everything but the floppy shoes
well, I’m unemployed
I don’t shower as often as I ought to
I don’t brush my teeth as often as I ought to
I’m a sad, sad case in the middle of
nowhere America
and I’ve got no one to blame but myself (and my parents)
but all the same, it’s nice lying here in bed
this morning:
white sheets, white walls
a white ceiling with brown water stains
and the sun coming in through the windows
like Nirvana
my friends think I’m crazy
and I suppose maybe I am
but I tell them this head is nothing more
than a half-empty box
(I like to think it’s purple on the inside)
and every once in a while
when some grunge falls out of it
I clean it up
email it to the editor of some magazine
it’s what I do best
all that I can do
so really,
it’s not such a bad life
after all.
paranoia—yeah!
the latest terror plot
is a figment of my imagination
or a figment of
someone’s imagination
someone with an orange crush brain
that drips onto the pavement
on hot summer afternoons
my sweat is dripping onto the desk
as a fly buzzes from the wall
to the lampshade
oh, I know you were sent
by the devil with hair on his ass
to harass and torment me
you and my rotten family
and the rotten kids who scream
at the pool all day
yes, Travis, someday a great rain
is gonna fall and wash away
all this filth—I mean
the flies and the devils
and the kids and then maybe
I'll get a chance to sit quietly
on hot summer afternoons
and suffer in my room in peace.
disenchanted
well, sometimes
the muse
comes with her tits
hanging out
and sometimes
she doesn’t cum
at all
my muse gets
around
on a pair of worn-out
angel wings
she’s grown
disenchanted
and disillusioned
with the world
and so have I
we make a nice
couple in our
common despair
and may the Gods
have pity
on us both.
20 years ago
Communism fell
in Eastern Europe
and the fascists
and the criminals
took over and
they've cut down
all the trees
and sunflowers
and all the young
are leaving cuz
there ain't no jobs
and there ain't
no hope either
so long
as that 3-headed
monster called
America
stomps all over
the world
but there's Fidel
raising his fist
through the
Cuban sky with
the tropical sun
shining down
and Chavez
and Morales
and Ortega and
we'll see what
happens over in
Honduras so
America you may
have won that
other battle
but the war
ain't fucking over.
noise and fury
watching all the smoke and ashes
on TV on 9/11
I didn't feel much of anything
I watched all the noise and fury
like anyone else would watch a movie
I canceled my appointment
with the dentist
I checked out for the day
like I do most days
I felt cut off from all the people
crying on TV
and contempt for all the ones
demanding revenge
I wondered which country or
countries would get it this time
Sudan?
Iraq?
maybe Serbia again
and for some reason
I recalled a night when I was 16
we had each retired
to our separate rooms
all three of us trapped
in a lost place
in a small town
at the edge of nowhere
and I remembered
lying on my bed
wondering
where the fuck am I
and how the hell did we all get here?
when the fuck did I become Travis Bickle?
there's the small living room
the small kitchen
the small bathroom
the one small bedroom
I call “my room”
where I sit at my laptop
and type away
writing what some call poetry
where I hatch plots
to overthrow the government
with a beard and a pen
where I do sex chat with webcam girls
admiring their round tits
while they puff on their cigarettes
and where I sometimes just lie in bed
and think about how much
I hate everyone and everything
wondering which God or Gods
got drunk one night and set
this whole fucking mess in motion
while the dusk turns
a darker shade of purple.
free medical advice
working the
graveyard shift
at the factory.
there was
a big blonde
maybe 19
cute, but
her face was all
covered in zits.
I wanted to tell
her there’s
a cure for that
but that got me
fired from one
job already
and I was out of
unemployment
benefits.
I admired her ass
for a while
then clocked in.
it’s people like me
who keep the
economy going.
slacker
the mushrooms of lethargy
are dragging me down
to mind-numbing holocausts
of depression
where the lark muddies its dying soul
where the dead grow their flowers
where Sid and Nancy
pogo to ska
amid the great guru pot dealers
of Kingston
I’m unemployed
dreaming of psychedelic frogs
and great big
samsaras of butterflies
I’m the pot-bellied
Buddha of the robins
in the yard
the great all-knowing
know-nothing
who stares
at the sky
remembering the 90s
when it was OK
to be young
smart
lazy and
worthless
when they played
The Spinanes
every Tuesday
on the radio.
grassy knolls
if you think the government is
putting thoughts
in your head you're
probably right
they put chemicals
in the food
and bullshit
on the evening news
they put a second
gunman on the grassy knoll
to split open
Jack Kennedy's head
like an Irish watermelon
I believe almost every
conspiracy theory I hear
cuz I've learned over the years
that most of them right
like war for oil
and COINTELPRO
we paranoids
are people with vague ideas
about what's really
going on.
shadow of grief
nothing outside but
cold sunlight
blinding the snow
I must have the face
of a decent person
most people think I'm a decent person
until they get to know me
I've got photos that I carry around
in the back of my skull
sometimes they break free
storm my cerebrum
and that's when I get into trouble with the law
I don't apologize for anything
what life's done to me
is far worse than anything I ever did
sometimes I get my revenge on decent people
I used to be a decent person myself
well, that'll toughen them up
give them a taste of my world
in short:
fuck you, fuck me, fuck everybody
life's a chain of sucker-punches to the balls
and then you die.
discursive
hitting the pavement
when there’s nowhere to go
the sky is dizzy
and aimless
when you’re crazy
your only friends
are the ones in your head
and maybe the DJ on the radio
the flowers are dying
they last only a week or so
and when I see my face
in the puddles on the sidewalk
I don’t like what I see;
all you normal people
out there—I’m not one of you.
pimps and other capitalists
you'll see your face
in the half-light
grabbing mouthfuls
of blue sky
and you'll realize
this world
wasn't made for
someone like you
this world is for
the greedy
the power-hungry
and the sadists
to indulge in
to rejoice
in the suffering
they inflict
on others
not you
who gets dizzy
when the
flowers whisper
and the
mourning doves
flutter through
your brain.
unkind
looking in the mirror
receding hairline
I splash some water
on my face.
I walk to the bedroom
I’ve got a belly
and one leg shorter
than the other.
night coming in
through the windows
I hear something
crash upstairs
something heavy
like a fridge or
some kid jumping
from a couch
or table. I say
what the hell?
hell is other people.
hell is poverty.
hell is my neighbor
and her retard son.
hell is sitting
at the window looking
out at the night,
too insane to go
anywhere
or do anything.
ghost
learned today
of the death
of Scott Wannberg
I’d read a few of his chaps
a few years back
that a thing that once
lived and breathed
is now dead
is not strange
that a thing that once
wrote poetry
is now dead:
now that is strange
of course
only the body is dead
not the rider
we’re all immortal
as the Buddha said
but death is still
nothing to sing about.
ever do this when you were a kid?
I remember those nights
when I’d put on
my shoes
and go for a walk
going nowhere at all
there was the black night
and the stars above me
and I felt at home
with the stray cats
and abandoned cars
I liked being alone
and I would do
random acts of
vandalism now and then
I’d look at my watch
and it'd say 3:04 AM
and one of those nights
I realized
that I would always be alone
it was the only time
that I could be myself
so I said to myself
fuck it all and so be it.
pick any spot on the map
the souls of dead soldiers
come back as crows
I see them sitting in the naked branches
in the last moments of winter sunset
they come back with hollow eyes
seem confused
as though wondering what they really died for
if anything
(their country? religion? Dow Chemical?)
perhaps they remember
the bodies of the dead
men, women and children alike
splayed out in the grass
of so many foreign lands
far too many bodies for counting ...
dead soldiers
haunting this earth
forever.
bad poems
reading
some of my poems
that were been published
here and there
most of 'em are
pretty good but there's
some that are real
shit
the editors musta been
crackheads when they
published them
a bad poem
is a flea bite on my leg
nothing to
worry my balls over
certainly not nearly as bad
as poverty
and the endless wars.
