There are few
who've ever called me
Billy, even as a kid.
It's Bill, it's Will, it's William
if I'm in trouble.
I'd always been
misinterpreted
unworthy
of that familiar -y
until almost four decades
into this mess.
Maybe now some see
what no one else did.
Maybe this mirror's
too dusty
but a pat on the arm
and a brotherly "Billy"
persuades me to spit
that bullet
back out.
Find it.
Open it.
Close it.
Bury it
again.
Pretend
you didn't see it.
There are reasons
it's in the past.
The scents of fresh fruit
and rotting leaves
are in the air, mixed with salt
from the brackish Hudson
on a Saturday morning.
It's the earliest I've been
at the river's edge
in too long.
Sensations feel joyfully familiar
and sting simultaneously
until the boat approaches
pulls up onto the beach
sand crunching audibly
beneath its bow.
The skipper I've missed grins
and a thin, yet capable hand
reaches out to pull me aboard
the lowly angled sun in my eyes
blinding me temporarily
as I accept what's meant to be.
A dozen men behind me
lift their tools and prepare
to embark upon what's ours again.
I fall in love
with all of it
as the boat engine rumbles
and we approach
whatever comes next
together.
There's a limit
to my love:
Slowly
Become What
You Most Feared
Extravaganza.
I've seen
shooting stars.
I've watched
women shoot dope
between their toes.
Simmer down, Othello.
We're nonplussed.
The highway pavement's
bathed in deer blood.
It's mating season.
Inherited plants.
That free advice
cost someone else
in the past.
The most beautiful blonde
I've ever spooned
needed a place to stay
a year ago
so I started to cook more
and bought her a dresser.
I still have the dresser.
She couldn't make food
and I didn't want to clean:
a partnership based
on the negative.
We listened to more music
than what I felt necessary
to fill our shared air
and watched movies light enough
to keep her out
of the psych ward again.
The sex was as monumental
as what you'd rather not imagine.
I faked it on New Year's Eve
since I was too drunk
after shameless karaoke
at her sister's house
and she had work in the morning
at the hospital.
Had I known it'd be
the last time I'd sleep next to her
I wouldn't have gone
through the motions.
She missed her boys
and they couldn't live
here; hell, I barely can.
Ten months later
while waltzing through a hallway
a long strand of wavy corn silk
attached to a light switch plate
brushed against my arm
and inspired a tribute
to what should not
have been:
The closest to normal
that we'll ever have.
She's since chopped her hair.
I left that one dangling.
I hope he goes light
on the peppers.
There are sins
unforgivable:
not for all the
Key lime pie
on the Eastern Seaboard;
not even if you know
to take your hair down
before bed.
I was that woman once
or thrice--
the lover who's unaware
that there's another
in the woodwork.
He's threatened to jump
without you
and you should let him.
I did.
I learned to float.
There's a balance
that we're here to learn.
There's a line
that can't be crossed.
Throw the mess
of yourself
at the nearest wall
and see what sticks.
It pays
in other ways.
You're nothing
but purse dirt.
Say it back:
Your words hurt.
Carbon copy
reruns
are too blunt
are too curt.
Time's been too kind
to a pervert.
The kid's bus unloaded
at the Away Team's arena
before my Union contract's
dismissal time allowed
for an expedient commute
up the Parkway.
I tried like hell
to beat the clock
as always, boxing out
those attempted right-lane passers
with a deathgrip at seven
on my steering wheel
my right hand on the horn
and this grin that only
those with nothing left to lose
would know.
I'd never been to my city's high school
but a parking lot's a parking lot.
Walking the fence
as those boys kicked their ball
yielded nothing more or less
than my day of pulling wrenches.
Swearing I saw him
across the field, in the tented dugout
I trekked across from the bleachers
and stood feet from where
he sat with his clipboard
hoping he'd stand
and see me at the chain links.
That didn't happen.
I refrained from calling
his name through the canvas
for fear of embarrassing
a man in the making.
My drive home
shortly thereafter
left me with two questions
neither of which
I'll ask here and now:
It took nine months
but I'm grieving
your loss
Margot Robbie;
those dirty foot
milkshakes
left at my door.
We couldn't watch
anything violent
or scary
since we were
living it;
James Earl Jones
in the emergency room.
Karaoke
on New Year's Eve;
stepping stones
to where?
