poems 10

the eyes have it 

sitting in the unemployment office
with a few drab-looking women
and their babies
some of the babies are crying
I close my eyes
the room turns orange
I see a procession of Buddhist monks
some of them are on fire
Nixon rises up from his grave
with his phony smile
and maggots in his eyes
I see a GI screaming in the jungle
both his legs blown off
I see a young man punching a cop
outside the DNC in Chicago ‘68
and Nancy Spungen lying on
the bathroom floor
with a knife in her belly
then I look up
and a fat woman with glasses
says to me
sir, do you have your paperwork?



fuck … 

America
John Wayne
the Army
the morning alarm
$6 an hour
pots and pans
time cards
shift managers
Ronald Reagan
Patti Reagan
all the teachers who told me
I’d never amount to shit
(they were right)
missionaries who ring my doorbell
at 9 in the morning
the people who put up
the skyscrapers
that fuck the sky over Manhattan
baseball
football
your wife
your niece
your teenage daughter
high school cheerleaders
little pink houses
small-town values
the military-industrial complex that
fucks America and the world
the butchers at My Lai
the butchers at Wounded Knee
the policewoman with the big ass
who arrested me
cops, judges, probation officers
and most of all
you.



angels of mercy, angels of light 

I remember
the dust of 9/11
in the blue Indian sky
over Manhattan
where hippies
and Yippies are still
putting flowers
in the guns of
American soldiers
where Diana Oughton
is still making bombs
in her top-floor
Greenwich flat and
suicide bombers
still wait in vain
for their 72 virgins
I used to live in
that place
full of the homeless
and the insane
a place that chews up
your soul
and spits it out
for the dogs to
crap on
so if you ask me
if I cried on 9/11
like
everyone else
the honest answer is
no.



therefore ... 

walking
down the street
with the sun
the wind
and the blue sky
God is waiting
for me to say
something
profound while
the white
butterflies dance
in my head
the cars speed by
and I remember
that day
in 2nd grade
when I got up
unzipped
and showed it
to the girl sitting
in front of me
I tell God
he doesn't exist
so I must be
talking to myself
therefore
I am God with
nothing but
these eyes in my
head staring at
my white hands—
I am alive.



dying state

there was a poet in South Dakota
who used to submit his poems to me
back when I was running my
Opium Poetry blog. they were long, honest
down-to-earth poems about real life
and all its crap, no word-play games
or light-hearted bullshit. he wrote me
long, rambling emails that went
something like don't let 'em fool ya
stick with the real shit
and not their bullshit and kick their asses
every chance ya get and so on.
he told me about the never-ending pain
in his leg and how whatever disease he had
nearly killed him the week before.
then he stopped submitting.
in fact, he stopped submitting anywhere.
I exchanged emails with him one more time
but that was it. he musta stopped writing
his fine boots-on-pavement poems
and who knows why?
sometimes the drive or need or desire
just goes away, I guess.
R.B., I don't know if you're still living
or dead. if dead, I guess all your
problems are over, including that pain in
your leg. but if you're still kickin
then hang in there, bud, the world needs ya
and remember to kick their shitty asses
every chance ya get.




spiral 

the Feds went after the hippies
cuz what good are young
Americans who
only want peace and love
instead of killing people
in Vietnam?

so they unleashed the FBI
pitbulls trained in state
terror, set them loose on
the flower children
and the pitbulls tore them
to shreds.

in the 70s the young people
were still getting stoned
but they didn’t care about
anything so it was OK.

in the 80s the citizens
were reduced to consumers
and if you were too stoned
to flip burgers at McDonald’s
they sent you off to prison
for 10 years, paroled
all the murderers and rapists
to make room for ya.

it’s been the same ever since
and the 60s will never happen
again. now we’re just
watching TV and wasting time
riding out this death spiral
of America’s broken wings.



hope and flowers

you don’t have to
search far to
find poverty in
this town.

you see it in
the people
poorly dressed
beat-up looking
tired looking

half the storefronts
on mainstreet
are empty.

poverty in this town
grows like
weeds in the yards
of condemned
homes.

and as for weed
you can find
plenty of that too

it seems to be
the one luxury
that even the poor
can afford.

but the days are
getting warmer

the first white flowers
are out

and they can never
take that away.




arse poetica 

I guess you're a poet
when you stop bullshitting
and start telling the truth.
anyone can bullshit.
just listen to the Americans in Iraq.
and the truth is always
more fun to listen to than lies.
like the truth about getting arrested:
they cuff your hands behind you
always a bit too tight
so that afterward you've got
a little pink welt on one or both wrists.
then they take your belt and shoes
in case you're thinking
of hanging yourself
(has anyone ever done it with
shoelaces?)
but sitting in the back of the squad car
is not unpleasant
and if you're lucky
you'll have your own private cell
with a metal sink and crapper
and yellow walls.
you can read whatever's been carved
in the wooden bench
or count the dried wads of toilet paper
stuck to the ceiling.
in all, not a bad way
to waste a Saturday night.



round and round it goes 

the British gone
they killed many
Loyalists and raped
their wives and
daughters and killed
many of the wives
and daughters too.

they killed 20 million
Indians and took
half of Mexico cuz
“the Mexicans weren’t
doing anything with

it” and killed several
million more in
Vietnam and bombed
Serbia and then came
9/11 and I live in
a small town in Ohio
and you don’t know
what a shithole
a small town can be
till you’ve lived in
a small town in Ohio.



you’re a loser ... 

if everywhere you go
you gotta walk through
alleys filled with
garbage cans and
cigarette butts
and broken glass

and every time you see
pink clouds at sunset
you think it’s the Gods
painting the sky in
flowers

and the lyrics to
Social Distortion songs
really are the story
of your life

and you think all the girls
have butterfly wings
but hide them from
everyone

and there’s nowhere
you gotta be cuz you’re
unemployed
and hoping to stay
that way for as long
as they'll let you.



haze 

looking up at the sky

white clouds
in a sea of blue

yellow flowers beside
the dirt trail

and small
white butterflies
(they only live
maybe 6 days).

there’s nowhere
I need to be

no one is waiting
for my word on
anything

the cars speeding
from one place
to another have
nothing to do
with me.

I’m a balloon
with hair

I’m a poem
with no grammar
and no syntax
and the words
don’t mean a thing.



the crickets get to work 

sitting on a green bench
there's nothing to do
but ogle teenage girls
while the parking meters
melt in the summer sun.
I tell one blonde wearing
a cheerleader's outfit
she's got nice legs.
she says thanks. got no
brothers or sisters. all
my relatives are back in
the old country.
don't speak the language
anymore and my parents
ain't much. sitting on
a green bench in the hot
sun, nothing to do but
wait for the summer night.