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Saturday, January 7, 2017
poems 7
chance of snow
between the silence
and the bullshit
the lies and
blackbirds lined up on a naked branch
you'll find time
for the light, the truth
words curving like the body of a woman
words raining down
from the wings of angels
and then you can say FUCK YOU
to money and careers and the rent
cuz the only food you need
flows out from yr fingertips
onto the black buttons of your insomniac keyboard.
why vandalism?
she had a bad case of acne
I gave her some friendly advice
on how to fix it
I guess she didn't think it was funny
she told the boss
and I got fired on the spot
I spent the next few hours
wandering the sidewalks
as the cars ran up and down the streets like dogs
it was sunny but getting cold
getting fired always felt both good and bad at the same time—
I told myself
you could stay like this and become a hobo
but I knew I'd have to start looking right away
and there wasn't even a rock to put through a window.
nude young girls
29 Buddhas lined up on the mantelpiece
and that's supposed to be a metaphor of something
but I forgot what it means
after a while a kind of lethargy sets in
you stare out the window at the crooked rain
the roses are dead and the clock is broken
I once walked in front of a moving car
the woman behind the wheel swerved to miss me
and I couldn't have cared less
no, this caterpillar won't be growing any wings
just blowing arsenic at the wasted stars
and waiting for whatever the fuck comes next.
class warfare
in dog-eat-dog America
there's winners and losers
and the beautiful ones
are the losers
the sweetest of all
are the insane
the poets
the ones who talk to sparrows
and the ghosts in their heads
who give a dollar
to every homeless beggar
they see
who open their windows at night
to howl at the moon
and the money
of the smirking winners
can't buy any of that
ever.
ode to a fascist clown
the first time I ever saw homeless people
was in New York
in the 1980s
they were mostly
men
leaning up
against walls
holding out styrofoam
cups
they looked sad
and tired
my mother and I
always
gave a dollar
to this one or
that one
but there were
always
more of them on
the streets
the next day
thanx for nothing
Ronald Reagan.
blue angels
watching my shoes pacing up the sidewalk
the red bricks were all looking at me
strangely
telling me forgotten things
then I found myself floating
up and away like a dove
into the blue air
the clouds told me to stop trying so hard
and the sun said nothing at all.
semper fi
American war criminals
going off to kill
the newest Indians
searching for imaginary
weapons of mass destruction
armed with real ones
like white phosphorus
depleted uranium
and enough lies
to fill a whole country
with mad killer clowns
I'd pelt you with
anarchist tomatoes
but you'd lock me up
without trial
in Gitmo, that once
beautiful place
that you stole
from the people of Cuba
who just want to be
left in peace
white Americans,
I spit on you
and your sheer animal
bloodlust
on the oligarchs who
profit from your wars
and the idiots
who fight them.
the scarecrow men with smiles
rotting in Ohio
in the bowels of the Empire
in the heart
of the Axis of Evil
crows descend from dead trees
and peck out my arsenic mind
I am not safe in the belly
of the beast
I am not safe
in their military-industrial
horror, I fear
the Pentagon media
and the scarecrow men
moving their wet lips
on the TV news
I am not safe from
their sordid lies
the eyes of the beast
are upon me.
I let the door hit my ass on my way out
genteel poverty
is my own idea of paradise.
I work only
as much
as I want to
make only as much
money as I need
to survive. I'm
a kind of gentleman
when you think about it
old new gentry
in a moth-eaten
small apartment of
a mansion.
the type-A people
can hustle all they want:
if they inherit
the earth
they can have it.
the summer sun
is no match for my
air conditioner
(when it's working)
and in the evenings
when the Buddha stars
come pouring down
a bottle of
hard lemonade
is the sweet nectar
of the good-for-nothing
Gods.
lost my heart over there
ragged streets
under a white sky
if happiness was
something you could
buy from the ice cream
truck when it comes
jingling down the street
or balloons
red yellow and green
rising up into blue sky
under the lying sun …
back when days like
that mattered.
there’s no end to what
they can do to you
and they’ll do it to you
till you end up in
some alley
among the stray cats
hoping more for angels
than Gods, hoping
to catch a glimpse of
silken wings.
still (more dead than) alive in some rathole somewhere in America
I'm still alive
cuz when I wake up
in the morning
I feel this pain in my right leg
like one of those hairy
crippled smith-Gods that
never shave
dreaming of nymphs
Goddesses
and high school cheerleaders
I'm still alive
cuz I hate with the heart
of a true Bolshevik
I mean slitting throats
bayoneting the class enemies
setting fire to the churches
a real bloodbath orgy of
killing before sipping
my lemonade
this world is mostly insanity
like Maupassant going
mad from the syphilis he got
from some Parisian whore
and Henry Miller laughing
at Parisian whores
and Apollinaire dying
a thousand deaths
in Paris
living is slowly dying
like the surgeon removing
one piece this month
another the next
I'm sorry if this poem
didn't cheer you up.
end of the rope
north of here
is a place that
used to have
50,000 people
now it’s barely
half that
the factories
closed down
Walmart drove
all the small
shops outta
business
now everyone
hustles for
minimum wage
wondering how
they’re gonna
pay the bills
everyone but
the very poor
has moved out
it’s where the
American dream
hanged itself
and didn’t even
leave a note.
second-hand view
there’s days when
it’s difficult just getting
out of bed
nearly impossible
brushing one’s teeth
or taking a shower.
days like that
the only thing to do
is sit by the window
look up at the clouds in
the sky. what
you’re born into
is a matter of luck
most of it bad.
I let the blue sky
enter my head, let the
wind carry
my worn-out soul
you can see it among
the trees
rags and all.
no cure for what I’ve got
your unshakeable
American optimism
sickens me.
I never wanted to be one of you
mowing your phony lawns
like in 50s Leave It To Beaver land
getting all teary-eyed
saluting the flag
under fireworks on the 4th of July.
I hate John Wayne and
all fat cowboys.
my American dream is to live
on foodstamps while not supporting
the troops
and not watching football
or baseball
while the cat leaves
headless mice in the yard.
but it’s too late:
watching TV all day
I’m already
a fat lazy
unhappy American.
yes, I’m looking for sympathy.
the meaning of life ...
is white clouds and a lollipop.
the meaning of life
got lost somewhere in
dreams of Loni Anderson.
these pills that I'm taking
make the room lean
first to the left
and then to the right.
what I'm going through here
is some kind of
unraveling of the spirit
or maybe
a Los Alamos of the mind
so I'm writing to you
from the other side
of something
and I'm staring at a clock with
no hands.
these pills remind me
of the dead blackbird
I came across once
it was staring up at me
with its dead black eye
like lost soldiers
in long-forgotten wars
and the poor dead blackbird
never said a word.
fuck everybody
my grandfather was
an asshole
even when sober
but when he got
drunk every night
on rakia
that's when his
demons came out:
screaming at
everyone
his bald head with
a Hitler mustache
looking like
the Devil himself
till he finally
crawled into bed
round midnight
and slept. his inner
demons wouldn't
let him be and
I wasn't there when
he finally croaked
so I'm just guessing
what his dying words
were.
the old country
I remember
a pond
filled with red
and white fish
and a young
Orthodox priest
dressed all
in black with
a black beard
and my drunk
grandfather
keeling over
one night,
slamming his
bald head
into a metal
bed frame (I
still don’t know
how it didn’t
kill him.)
our relatives
say that since
the fall of
Communism
the country’s
really gone
to the dogs
everyone living
in poverty
and misery
all the young
people
moving abroad
in search of
a better life.
shit happens.
betrayed
Ho Chi Minh
kicked some
Yankee ass
reunited
the nation but
now Vietnam’s
“Communist”
government
has imposed
capitalism
on the country.
what American
bombs and
Agent Orange
couldn’t do
greed and the
Almighty Dollar
have. did all
those
Viet Cong
heroes
die for nothing?