You chopped off
your hair
and I'm still
finding it.
If you care to listen
I could tell you a lot
about a little:
A fed bear is a dead bear;
dire desperation
at the mercy
of technology;
stolen hotel towels
that never get quite clean;
an unfulfilled need
to be among those
with whom you can
be silent.
It's hell on earth.
What sorcery is this?
Where you toss
your pocket change
says much about
who you are.
A man whom I paid
five thousand dollars
told me to go smoke
in the shower
and I'll trade you more tidbits
if you can make sense of that.
Come on--
for a friend?
"Do I snore?"
I ask her
after hearing
such rumblings
and wondering
if it's only gossip
as the trend goes
with me.
She giggles
pushes deeper
into my chest
like I haven't already
searched there
for answers
that won't exist
until I'm stardust again.
At that moment
I learn
that for over
half my life
I've been blessed
by people
who've overlooked
this unknown flaw
enough to leave me
to tackle the rest
as best
as I've known how.
I see rats
leaping from ships
while the water rises.
I see flies
fleeing shit
as the wind
picks up.
I see faces
beautiful faces
smiling up at me
on Sunday mornings
pretending to be lucky
without sharing the truth
rubbing it into
my foolishly
grinning countenance:
I've been blessed.
Varm: "We've known they're broken, but..."
Zoin: "How'd you try to fix it?"
Varm: "I helped them relate."
Zoin: "How? Most have been divided..."
Varm: "...and?"
Zoin: "...and some are sociopaths."
Varm: "I tried to make them laugh at it."
Zoin: [Reaches for zapper.]
Varm: [Smirks, one last time.]
Zoin: [Zaps Varm, reluctantly.]
End scene.
One of the first people
I met when I came here
a-decade-and-a-half ago
jumped off a bridge
a few months back.
I'd heard it on the radio
during my morning commute
but didn't know that it was him.
I can't call him a friend.
He was a neighbor.
We butted heads
once or twice.
I saw his aggression
for what it was:
overcompensation
insecurity
weakness--
and kept a safe distance.
He claimed I was crazy
but I knew what he hid.
When he and his girl moved
out from below me
I wasn't sad.
I'll be frank:
I wasn't sad
when I heard the news
either
but when I saw the online fundraiser
posted by his wife's sister
and read about "the loss of her life partner"
and then after a brief Google search
read about her filing for divorce
a few weeks prior to his suicide
and then read how there would be
no memorial service
but a tree would be planted
in his honor at an undisclosed location
in a cemetery
and next read that the abundance
of funds would pay for a bench
so mourners could sit and reflect
under the limbs of this man's
return to the Universe
then I was sad;
not for the coward
who leapt into the Hudson
but for the three boys
he'd left behind
to a mother who'd pretended
that a life could be chalked up
to a pathetic plea for money
and some lousy landscaping work
at a place that no one
who tried to know him
will ever actually see.
He was named after
a soap opera character
and died just as melodramatically--
"in the belly of the beast,"
as he'd phrased it.
Today I paid
a woman and a man
to undo the will of God.
As usual, one of my
insurance companies
was also involved.
"You're here for scrape
and burn," she declared
from the professional tone
associated with her scrubs.
(Don't worry
she wasn't my type.)
"You should really call it
something else," I quipped.
"It sounds like torture that way."
She broke out the technical term
with which I won't bore you
fourth wall be damned.
The doctor entered
and took a few photos
of my face with his iPad
like a pervert
for before & after records
in a medical file
that'll outlive me
with more grace
then proceeded to numb
six places on my face
citing the slight pinch
as though his hands
weren't as soft as
the butter on my kitchen counter
in these dog days of August.
He suggested that I close my eyes
and his assistant turned on a light
fit for interrogation, its brightness
piercing my eyelids
like the end of that alleged tunnel.
I felt slight pressure
heard a quick sizzle
and smelled cooking pork.
I'd learned that aroma
twenty-two years ago
after foolishly grabbing
a screw that'd been heated
by the drill I'd used to remove it.
Men are pigs, according to
my social media newsfeed
so the correlation checked out.
This diabolical duo
finished removing the tiny cancers
from my most visible skin
and applied round bandages
to half of the wounds.
"You can cover them all.
I get weird looks in public regardless."
