don't lock up
the insane
to cure them
they lock 'em up
to keep them
away from
everyone else

escaping
from the asylum
inside
your skull
is
putting out the
darkness
with the sun

then you start
to remember
the
last few years
and
you wonder
at it all
in total horror
like a
bad dream
you know
was real

but at least
you never
run outta
shit to
write about.



memorial day

an obituary on
the evening news

some soldier
killed in Iraq

he was only 20.

I'm supposed
to honor his
sacrifice
in a faraway
desert

sitting here
channel-surfing
looking for
something
to relieve
the boredom

wishing some
martial arts
was on.

tough luck.