Wall Street
is a cancer
devouring
the whole
goddam world.
dig?
worms devour the night
as the Tao drinks wine in a tree
he’s no help at all
just like the rest of you
humanity, you remind me of
the headless mice my cat
leaves in the yard
or the pigeon’s head
she once left by the door.
while Nazis bury Jewish gold
at the ends of rainbows
the angels
of our better nature
are tied to trees
and sodomized
the angels
of our better nature
have slashed their wrists
and hung themselves
with piano wire.
between the silence
and the bullshit
the lies and
blackbirds lined up on a naked branch
you'll find time
for the light, the truth
words curving like the body of a woman
words raining down
from the wings of angels
and then you can say FUCK YOU
to money and careers and the rent
cuz the only food you need
flows out from yr fingertips
onto the black buttons of your insomniac keyboard.
why vandalism?
she had a bad case of acne
I gave her some friendly advice
on how to fix it
I guess she didn't think it was funny
she told the boss
and I got fired on the spot
I spent the next few hours
wandering the sidewalks
as the cars ran up and down the streets like dogs
it was sunny but getting cold
getting fired always felt both good and bad at the same time—
I told myself
you could stay like this and become a hobo
but I knew I'd have to start looking right away
and there wasn't even a rock to put through a window.
nude young girls
29 Buddhas lined up on the mantelpiece
and that's supposed to be a metaphor of something
but I forgot what it means
after a while a kind of lethargy sets in
you stare out the window at the crooked rain
the roses are dead and the clock is broken
I once walked in front of a moving car
the woman behind the wheel swerved to miss me
and I couldn't have cared less
no, this caterpillar won't be growing any wings
just blowing arsenic at the wasted stars
and waiting for whatever the fuck comes next.
class warfare
in dog-eat-dog America
there's winners and losers
and the beautiful ones
are the losers
the sweetest of all
are the insane
the poets
the ones who talk to sparrows
and the ghosts in their heads
who give a dollar
to every homeless beggar
they see
who open their windows at night
to howl at the moon
and the money
of the smirking winners
can't buy any of that
ever.
ode to a fascist clown
the first time I ever saw homeless people
was in New York
in the 1980s
they were mostly
men
leaning up
against walls
holding out styrofoam
cups
they looked sad
and tired
my mother and I
always
gave a dollar
to this one or
that one
but there were
always
more of them on
the streets
the next day
thanx for nothing
Ronald Reagan.
blue angels
watching my shoes pacing up the sidewalk
the red bricks were all looking at me
strangely
telling me forgotten things
then I found myself floating
up and away like a dove
into the blue air
the clouds told me to stop trying so hard
and the sun said nothing at all.
semper fi
American war criminals
going off to kill
the newest Indians
searching for imaginary
weapons of mass destruction
armed with real ones
like white phosphorus
depleted uranium
and enough lies
to fill a whole country
with mad killer clowns
I'd pelt you with
anarchist tomatoes
but you'd lock me up
without trial
in Gitmo, that once
beautiful place
that you stole
from the people of Cuba
who just want to be
left in peace
white Americans,
I spit on you
and your sheer animal
bloodlust
on the oligarchs who
profit from your wars
and the idiots
who fight them.
the scarecrow men with smiles
rotting in Ohio
in the bowels of the Empire
in the heart
of the Axis of Evil
crows descend from dead trees
and peck out my arsenic mind
I am not safe in the belly
of the beast
I am not safe
in their military-industrial
horror, I fear
the Pentagon media
and the scarecrow men
moving their wet lips
on the TV news
I am not safe from
their sordid lies
the eyes of the beast
are upon me.
I let the door hit my ass on my way out
genteel poverty
is my own idea of paradise.
I work only
as much
as I want to
make only as much
money as I need
to survive. I'm
a kind of gentleman
when you think about it
old new gentry
in a moth-eaten
small apartment of
a mansion.
the type-A people
can hustle all they want:
if they inherit
the earth
they can have it.
the summer sun
is no match for my
air conditioner
(when it's working)
and in the evenings
when the Buddha stars
come pouring down
a bottle of
hard lemonade
is the sweet nectar
of the good-for-nothing
Gods.
lost my heart over there
ragged streets
under a white sky
if happiness was
something you could
buy from the ice cream
truck when it comes
jingling down the street
or balloons
red yellow and green
rising up into blue sky
under the lying sun …
back when days like
that mattered.
there’s no end to what
they can do to you
and they’ll do it to you
till you end up in
some alley
among the stray cats
hoping more for angels
than Gods, hoping
to catch a glimpse of
silken wings.
still (more dead than) alive in some rathole somewhere in America
I'm still alive
cuz when I wake up
in the morning
I feel this pain in my right leg
like one of those hairy
crippled smith-Gods that
never shave
dreaming of nymphs
Goddesses
and high school cheerleaders
I'm still alive
cuz I hate with the heart
of a true Bolshevik
I mean slitting throats
bayoneting the class enemies
setting fire to the churches
a real bloodbath orgy of
killing before sipping
my lemonade
this world is mostly insanity
like Maupassant going
mad from the syphilis he got
from some Parisian whore
and Henry Miller laughing
at Parisian whores
and Apollinaire dying
a thousand deaths
in Paris
living is slowly dying
like the surgeon removing
one piece this month
another the next
I'm sorry if this poem
didn't cheer you up.
end of the rope
north of here
is a place that
used to have
50,000 people
now it’s barely
half that
the factories
closed down
Walmart drove
all the small
shops outta
business
now everyone
hustles for
minimum wage
wondering how
they’re gonna
pay the bills
everyone but
the very poor
has moved out
it’s where the
American dream
hanged itself
and didn’t even
leave a note.
second-hand view
there’s days when
it’s difficult just getting
out of bed
nearly impossible
brushing one’s teeth
or taking a shower.
days like that
the only thing to do
is sit by the window
look up at the clouds in
the sky. what
you’re born into
is a matter of luck
most of it bad.
I let the blue sky
enter my head, let the
wind carry
my worn-out soul
you can see it among
the trees
rags and all.
no cure for what I’ve got
your unshakeable
American optimism
sickens me.
I never wanted to be one of you
mowing your phony lawns
like in 50s Leave It To Beaver land
getting all teary-eyed
saluting the flag
under fireworks on the 4th of July.
I hate John Wayne and
all fat cowboys.
my American dream is to live
on foodstamps while not supporting
the troops
and not watching football
or baseball
while the cat leaves
headless mice in the yard.
but it’s too late:
watching TV all day
I’m already
a fat lazy
unhappy American.
yes, I’m looking for sympathy.
the meaning of life ...
is white clouds and a lollipop.
the meaning of life
got lost somewhere in
dreams of Loni Anderson.
these pills that I'm taking
make the room lean
first to the left
and then to the right.
what I'm going through here
is some kind of
unraveling of the spirit
or maybe
a Los Alamos of the mind
so I'm writing to you
from the other side
of something
and I'm staring at a clock with
no hands.
these pills remind me
of the dead blackbird
I came across once
it was staring up at me
with its dead black eye
like lost soldiers
in long-forgotten wars
and the poor dead blackbird
never said a word.
fuck everybody
my grandfather was
an asshole
even when sober
but when he got
drunk every night
on rakia
that's when his
demons came out:
screaming at
everyone
his bald head with
a Hitler mustache
looking like
the Devil himself
till he finally
crawled into bed
round midnight
and slept. his inner
demons wouldn't
let him be and
I wasn't there when
he finally croaked
so I'm just guessing
what his dying words
were.
the old country
I remember
a pond
filled with red
and white fish
and a young
Orthodox priest
dressed all
in black with
a black beard
and my drunk
grandfather
keeling over
one night,
slamming his
bald head
into a metal
bed frame (I
still don’t know
how it didn’t
kill him.)
our relatives
say that since
the fall of
Communism
the country’s
really gone
to the dogs
everyone living
in poverty
and misery
all the young
people
moving abroad
in search of
a better life.
shit happens.
betrayed
Ho Chi Minh
kicked some
Yankee ass
reunited
the nation but
now Vietnam’s
“Communist”
government
has imposed
capitalism
on the country.
what American
bombs and
Agent Orange
couldn’t do
greed and the
Almighty Dollar
have. did all
those
Viet Cong
heroes
die for nothing?
Wall Street
is a cancer
devouring
the whole
goddam world.
dig?
worms devour the night
as the Tao drinks wine in a tree
he’s no help at all
just like the rest of you
humanity, you remind me of
the headless mice my cat
leaves in the yard
or the pigeon’s head
she once left by the door.
while Nazis bury Jewish gold
at the ends of rainbows
the angels
of our better nature
are tied to trees
and sodomized
the angels
of our better nature
have slashed their wrists
and hung themselves
with piano wire.
poems 6
the future is here
yes, Uncle Sam is spying on yr Internet
when you're surfing porn
or visiting the website of the Communist Party USA
they tell you it's to keep us safe
but the greatest threat to the American people
is their own Government
so the only safe thing to do
is visit cooking sites
email anything but porn
and post all yr shitty poems to Facebook
so yes, America is still #1
if you go by the size of the prison population
or the number of people killed abroad
but whatever you say
make sure it ain't something that Uncle Sam won't like
I'm not even sure about writing this poem.
generosity from strangers
one cell of the Weather Underground
was planning on bombing
an officers' ball
but it went off prematurely
so the townhouse got destroyed
and the only people who got killed
were the three of them
they freed Tim Leary
with a commando-style operation out in California
but Leonard Peltier is still in prison
and so is Mumia
and Abbie Hoffman is dead
the Vietnam War ended almost 40 years ago
and maybe the dead at Kent State have
attained Nirvana by now
so there's all the time in the world
for prayer beads
meditation
opening the doors of consciousness
but no one's interested anymore
cuz all the jobs went to China
and people are struggling nowadays
just trying to survive
but at least they're starting to legalize pot now
so if you're holding
don't be a selfish prick.