Unaffected by my sophomoric humor
they ignored my statement
and advised me to stay out of the sun
while healing, like I wouldn't
have done so anyway.
The receptionist took my card
for payment and begrudinginly
printed a receipt
to stay in my good graces.
I left the practice with a fresh haircut
surrounding the face of a leper
and felt fine
until I found and returned the wallet
of a kid that had scurried out
ahead of me in the parking lot
and was irritated for the first time this week
when he didn't make eye contact
let alone thank me.
"Limited sunlight
for seven-to-ten days."
You've got it, Doc.
They lied and said a leopard
can't change its spots.
Stop me if I've told you
this one before, but when
my dad was a kid
his father took him
and his two siblings
to their lakefront property
in the Adirondacks every summer.
One year, in the late 1950s
or maybe it was in the early 1960s
when rope was more common
than ratchet straps
a strong gust of wind rose
and blew their rowboat off the roof
of the family station wagon
while crossing a bridge
on northbound Interstate 87
en route to the mountains.
It crashed down into the valley
below and they kept driving
hoping that no one had been injured.
It could have been one of two bridges
and one of two ravines
just south of Cairo, New York.
I'm not sure which ones
since I was only a kid
when my dad told me
as he took me to the Adirondacks
each summer that I choose to remember
before those water rights
were sold to the highest bidder
but it's not
and never will be
my story to tell.
Enough about that, though.
Thanks for not stopping me.
How was your Monday?
"But Sir, we can't get
them all out
in time."
How does one choose?
[Vague explosions.]
"Sir? Sir!"
One doesn't.
[Static.]
For several days
my morning commute
was shoving your favorite
tree down my throat
into these tarnished lungs
where it mixed with smoke
before that heavier merge.
I understand now
why you like it best.
Deciduous and round
its roots reach north and south
from that interstate median
for a way under the pavement.
It's not the most majestic
but rather, if a spaceman
one thousand years from tonight
were to summon the ancient archives
in search of the meaning of "tree"
that's the image that'd appear
on the screen affixed to his wrist
whereas mine, though unidentified
is leaning somewhere
out over a river, its trunk protruding
from a split in stone left by glaciers
defying gravity and statistics
a tattered rope tied to a limb
that's held the weight of children
for generations
and most importantly
not yet found
by the one
I still must protect.
We hate it
we do
but sometimes
we have to
acknowledge
that its shell
is cracked
its limbs are limp
and keep
driving.
Scientists say
that tears shed
in sadness
(bitter)
taste differently
from those spilled
in joy
(sweet)
and sweat
due to stress
smells worse
than what's excreted
in work and in sex
though the two
are sometimes
the same
but with you
for a change
the two
aren't identical.
You'll always
have that letter
I sent.
Most jokes
start in prison
or to get into
her pants;
not this one.
You receive
congratulations
from a number
you haven't seen
in too long.
Drawing from
your mess of genetics
and affiliated curses
you choose not
to react (your mother)
and wait a few hours
to respond (your father
who art in heaven)
denying the state
of fatherhood
wrongfully bestowed
upon you
based on photographs.
You rise from
that shotgun blast
still easy on the eyes
of the blind
and do your best
to celebrate complexity
going all out
to clean everything
but your soul.
May used to be
your favorite month;
when you were conceived.
It's winning.
"You've been talking a lot of shit."
"There's a lot of shit to talk."
"Are you hurting?"
"I'm hurting."
"Are you happy?"
"Nah."
"Are you happy for them?"
"Begrudgingly."
"Carry on."
"Does it get better?"
"Only if you let it."
"You're welcome for the overtime."
"I'm salaried, but thanks."
Artificial sweeteners
antiperspirants' aluminum
arsenic in apple seeds
asbestos everywhere
living next to power lines
secondhand smoke
firsthand smoke
not enough sunlight
too much sunlight
the hole in the ozone layer
mixing bleach and ammonia
carbon monoxide
mercury in old thermostats
yellow 5 food dye
most things (but only in California)
will kill you eventually
though nothing will do it faster
harder, and with less remorse
than the dopamine deprivation
when there's nobody left
to love
you.
Cut so deeply
by another one
you've loved
you slice open
the parcel
sent to her
old address
slightly aroused
by the sweet revenge
of a federal offense
when it hits you:
A sheet of
bubble wrap
a flattened
cardboard box
and return labels
in duplicate
in case there is
a mistake
when you realize
you've made one.
Whenever she comes
don't put up a fight.
Walk alongside
her not knowing
the destination:
Whether the temperature
quickly rises or you see
your grandmothers
again or the curtain
falls before the fade
and that's all
it won't matter.
You'll think
there's nothing left
and there won't be
here
but hand-in-hand
you'll bubble
to the surface;
a wagered cold call.
I swore I was doing the right thing, though that's usually where we lose it.
At dinner a few nights prior my father and my brother had mentioned their new pet frog; something to do with a Boy Scout merit badge. Imagine the irony of achievement through captivity. Their first acquired pet, a painted turtle, had been promptly released since its constant escape attempt was accompanied by the knocking of its shell against the aquarium's glass. Our old man couldn't take it and set the reptile free. If only it were that simple for the rest of us.
Its ill-fated replacement was what they called a frog, but when I stopped by after work one day I discovered otherwise. At first I thought the ten-gallon tank on the porch was mostly empty; some gravel, a long piece of tree bark, a round takeout tin with dirty water, a rock, and seven dead earthworms fouling it. My curiosity piqued, I lifted the bark and saw a terrified toad compressing its body as tightly as possible. I had to shower, change, and attend a memorial service in time to console family, but this discovery posed a new quest that my conscience couldn't ignore. I lifted the dish of water, brought it to the front yard, dumped its putrid contents, and replaced it with tap water from the bathroom sink. The house was on a well so I wasn't concerned with the chemicals that wash our brains. After returning the improvised pond I gently placed the toad in it to allow it to drink and bathe. I did the same and went to the wake.
A few days later my father sent a garbled message. His talk-to-text technology is lacking at best and must be decoded by the recipient, but the gist of it accused me of a minor crime. That water I'd dumped was straight from the swamp where the toad had been caught, allegedly containing eggs. While I hadn't seen any, I couldn't prove otherwise and confessed to my accidental wrongdoing. "I had the kid's heart in mind," was my defense. "I didn't want the toad to die." My plea was accepted and a well-meaning emoji was sent; that smiley face with the awkward grin, though septuagenarians don't understand its sarcastic nuance. Relieved of any sentencing, I carried about my day.
It's been a week and the toad's still alive as far as I know, with one more to go before the project will be complete. An old friend once said that you're supposed to be the good guy in your story, but I don't know that I am this time. I'll concede to the amphibian and hope that it lives another seven days for its freedom. There weren't any eggs that died in the lawn, though. Take that off my growing list of charges.
Most people are sick
and you know it
but don't want to
confess
let alone repent.
I'm here to acknowledge that
for your sake
and mine
and while we're at it
let's include
the military-industrial complex.
Now's the time.
There are only two days left
until the next full moon.
Waxing Gibbous
whatever that means
to those of us
without the tattoo.
Close enough.
We're the boys
and girls
sans club
who cried "Wolf!"
then went about
our evenings.
We're liars.
"Call me any time."
Then leave our texts on "Read".
We're making the poor argument
that a slow bullet's
more kind than a fast one
when truly
ask Lenny
and his rabbits
in hell.
I could've gone
for a friend tonight
but will settle for a bottle
that one bought me
instead.
The deep slug of bourbon.
The second cigarette.
The slow lead
is better than none
if it ends this.
Forsythia for Cindy
with eyes that get slammed shut.
A sugarcoated hobby horse
rusted to irrelevance.
Slow is smooth
and smooth is fast.
A resurrected godsend
backpedaled 'til the flaw.
Conquering the natives
for glory, gold, the Lord.
A hostage on the telephone
who sounds safe with his captor.
Wear and tear
and ginger ale.
A funeral home
in blue jeans.
She and the rabbits
suffer in silence.
A Taurus is their soulmate.
It's comical
in that 2020s way
for a man
who's sought solace
in fiction and history
for the better part
of his life
to suddenly suspect
that this could be
that necessary part of the tale
seven-eighths through
in which the snow globe's shaken
so hard that it falls
from a weary grip
but the water's retained
since it didn't shatter
this time.
"I can hear you
coughing in the shower
a place I am
no longer welcome
with you. It breaks
my heart."
It's funny
what you pick up
from your parents.
When I was a kid
I found a few wine corks
with initials and dates
written on them
among my mother's things.
Important consumptions.