testament
when this body dies
I hope someone'll scatter the ashes
among the weeds
beside the dumpster
then I'll just be a spirit wandering the woods
which is the only place I ever truly loved
and yes, I'll remember all of you
and yes, I'll be cursing all of you
just like I did in this life.
all the king's horses ...
yes,
I was the freak
the weirdo
the retard with crooked legs
who stammered;
I stopped showering
or brushing my teeth
cuz I didn't give a shit anymore;
I'm a bum and a loser
who doesn't wanna work
who got fired from almost
every job I ever had
sometimes after a few days
sometimes a few hours;
all I wanna do now
is kiss the rising sun
and talk to the white clouds
while the bankers steal
the reporters lie
and the idiots go off
to fight for their rotten country
in Afghanistan.
metaphor of what?
the head rests on the forearm
the head is limp and mostly empty
awash in morbidity
contemplating the emptiness of the cosmos
or at least this corner of it
the head curses Bulgarians
and people
remembering the screaming
the insanity
the loneliness and despair
remembering marianne faithfull
and her sweet voice as
ophelia
the head is reborn each morning
only to die slowly over the course of the day
the head repeats to itself, silently
namu amida buddha
namu amida buddha
namu amida buddha
the Pure Land is the place full of sun
where the trees always sway in the breeze
and maybe it's
the only place that's real.
skulls
night crawls on its belly
and somewhere in Cleveland
a young man gets stabbed to death
in a parking lot—
the bottle is empty
the doors are locked
headless mice lie in the yard
I'm starting to understand leeches
and serial killers
I try to cheer myself up
thinking of lipstick lezzies
yellow warblers
and the foreign occupiers getting slaughtered
at Ong Thanh
but the light at the end of tunnel
ain't no on-coming train
just a neon bulb that's flickering out.
the ride
it's slow walking
when yr hands are cuffed behind yr back
and even yr ankles are cuffed together
the blonde policewoman was nice enough
making sure I didn't bang my head on the roof
of the squad car as I got in
I wanted to compliment her
on her big round beautiful ass
but I thought better of it
it was a hot summer night
hot in the back of the squad car too
I remembered the idea
that the whole world is only a dream
but the handcuffs and anklecuffs were real enough
as I watched the full moon rising
through the window of the squad car
I thought about what a million other people
might be doing at that moment
while I was waiting for my ride to begin
at the station
they took away my belt and shoelaces
I found out later that the guy in the next cell
was a co-worker I barely knew
it's a small world.
the orchid
reposing
in poverty
and
despair
sweet
as an orchid
in the summer
rain
as a girl
in the madman's
web
the angels
wander about
with
dopamine
eyes
feeding on air
and who
will save us
if not
the atom
bomb?
hope lies
bound and raped
in the corner
and something
crawls
into what's
left of my brain
with
the voice
of a small
child.
what to do besides hanging yrself
in the summer light of inbred little towns
the dead birds tell you secret things
you must navigate the minefields of white trash
walk in circles and talk to yrself
as the clock-towers look down in wonder
you must inject yrself with the sweet nectar of yr own mind
and then you're free as the spider or the wasp
you wave yr silken hand
leaving trails of ghosts in the sky
and then you can brag aloud that you alone know
and when the old hobo asks you what time it is
you can laugh at the sky like a madman.
grey
red and yellow leaves
falling through a grey wind
it's Veterans' Day
so the parade outside must be for the babykillers
they woke me from a strange dream
that I've already forgotten
I close my eyes
imagine a gold Buddha and the sound of waves
anything to get me away from where I am right now—
I know why caged animals scream.
you won't read this in the papers
I shoulda been a 60s radical
throwing rocks and bombs
punching cops between acid trips
at the '68 Democratic Convention
my only weapon is my computer
the words I type are Molotov cocktails
that I hurl through the windows
of the empty rancid skulls
of the American Right
(I know it ain't much)
congenitally stupid nation
might-makes-right
kill-the-poor
social Darwinist fascism
iron-fisted police state
that woulda cracked even Lenin
this country needs a real revolution
not another Founding Fathers
bullshit revolution
a real revolution
led by someone named
Castro or Chavez
or maybe even Trotsky.
end of days
we saw an old
homeless guy with
a slit in the back
of his pants
we laughed
we were kids
we thought it was
funny at the time
I don't think it was
so funny now.
it was a chill windy
night in New York
Reagan was President
already senile
the first lady was
blowing Frank Sinatra
and consulting
astrologers
on foreign policy.
we didn't know it
at the time but
the Soviet Union
was on its last legs
and America was
only 20 years behind
and soon nothing
would be funny at all.
Honduras, 2009
drifting like the ghost
of Trotsky
in the nebulous white dawn
the white sky above me
is the same over
Tegucigalpa
where the U.S. just
overthrew democracy
again.
the generals were all trained
at The School of The Americas
in the state of Georgia
the school where
they instruct
pro-American terrorists
in the dirty work
of empire to protect
“our hemisphere”
as the Norte Americanos
call it. the coup took place
a week ago.
we'll see what happens
next.
turning on the light of learning
well, there were the dyke gym teachers
the dyke English teachers
and the ex-Marine who became a teacher
cuz he couldn't find a real job
most of them were unambitious
content to rot their lives away
surrounded by the dumb teenage mob
the worst were the teachers
who tried to inspire the kids
but it's your parents and the kids
who'll crush you
the teachers don't count for shit
and to all my former teachers
all I have to say is:
you're less than the acne on my neck.
yes, Uncle Sam is spying on yr Internet
when you're surfing porn
or visiting the website of the Communist Party USA
they tell you it's to keep us safe
but the greatest threat to the American people
is their own Government
so the only safe thing to do
is visit cooking sites
email anything but porn
and post all yr shitty poems to Facebook
so yes, America is still #1
if you go by the size of the prison population
or the number of people killed abroad
but whatever you say
make sure it ain't something that Uncle Sam won't like
I'm not even sure about writing this poem.
generosity from strangers
one cell of the Weather Underground
was planning on bombing
an officers' ball
but it went off prematurely
so the townhouse got destroyed
and the only people who got killed
were the three of them
they freed Tim Leary
with a commando-style operation out in California
but Leonard Peltier is still in prison
and so is Mumia
and Abbie Hoffman is dead
the Vietnam War ended almost 40 years ago
and maybe the dead at Kent State have
attained Nirvana by now
so there's all the time in the world
for prayer beads
meditation
opening the doors of consciousness
but no one's interested anymore
cuz all the jobs went to China
and people are struggling nowadays
just trying to survive
but at least they're starting to legalize pot now
so if you're holding
don't be a selfish prick.
testament
when this body dies
I hope someone'll scatter the ashes
among the weeds
beside the dumpster
then I'll just be a spirit wandering the woods
which is the only place I ever truly loved
and yes, I'll remember all of you
and yes, I'll be cursing all of you
just like I did in this life.
all the king's horses ...
yes,
I was the freak
the weirdo
the retard with crooked legs
who stammered;
I stopped showering
or brushing my teeth
cuz I didn't give a shit anymore;
I'm a bum and a loser
who doesn't wanna work
who got fired from almost
every job I ever had
sometimes after a few days
sometimes a few hours;
all I wanna do now
is kiss the rising sun
and talk to the white clouds
while the bankers steal
the reporters lie
and the idiots go off
to fight for their rotten country
in Afghanistan.
metaphor of what?
the head rests on the forearm
the head is limp and mostly empty
awash in morbidity
contemplating the emptiness of the cosmos
or at least this corner of it
the head curses Bulgarians
and people
remembering the screaming
the insanity
the loneliness and despair
remembering marianne faithfull
and her sweet voice as
ophelia
the head is reborn each morning
only to die slowly over the course of the day
the head repeats to itself, silently
namu amida buddha
namu amida buddha
namu amida buddha
the Pure Land is the place full of sun
where the trees always sway in the breeze
and maybe it's
the only place that's real.
skulls
night crawls on its belly
and somewhere in Cleveland
a young man gets stabbed to death
in a parking lot—
the bottle is empty
the doors are locked
headless mice lie in the yard
I'm starting to understand leeches
and serial killers
I try to cheer myself up
thinking of lipstick lezzies
yellow warblers
and the foreign occupiers getting slaughtered
at Ong Thanh
but the light at the end of tunnel
ain't no on-coming train
just a neon bulb that's flickering out.
the ride
it's slow walking
when yr hands are cuffed behind yr back
and even yr ankles are cuffed together
the blonde policewoman was nice enough
making sure I didn't bang my head on the roof
of the squad car as I got in
I wanted to compliment her
on her big round beautiful ass
but I thought better of it
it was a hot summer night
hot in the back of the squad car too
I remembered the idea
that the whole world is only a dream
but the handcuffs and anklecuffs were real enough
as I watched the full moon rising
through the window of the squad car
I thought about what a million other people
might be doing at that moment
while I was waiting for my ride to begin
at the station
they took away my belt and shoelaces
I found out later that the guy in the next cell
was a co-worker I barely knew
it's a small world.
the orchid
reposing
in poverty
and
despair
sweet
as an orchid
in the summer
rain
as a girl
in the madman's
web
the angels
wander about
with
dopamine
eyes
feeding on air
and who
will save us
if not
the atom
bomb?
hope lies
bound and raped
in the corner
and something
crawls
into what's
left of my brain
with
the voice
of a small
child.
what to do besides hanging yrself
in the summer light of inbred little towns
the dead birds tell you secret things
you must navigate the minefields of white trash
walk in circles and talk to yrself
as the clock-towers look down in wonder
you must inject yrself with the sweet nectar of yr own mind
and then you're free as the spider or the wasp
you wave yr silken hand
leaving trails of ghosts in the sky
and then you can brag aloud that you alone know
and when the old hobo asks you what time it is
you can laugh at the sky like a madman.
grey
red and yellow leaves
falling through a grey wind
it's Veterans' Day
so the parade outside must be for the babykillers
they woke me from a strange dream
that I've already forgotten
I close my eyes
imagine a gold Buddha and the sound of waves
anything to get me away from where I am right now—
I know why caged animals scream.
you won't read this in the papers
I shoulda been a 60s radical
throwing rocks and bombs
punching cops between acid trips
at the '68 Democratic Convention
my only weapon is my computer
the words I type are Molotov cocktails
that I hurl through the windows
of the empty rancid skulls
of the American Right
(I know it ain't much)
congenitally stupid nation
might-makes-right
kill-the-poor
social Darwinist fascism
iron-fisted police state
that woulda cracked even Lenin
this country needs a real revolution
not another Founding Fathers
bullshit revolution
a real revolution
led by someone named
Castro or Chavez
or maybe even Trotsky.
end of days
we saw an old
homeless guy with
a slit in the back
of his pants
we laughed
we were kids
we thought it was
funny at the time
I don't think it was
so funny now.
it was a chill windy
night in New York
Reagan was President
already senile
the first lady was
blowing Frank Sinatra
and consulting
astrologers
on foreign policy.
we didn't know it
at the time but
the Soviet Union
was on its last legs
and America was
only 20 years behind
and soon nothing
would be funny at all.
Honduras, 2009
drifting like the ghost
of Trotsky
in the nebulous white dawn
the white sky above me
is the same over
Tegucigalpa
where the U.S. just
overthrew democracy
again.
the generals were all trained
at The School of The Americas
in the state of Georgia
the school where
they instruct
pro-American terrorists
in the dirty work
of empire to protect
“our hemisphere”
as the Norte Americanos
call it. the coup took place
a week ago.
we'll see what happens
next.
turning on the light of learning
well, there were the dyke gym teachers
the dyke English teachers
and the ex-Marine who became a teacher
cuz he couldn't find a real job
most of them were unambitious
content to rot their lives away
surrounded by the dumb teenage mob
the worst were the teachers
who tried to inspire the kids
but it's your parents and the kids
who'll crush you
the teachers don't count for shit
and to all my former teachers
all I have to say is:
you're less than the acne on my neck.
Thursday, January 5, 2017
poems 5
carpe diem
I’m often left alone
staring at my white hands
wondering what
they’re trying to say
there’s so much
sitting around
staring at the clouds
while dogs bark
down the street—
staring at the blue sky
while the wind blows
through the cold sunlight
and naked branches—
the digital clock
on my desk has no hands
just red neon numbers
that stare back at me
stupidly
and whoever said
carpe diem
was really full of shit
didn’t know
a damn thing about
anything
cuz it’s mostly just
sitting around
waiting for nuclear war
for the sun to fall
for the guardians of
national security
to come and take me
away—
HELP!
the hippies
who dreamt
of a starry
new
consciousness
of LSD
Shankar
and prayer beads
now lie
trampled in
the gutters
steamrolled
by the military-
industrial
zombieplex
run over by
the armored limo
of reality
in the
rabid-dog alleys
of America
where
the only truth
is the Greenback
the only virtue
is war
and the only sin
is compassion—
the hippies
of yesteryear
walk round
in a daze
wondering
what the fuck
happened
to the dream,
man?
where the fuck
did it go?
the uninvited
1,000,000 people
froze or starved to death in
the siege of Leningrad
so sitting here typing at my computer
is no act of bravery
but Death is always hovering
somewhere in the background
whether it’s congestive heart failure
or merely a bullet to the temple.
I think I’ve been dead one way
or another since I was a kid growing up
in New York:
there was my insane family;
the insane homeless in the streets outside;
as the snow turned to brown sludge
under the feet of a million
nameless strangers
I knew I was dead somehow
only I didn’t know the words to say it.
now I’m lying in bed staring up
at the white ceiling.
I can feel my old friend creeping in
a breath at a time
the way he does. I tell him
the more I see him
the less afraid of him
I am. he stares back at me
with empty eyes
saying all there is to say.
sanctuary
don’t rage
at the pigs
when
you see them
pepper-
spraying
the young people
in the streets
the pigs
are only doing
their jobs
it’s better
to raise
your mind up
to the sky
where the
ghost of
J. Edgar Hoover
floats by
in high heels
and a red dress
where the
dreams
of manifest-
destinied
cowboys
burn up like
so much
manure
in proverbial
flames.
cheap labor
I remember getting up in the morning
taking a quick shower if there was time
going to work
slaving and sweating all day
going home, watching a bit of TV
then going back to bed till
the next morning
when I had to do the whole routine
again.
I thought to myself
this kind of life is worse than death
so I started thinking
of possible ways out:
selling drugs
mail scams
stealing old ladies’ purses.
then I finally ran into a bit of luck
so now all that is behind me
(for the moment, at least)
but goddam if the memories
aren’t a fucking nightmare.
red stars and clarion-calls
Trotsky and Lenin must be rolling in their graves
tearing out their goatees
the revolution betrayed
stabbed in the back by people made of shit
who worship the god of greed
stabbed in the back
and left to die
while the soft grey sky wasn’t looking
and the plumber was
driving home from work—
the flowers don’t know any of this
and you can call it St. Petersburg
if you want to
but a million people didn’t give their lives
in the Great Patriotic War
for a city by that name—
and you can drive round the city
in your big Western cars
while old women beg in the street ....
luck
I was always
the knock-kneed kid
who stammered
I was the oddball
the outcast
the last one picked
when they were choosing
teams for
the playground
maybe it was just
rotten luck
how the daisies fell
maybe it’s why
my head is always filled
with rage
and full moons
and why my only ambition
was always
just to be alright.
to-do list
street littered with bottle caps
maybe they fell from the soft grey clouds
you can roam the streets of small towns
all yr life and not get anywhere
the parking meters never go anywhere
they seem happy enough
the clouds are going somewhere and nowhere
at the same time
so what difference does it make?
might as well sit on a green bench
and drink the nectar of yr own nothingness.
Jesus loves you
you were
never
no son of god
you were
a long-haired
hippie
Buddha
who gave it all away
for free
then they made you
a god of war
but you still got
true followers
occupying Wall Street
marching
in Palestine
sacrificing their
blood
for the cause
just like you did
so long ago.