Monumental events.
Maybe the dates
of conception and marriage.
I'll never know now
but I follow suit
with my Sharpie
and tact
sneaking the corks
into pockets
once pulled.
Maybe someday
they'll serve as a story.
Maybe one day
they'll be thrown away.
Maybe, eventually
I'll learn what I need:
what's not so funny
that you shouldn't pick up
from your parents.
Currently reading:
"My Name Is Eleanor" by Wes & Barbara Gottlock.
[For Jeff Newman
who saw my mother
pushing me in a stroller
around Rockland Lake
in 1986
and said I should have been
his.]
Three years ago
when I still bought
Ruffino Chianti
since we'd watched
"The Sopranos" together
the liquor store
undercharged me
for the premium version, 2012.
We saved the bottle
for a special occasion
collecting dust
in the meantime
foolishly waiting.
Two nights ago
while reviewing
my list of blocked phone numbers
I came across the one
who maliciously told me
of your Engagement
and wondered when
the next inevitable news
would come.
Tonight I received it
from an innocent source:
a Union brother
trying to do what was right.
"She's Expecting."
He proceeded to ask
if I'd heard of a band
called Vampire Weekend.
Sucked dry of blood
but not having the heart
to hurt the harmless
I fizzled out in conversation
though he sensed it
and apologized.
"Crafted from the best vineyards...
aged for 36 months...
violet, cherry, and plum aromas...
14.5% alcohol by volume..."
I couldn't get the cork out
fast enough this evening.
Here's to everything
you've always wanted
everything you deserve
and what I woud have gladly given
in time
that we don't have.
Pulling up
to my old man's place
the house
I'm still trying
to grow up in
four decades later
I notice rust-red
rotten wood
at the curb
next to the green
plastic trash can.
When I limp out
of my truck
after work
I recognize
the rubbish:
the walls of
my Radio Flyer
repainted once
for my kid brother
now relegated
to refuse status.
A few years ago
it would have upset me
but now I see the beauty
in the death
of what's run its course.
You can't circle wagons
if there's only one.
Sunbeams
chopped
by each tree
along the highway.
Every ray
hits eyes
like Morse code
for "torture".
Closing them
doesn't help;
orange warmth
through eyelids.
Love was finding
a mole with your tongue
in the dark
and no one flinching.
Undesired
creature comforts:
her favorite meal;
not mine--
delivered to
my doorstep
while an old friend
bought me time.
The laces of these boots
have strands of gold
entwined.
A weekly sweep
will miss some hair
like this gaze
dodges eyes.
Beware of the man
robbed of purpose.
He leaves his pistols
where home was
these days
since he's poised
like a spring
indecipherable
hungry headlights
stabbing into
the night.
Our Maker's
lath and plaster
a ribcage and skin
barely conceal
the stubborn organ
that feigns
the most precious emotion
that we
as a failed experiment
were given.
This commercialized day
to signify its gains
is, for many, a spectator sport
indecipherable to those
who loathe
the smell of their own skin
but we've forgotten
to care for one another
and so we deserve it.
It's wasted surveillance
on palliative care.
You can eat thrice daily
and still starve to death.
Don't find yourself
counting on rain
that ain't coming.
Honey, you're golden
but we can't speak
in code
for much longer.
My father's killed
two deer in his lifetime:
one intentionally
with his bow
on state park land
and one accidentally
with his sport utility vehicle
on the Palisades Interstate Parkway.
I was present for neither
but at ten years old
I followed him into woods
along an apple orchard
in the shadow
of the Shawangunk Ridge
where he had permission
from a farmer to hunt.
It was so cold
beside that tree
where he waited
for the buck
that wouldn't come
and I waited
for the sun to rise
while it was darkest
before dawn.
It's the same now
three decades later:
Love is being
someone's plan.
My favorite place
to see you's
on mountaintops
since I know
that's where
you belong
though I'd suffer
a nosebleed
via horse height
as you would
if I could
thread a tether
through those
two rings
I gaze at
more than
you'd like
to admit.
You tally the hands
that have touched you
this week:
the deli lady
taking eight quarters
in her leathery palm
for commute coffee;
a coworker
tapping your arm
mid-story, for emphasis;
a misled combat nurse
or two, God bless 'em;
an old friend who tried
to cheat on his wife
after your handshake;
that off-duty masseuse
in fishnets and leather.