September morning
it's cool and mellow
the sun like a teenage girl bending over
mornings like this
I can forget about all of you
and let the wind rattle the trees
the wind tells me how butterflies die
I let the sunshine fall on me
like the hands of blonde angels
I realize now
whatever you do
you oughta do it with a pure heart
a heart so red
it won't burn in the ashes at the end
you oughta do it like acid sent from the Gods
whether it's feeding the hungry
sniffing glue
or making obscene remarks
to your neighbors' young daughter
when you're insane
the sky crumbles like chalk
when you're insane you're free
as the mind crashes through
Autumn leaves
so they can never put the cuffs
on your wandering schizophrenic soul.
can't go home again
when they tore down
the statues of
Lenin
everyone
lost their job
and the pimps
drove up and
down
the streets
hunting for girls
I've seen photos
on the Net
of homeless
people
in Bulgaria
rummaging for food
in garbage cans
sometimes
when the sky
is a dreamy shade
of grey
I feel like
I'm back home
and even
the leaves
seem
a bit greener
but
I've forgotten
the language
and I don't want to
see how it is
now
I just want to
remember
the old country
the way it
used to be
back then.
bastard
wandering lost and lonely
as a Manson girl
I was looking
for some bearded guru
but all I found
were these empty parking lots
I wandered streets filled
with dead birds
and clouds muttering to themselves
I was looking for a pot of gold
but all I found was poetry
I wandered over by the tracks
and thought about suicide
but I knew even then
that I'm too much of a coward
I wandered lost and lonely
like a severed hand
crawling up the burning walls of Hell
and I'm still looking for something
to rid me of all this bullshit.
why madmen should never edit poetry zines
sitting
alone
in a small
room
reading
the poem-
submissions
while
the oranges
rot
and a crack
opens
in the window
of my mind.
what does a guitar sound like if the guitarist hangs himself with one of the strings?
exchanging whispers
with the spider and the rose
and there's some things
you can only learn
from the dead sparrows
outside yr window.
the sunflowers are feeling pretty damn low
there's the little white pills
the big white pills
the oblong pills
and the square green pills
all these pills are making me dizzy
sometimes I stagger and fall
once I banged my head off the fridge door
another time I banged it off a wall
but I can't get any dumber
so no worry
there's young women walking by my window
with their pink toenails and summer thighs
there's hungry stray dogs
I've spent 10 years in this small room
prisoner of my family's insanity
and my own
while the American Empire tore up the world
like a vengeful whore
and I can say that all I regret
is that I never met Jack Micheline
or Bukowski
and that I was ever born into this idiot asshole universe
in the first place.
there ain’t many people I don’t hate
people ask me, why do you hate veterans so much?
for the record
I got friends who are veterans
but I do hate veterans generally
I got personal reasons
and I also know right from wrong
fact is, there ain’t many people I don’t hate
I hate bankers
pimps
and all the other capitalists
I hate the slumlord who collects the rent
I hate my neighbors and their dogs
and their rotten kids
I hate children
I hate happy families
I hate teachers cuz they’re mostly losers
I hate doctors cuz they’re mostly
crooks
I hate cops too
except for the blonde
blue-eyed
angelic
lady cop
who arrested me that one night
she can cuff me again
anytime
she
wants.
I’m often left alone
staring at my white hands
wondering what
they’re trying to say
there’s so much
sitting around
staring at the clouds
while dogs bark
down the street—
staring at the blue sky
while the wind blows
through the cold sunlight
and naked branches—
the digital clock
on my desk has no hands
just red neon numbers
that stare back at me
stupidly
and whoever said
carpe diem
was really full of shit
didn’t know
a damn thing about
anything
cuz it’s mostly just
sitting around
waiting for nuclear war
for the sun to fall
for the guardians of
national security
to come and take me
away—
HELP!
the hippies
who dreamt
of a starry
new
consciousness
of LSD
Shankar
and prayer beads
now lie
trampled in
the gutters
steamrolled
by the military-
industrial
zombieplex
run over by
the armored limo
of reality
in the
rabid-dog alleys
of America
where
the only truth
is the Greenback
the only virtue
is war
and the only sin
is compassion—
the hippies
of yesteryear
walk round
in a daze
wondering
what the fuck
happened
to the dream,
man?
where the fuck
did it go?
the uninvited
1,000,000 people
froze or starved to death in
the siege of Leningrad
so sitting here typing at my computer
is no act of bravery
but Death is always hovering
somewhere in the background
whether it’s congestive heart failure
or merely a bullet to the temple.
I think I’ve been dead one way
or another since I was a kid growing up
in New York:
there was my insane family;
the insane homeless in the streets outside;
as the snow turned to brown sludge
under the feet of a million
nameless strangers
I knew I was dead somehow
only I didn’t know the words to say it.
now I’m lying in bed staring up
at the white ceiling.
I can feel my old friend creeping in
a breath at a time
the way he does. I tell him
the more I see him
the less afraid of him
I am. he stares back at me
with empty eyes
saying all there is to say.
sanctuary
don’t rage
at the pigs
when
you see them
pepper-
spraying
the young people
in the streets
the pigs
are only doing
their jobs
it’s better
to raise
your mind up
to the sky
where the
ghost of
J. Edgar Hoover
floats by
in high heels
and a red dress
where the
dreams
of manifest-
destinied
cowboys
burn up like
so much
manure
in proverbial
flames.
cheap labor
I remember getting up in the morning
taking a quick shower if there was time
going to work
slaving and sweating all day
going home, watching a bit of TV
then going back to bed till
the next morning
when I had to do the whole routine
again.
I thought to myself
this kind of life is worse than death
so I started thinking
of possible ways out:
selling drugs
mail scams
stealing old ladies’ purses.
then I finally ran into a bit of luck
so now all that is behind me
(for the moment, at least)
but goddam if the memories
aren’t a fucking nightmare.
red stars and clarion-calls
Trotsky and Lenin must be rolling in their graves
tearing out their goatees
the revolution betrayed
stabbed in the back by people made of shit
who worship the god of greed
stabbed in the back
and left to die
while the soft grey sky wasn’t looking
and the plumber was
driving home from work—
the flowers don’t know any of this
and you can call it St. Petersburg
if you want to
but a million people didn’t give their lives
in the Great Patriotic War
for a city by that name—
and you can drive round the city
in your big Western cars
while old women beg in the street ....
luck
I was always
the knock-kneed kid
who stammered
I was the oddball
the outcast
the last one picked
when they were choosing
teams for
the playground
maybe it was just
rotten luck
how the daisies fell
maybe it’s why
my head is always filled
with rage
and full moons
and why my only ambition
was always
just to be alright.
to-do list
street littered with bottle caps
maybe they fell from the soft grey clouds
you can roam the streets of small towns
all yr life and not get anywhere
the parking meters never go anywhere
they seem happy enough
the clouds are going somewhere and nowhere
at the same time
so what difference does it make?
might as well sit on a green bench
and drink the nectar of yr own nothingness.
Jesus loves you
you were
never
no son of god
you were
a long-haired
hippie
Buddha
who gave it all away
for free
then they made you
a god of war
but you still got
true followers
occupying Wall Street
marching
in Palestine
sacrificing their
blood
for the cause
just like you did
so long ago.
September morning
it's cool and mellow
the sun like a teenage girl bending over
mornings like this
I can forget about all of you
and let the wind rattle the trees
the wind tells me how butterflies die
I let the sunshine fall on me
like the hands of blonde angels
I realize now
whatever you do
you oughta do it with a pure heart
a heart so red
it won't burn in the ashes at the end
you oughta do it like acid sent from the Gods
whether it's feeding the hungry
sniffing glue
or making obscene remarks
to your neighbors' young daughter
when you're insane
the sky crumbles like chalk
when you're insane you're free
as the mind crashes through
Autumn leaves
so they can never put the cuffs
on your wandering schizophrenic soul.
can't go home again
when they tore down
the statues of
Lenin
everyone
lost their job
and the pimps
drove up and
down
the streets
hunting for girls
I've seen photos
on the Net
of homeless
people
in Bulgaria
rummaging for food
in garbage cans
sometimes
when the sky
is a dreamy shade
of grey
I feel like
I'm back home
and even
the leaves
seem
a bit greener
but
I've forgotten
the language
and I don't want to
see how it is
now
I just want to
remember
the old country
the way it
used to be
back then.
bastard
wandering lost and lonely
as a Manson girl
I was looking
for some bearded guru
but all I found
were these empty parking lots
I wandered streets filled
with dead birds
and clouds muttering to themselves
I was looking for a pot of gold
but all I found was poetry
I wandered over by the tracks
and thought about suicide
but I knew even then
that I'm too much of a coward
I wandered lost and lonely
like a severed hand
crawling up the burning walls of Hell
and I'm still looking for something
to rid me of all this bullshit.
why madmen should never edit poetry zines
sitting
alone
in a small
room
reading
the poem-
submissions
while
the oranges
rot
and a crack
opens
in the window
of my mind.
what does a guitar sound like if the guitarist hangs himself with one of the strings?
exchanging whispers
with the spider and the rose
and there's some things
you can only learn
from the dead sparrows
outside yr window.
the sunflowers are feeling pretty damn low
there's the little white pills
the big white pills
the oblong pills
and the square green pills
all these pills are making me dizzy
sometimes I stagger and fall
once I banged my head off the fridge door
another time I banged it off a wall
but I can't get any dumber
so no worry
there's young women walking by my window
with their pink toenails and summer thighs
there's hungry stray dogs
I've spent 10 years in this small room
prisoner of my family's insanity
and my own
while the American Empire tore up the world
like a vengeful whore
and I can say that all I regret
is that I never met Jack Micheline
or Bukowski
and that I was ever born into this idiot asshole universe
in the first place.
there ain’t many people I don’t hate
people ask me, why do you hate veterans so much?
for the record
I got friends who are veterans
but I do hate veterans generally
I got personal reasons
and I also know right from wrong
fact is, there ain’t many people I don’t hate
I hate bankers
pimps
and all the other capitalists
I hate the slumlord who collects the rent
I hate my neighbors and their dogs
and their rotten kids
I hate children
I hate happy families
I hate teachers cuz they’re mostly losers
I hate doctors cuz they’re mostly
crooks
I hate cops too
except for the blonde
blue-eyed
angelic
lady cop
who arrested me that one night
she can cuff me again
anytime
she
wants.
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
poems 4
the fury of sparrows
a guy pulls into
his garage then
sits in the car
smoking Camels
biting his lips
with yellow teeth.
a dog barks at
a ghost walking
down the street
in the pale light
of Ohio winter.
a tricycle lies
overturned
on a green lawn.
even the birds
are too mellow
to sing this
morning, sitting
all quiet in their
trees which is
a kind of poetry
too.
Eastern Europe
all that bullshit about
“freedom and democracy”
no jobs no money
no hope at all
gangs of stooges and
lackeys serving
Washington's interests
the young men going off
to be exploited
as farm laborers
in the West
the women and girls used
as sex slaves
in their brothels
you can tear down a village
overnight
pollute the water in a minute
but the new Lenin
will be a long time coming
the return of basic
decency and humanity
will be a long time coming
now the West and Islam
are at each other's throats
so maybe
there's a chance.
hole
walking the
cold streets
at dawn
feeling
like a ghost
there’s clouds
behind the
naked trees
the flowers are
smiling like
severed heads.
in New York
some kids
laughed at me
cuz I didn’t
speak Spanish.
the only Spanish
word I know is
puta.
there’s a hole
in the clouds
a hole in my head
Kurt Cobain
is stoned
and writing
a love song.
the experience
Jimi Hendrix warned
them that when the
Chinese commies
take Saigon they’ll
take Laos and
Cambodia too and
then the shit will
hit the fan
and he was right but
then the Vietnamese
wiped out the
Khmer Rouge over
the objections of
China and America
and other blacks
hated him for having
white people in his
band and for dating
a light brown
Puerto Rican girl
but then he took
another hit of LSD
the purple haze
came on and made
everything alright.
a God for teenage hoods
summer night and
the hum of
air conditioners
when I was a kid
I used to roam the
streets on nights
like this
you have no idea
how sweet the night
air seemed to me
and the sound of
18-wheelers from
the far-off highway
even the streetlights
seemed poetic
sometimes
I vandalized cars
while their owners
slept
I never got caught
and the stars looked
down, wondering.
dogma
I’m a slacker
and a loser
and I like to stare at the clouds for hours
I read a lot of books
and don’t know anything at all
I like ladybugs
someone told me
I should put myself
in the hands of
God
but I’d rather be in the hand
of some high school cheerleader
I’d rather be a white birch
in the Russian forest
or a Chinese monk on pilgrimage
to India
and God is
wind chimes when a breeze picks up.
halcyon days
world full of
powerless, penniless
revolutionaries
screaming their ideas
onto paper
while serial killers
and outlaw bikers
roam California highways
disillusioned Trotskyites
feeding their hunger
on the stale bread
of frustration
while junkies sit in alleys
brains shredded
by LSD
a tear for the lost
is a wet brown leaf
in Autumn
those who know
sit in hot empty rooms
in the cancerous summer
tubes in their arms
pumping them full of
insanity
and stark raving loneliness
they sweat the blood
of the Gods
so remember them
as the sky fills with sulfur.
no shit
I have dreams like
being in Russia
amid all the poverty that
Gorby and Yeltsin and
the rest of the asshole
traitorous Liberals created
it's often so realistic
I wake up feeling sick
or I dream that I'm
wandering in some strange
place and there's other
people there but they
ignore me and I ignore
them (dreams imitating life)
or this town is a raging
inferno and the flames are
kissing the night sky
and when all the white trash
have been burned alive
Satan puts out the flames
by pissing on them.
I guess I must be crazy.
the new napalm
you’d cut my head off
and feed it
to Saddam Hussein
use it to fertilize
the white phosphorous desert
the ashes
of my personal sorrow
will keep
the stock market up
and fill your barren hearts
with nuclear warheads
my head bursts out in flowers
that wither under the heat
of your military-industrial
death-plex
that the hangman laughs at
in a drunken stupor
in his depleted uranium
dreams.
upon realizing things will never get any better
dusk falling through the windows
I’m half asleep
thinking of Hitler and his dog
and the dead rats in my head.
a wasted life—
my screaming parents
the lousy jobs in warehouses and
supermarkets and restaurant kitchens
sitting in my room, the sunlight
dripping cancer from the walls.
I remember that time I had to walk home
in the rain down a broken discarded street
white litter everywhere
thinking maybe the Gods just gave up
and quit trying.
holding on
I went for a stroll with
my crooked legs
and people started laughing—
you ever felt like shit?
ever felt like pissing on
people’s faces?
ever felt like you were a dirty
rag in the gutter?
ever stared at passing cars
under a filthy afternoon sky?
ever felt like the graffiti on
the wall was right?
ever felt like you were no
better off than the homeless
and the addicts?
ever put a rock through
a window just for the hell of it?
ever worried the squad car’s
sirens were coming for you?
ever wished you owned an Uzi?
if the answer to all of the above is
yes
then you must be a poet too.
the Fellini poem
I found a hand
in the street
a giant white
hand made
of cardboard.
a giant nose
with a mustache
underneath
a foot the size
of a BMW.
there were
other people
in the street
but none of
them seemed
to notice
just me and
some woman
leaning out
a window
with her tits
hanging out
and then I
understood.
the demons are real
red flower wilting
in a glass
sunlight
on the white walls
in my state of
confusion.
the demons
growl at me
in my sleep
so I turn them off
thinking of
Penelope Cruz
of hippie chicks
in 1969.
the demons
are quiet now
hiding somewhere
in the back of
my mind
like a tumor.
dog day afternoons
I fill out applications but they never call.
I guess they take one look at my work record
and throw it away.
so I lie in bed all day
staring at the butchered, crucified sun.
I listen to radio on the Internet –
mostly grunge, indie rock –
while the razors dance
in the black hole of my mind.
I fantasize about raping the young wife upstairs.
sometimes I think I'm in Hell with the souls
of America's war dead
but at least I can go to the fridge
and pour myself a glass of cold water.
open window
alone with the night
and the wind flowing through
the leaves
there was this song
in my head
one line of it goes
I will remember you ...
and I was trying to recall
who sang it
was it Tori Amos?
and then it hit me
of course!
Sarah McLachlan!
on a night like this
when the leaves are falling
through the stars
you realize that a beautiful song
from a beautiful voice
deserves to be remembered
perhaps more than anything else
in this universe
and maybe in the end
will be the only thing that
anyone remembers
even when all that's left in the end
is only the stars themselves.
no, I don't support the troops ...
if you mean the American troops in Afghanistan
cuz all they're doing is
killing women and children
if you wanna show me some troops I can support
gimme the Viet Cong fighting in the jungle
outnumbered 10 to 1
running from the enemy's choppers
and B-52's
gimme the Soviet soldier
dying by their millions in the mud of Belarus
or in the streets of Stalingrad
killing Nazis
Red Star shining from every cap
gimme Fidel and his band of brothers
ambushing the enemy with their machetes
in the heat of the Sierra Maestra
gimme any of them and all of them
but don't call what the G.I.'s are doing in Afghanistan
heroism
cuz it's a fucking debasement of the word.
Pure Land
I prayed to Buddha to fix my heart
and I'll be damned if he didn't
and they say Buddha ain't a God
but I prayed to him anyway and it worked
and when I look at my hands sitting on the table
with the sun falling on them
I think of Shakyamuni and the other Buddhas
and when I drive through some place at night
and the neon lights are all glowing
I think of the Buddhas
and when I remember all the crazy things I've done
(smashing windows, petty sex crimes and the rest)
I think of the Buddhas
so you can worship whoever the fuck you want
but the Buddhas were always there for me
when I needed them.
say what?
there'll be no white elephants
crossing my path
the “I” may be an illusion
but all poets seek fame and glory
the “I” may be an illusion
but the memories in my head seem real
and the rage and the fury
are all too real
I lay myself down in the nectar
of the black rose of night
and maybe the Gods will visit me
bearing a thousand gifts
or maybe just one gift
red as a plum
and when the world finally drowns
in the last great flood
maybe my salvation
will lie in the suffering of others.
a guy pulls into
his garage then
sits in the car
smoking Camels
biting his lips
with yellow teeth.
a dog barks at
a ghost walking
down the street
in the pale light
of Ohio winter.
a tricycle lies
overturned
on a green lawn.
even the birds
are too mellow
to sing this
morning, sitting
all quiet in their
trees which is
a kind of poetry
too.
Eastern Europe
all that bullshit about
“freedom and democracy”
no jobs no money
no hope at all
gangs of stooges and
lackeys serving
Washington's interests
the young men going off
to be exploited
as farm laborers
in the West
the women and girls used
as sex slaves
in their brothels
you can tear down a village
overnight
pollute the water in a minute
but the new Lenin
will be a long time coming
the return of basic
decency and humanity
will be a long time coming
now the West and Islam
are at each other's throats
so maybe
there's a chance.
hole
walking the
cold streets
at dawn
feeling
like a ghost
there’s clouds
behind the
naked trees
the flowers are
smiling like
severed heads.
in New York
some kids
laughed at me
cuz I didn’t
speak Spanish.
the only Spanish
word I know is
puta.
there’s a hole
in the clouds
a hole in my head
Kurt Cobain
is stoned
and writing
a love song.
the experience
Jimi Hendrix warned
them that when the
Chinese commies
take Saigon they’ll
take Laos and
Cambodia too and
then the shit will
hit the fan
and he was right but
then the Vietnamese
wiped out the
Khmer Rouge over
the objections of
China and America
and other blacks
hated him for having
white people in his
band and for dating
a light brown
Puerto Rican girl
but then he took
another hit of LSD
the purple haze
came on and made
everything alright.
a God for teenage hoods
summer night and
the hum of
air conditioners
when I was a kid
I used to roam the
streets on nights
like this
you have no idea
how sweet the night
air seemed to me
and the sound of
18-wheelers from
the far-off highway
even the streetlights
seemed poetic
sometimes
I vandalized cars
while their owners
slept
I never got caught
and the stars looked
down, wondering.
dogma
I’m a slacker
and a loser
and I like to stare at the clouds for hours
I read a lot of books
and don’t know anything at all
I like ladybugs
someone told me
I should put myself
in the hands of
God
but I’d rather be in the hand
of some high school cheerleader
I’d rather be a white birch
in the Russian forest
or a Chinese monk on pilgrimage
to India
and God is
wind chimes when a breeze picks up.
halcyon days
world full of
powerless, penniless
revolutionaries
screaming their ideas
onto paper
while serial killers
and outlaw bikers
roam California highways
disillusioned Trotskyites
feeding their hunger
on the stale bread
of frustration
while junkies sit in alleys
brains shredded
by LSD
a tear for the lost
is a wet brown leaf
in Autumn
those who know
sit in hot empty rooms
in the cancerous summer
tubes in their arms
pumping them full of
insanity
and stark raving loneliness
they sweat the blood
of the Gods
so remember them
as the sky fills with sulfur.
no shit
I have dreams like
being in Russia
amid all the poverty that
Gorby and Yeltsin and
the rest of the asshole
traitorous Liberals created
it's often so realistic
I wake up feeling sick
or I dream that I'm
wandering in some strange
place and there's other
people there but they
ignore me and I ignore
them (dreams imitating life)
or this town is a raging
inferno and the flames are
kissing the night sky
and when all the white trash
have been burned alive
Satan puts out the flames
by pissing on them.
I guess I must be crazy.
the new napalm
you’d cut my head off
and feed it
to Saddam Hussein
use it to fertilize
the white phosphorous desert
the ashes
of my personal sorrow
will keep
the stock market up
and fill your barren hearts
with nuclear warheads
my head bursts out in flowers
that wither under the heat
of your military-industrial
death-plex
that the hangman laughs at
in a drunken stupor
in his depleted uranium
dreams.
upon realizing things will never get any better
dusk falling through the windows
I’m half asleep
thinking of Hitler and his dog
and the dead rats in my head.
a wasted life—
my screaming parents
the lousy jobs in warehouses and
supermarkets and restaurant kitchens
sitting in my room, the sunlight
dripping cancer from the walls.
I remember that time I had to walk home
in the rain down a broken discarded street
white litter everywhere
thinking maybe the Gods just gave up
and quit trying.
holding on
I went for a stroll with
my crooked legs
and people started laughing—
you ever felt like shit?
ever felt like pissing on
people’s faces?
ever felt like you were a dirty
rag in the gutter?
ever stared at passing cars
under a filthy afternoon sky?
ever felt like the graffiti on
the wall was right?
ever felt like you were no
better off than the homeless
and the addicts?
ever put a rock through
a window just for the hell of it?
ever worried the squad car’s
sirens were coming for you?
ever wished you owned an Uzi?
if the answer to all of the above is
yes
then you must be a poet too.
the Fellini poem
I found a hand
in the street
a giant white
hand made
of cardboard.
a giant nose
with a mustache
underneath
a foot the size
of a BMW.
there were
other people
in the street
but none of
them seemed
to notice
just me and
some woman
leaning out
a window
with her tits
hanging out
and then I
understood.
the demons are real
red flower wilting
in a glass
sunlight
on the white walls
in my state of
confusion.
the demons
growl at me
in my sleep
so I turn them off
thinking of
Penelope Cruz
of hippie chicks
in 1969.
the demons
are quiet now
hiding somewhere
in the back of
my mind
like a tumor.
dog day afternoons
I fill out applications but they never call.
I guess they take one look at my work record
and throw it away.
so I lie in bed all day
staring at the butchered, crucified sun.
I listen to radio on the Internet –
mostly grunge, indie rock –
while the razors dance
in the black hole of my mind.
I fantasize about raping the young wife upstairs.
sometimes I think I'm in Hell with the souls
of America's war dead
but at least I can go to the fridge
and pour myself a glass of cold water.
open window
alone with the night
and the wind flowing through
the leaves
there was this song
in my head
one line of it goes
I will remember you ...
and I was trying to recall
who sang it
was it Tori Amos?
and then it hit me
of course!
Sarah McLachlan!
on a night like this
when the leaves are falling
through the stars
you realize that a beautiful song
from a beautiful voice
deserves to be remembered
perhaps more than anything else
in this universe
and maybe in the end
will be the only thing that
anyone remembers
even when all that's left in the end
is only the stars themselves.
no, I don't support the troops ...
if you mean the American troops in Afghanistan
cuz all they're doing is
killing women and children
if you wanna show me some troops I can support
gimme the Viet Cong fighting in the jungle
outnumbered 10 to 1
running from the enemy's choppers
and B-52's
gimme the Soviet soldier
dying by their millions in the mud of Belarus
or in the streets of Stalingrad
killing Nazis
Red Star shining from every cap
gimme Fidel and his band of brothers
ambushing the enemy with their machetes
in the heat of the Sierra Maestra
gimme any of them and all of them
but don't call what the G.I.'s are doing in Afghanistan
heroism
cuz it's a fucking debasement of the word.
Pure Land
I prayed to Buddha to fix my heart
and I'll be damned if he didn't
and they say Buddha ain't a God
but I prayed to him anyway and it worked
and when I look at my hands sitting on the table
with the sun falling on them
I think of Shakyamuni and the other Buddhas
and when I drive through some place at night
and the neon lights are all glowing
I think of the Buddhas
and when I remember all the crazy things I've done
(smashing windows, petty sex crimes and the rest)
I think of the Buddhas
so you can worship whoever the fuck you want
but the Buddhas were always there for me
when I needed them.
say what?
there'll be no white elephants
crossing my path
the “I” may be an illusion
but all poets seek fame and glory
the “I” may be an illusion
but the memories in my head seem real
and the rage and the fury
are all too real
I lay myself down in the nectar
of the black rose of night
and maybe the Gods will visit me
bearing a thousand gifts
or maybe just one gift
red as a plum
and when the world finally drowns
in the last great flood
maybe my salvation
will lie in the suffering of others.
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