None of it adds up
to what you deserve
and
none of it adds up
to what you once did
and
none of it adds up
to what they say
a person needs
to persist
with paying the bills.
"You'll be fine," she said
on her way through the door
but she was only telling herself.
Forgiveness is a nice idea.
Your body's quite the temple
As far as I'm concerned.
All it guarantees, though
Is to hurt and learn.
This Club of Sleepless Nights
Soon will have inductions.
Our members mask the pain
With cheap laughs and production.
Sharing fluids and our time;
A destination we all know
Assessing one another
Like piss-holes in the snow.
The hardest thing to do:
Return the energy you're sent.
Prepare to convalesce
In this beginning of the end.
I found your lost
earring in a room
I never showed you
and while that might
deter most
I've played the dead
cat, as well.
You can try
to talk us down
but I'll walk us down
from the gallows.
You can say
that it's been a fight
but the best fish do
until they're caught.
You can laugh
from a distance
but you can't keep it
any more than I can.
You can tell
your dad I said this.
I'll shake his hand.
You'll see.
A bearded farce
the ringleader
puts his best foot forward
for the motherlode.
You don't even know
her favorite tree.
Can you feel
me nipping at your heels?
How do you change
your signature?
No dog to save
the bone for
with the elephants
in the room.
It's a low-speed chase
so lawyer up.
That hand on my back
at two in the morning's
the only thanks
I'll ever need.
.heic)
upon opening his final Christmas gift
he mentally calculates
how much of a mess it'd make
if he were to spontaneously explode
of irony
in that crowded living room:
Considering that the adult human male
is 60% water
and that his six feet weigh 240 lbs
he estimates the blast radius
and volume of red goo
dousing the walls, ceiling, furniture, floor
and mostly innocent family members.
The projected matter
lucky enough to land in the fireplace
would cook off slowly
its sizzling sound serving
as an eerie counterpart
to the silence of astonished relatives
coated in what'd remain
of a man they somewhat knew
who'd just unwrapped a framed photo
of himself, alone on a fishing boat
after nearly dying nightly
from a year of solitude.
Centering his stance on his sea legs
he thanks his well-meaning bestower
extends the frame's stand
to face his grinning countenance
for half a glass of wine
then walks the gift of a lifetime
to the trunk of his father's car
lest it be forgotten
in the revelry to follow
though knowing himself
he's not one to forget.
Currently reading:
"Raymond Carver: Collected Stories"
The second best way
to spend a wet
but unseasonably warm
Sunday afternoon
once the pile of dishes
has been washed
in water just shy of scalding
and your plans have been canceled
thus saving you from sin
is to listen to the compilation
of sentimental songs that an old flame
assembled for you
ten, fifteen, twenty
years ago
back when there was more
of you worth loving
if only to remind yourself
that you were once deserving
of that sacred gift
from someone you should've cuffed.
The best way, however
to spend the aforementioned
type of afternoon
would be lazily in bed
with that ghost of a composer--
your children off being spoiled
by glowing grandparents
for a few hours as precious
as each note and line
heard now
like belated reminders
of what could exist
in a parallel universe;
not bitter, but grateful
to have have lived it.
It starts the same:
We see a swan killed
by an 18-wheeler
or the people
designated to protect us
prove their humanity
too soon.
We meet the smell
of blood; our own
and that of others.
Our turn comes
to return the favor
that is pain.
Then we're taught of blades
and where to stab them.
Next we learn when.
(Years later; decades
sometimes.)
None will get out
alive
and we'll all receive
spam emails
from the hacked accounts
of dead folks
like ghost ships
in cyberspace
eventually
but the blessed
will come to laugh
when the priest
can't sing to save his life
at the funeral mass
of the departed
and embrace that the daggers
we're born to thrust
don't have to be
as buried
in flesh
as us.
You can quote scripture.
We're playing with fire.
You can hope she
never called
another man "Sailor".
A cello
that we can't
choose to ignore
plays loudly.
There's enough
of our bloods
in the wood
of these floors
to claim it as kin.
We wanted that
too.
A siren whom you've despised
took it upon herself
to tell me of your
engagement today
going so far as to send photos
now burned into my corneas
for the plot, the reaction
the proof that mankind
is cruel by nature
despite my hardest protest.
There in the background
across the river
that's been my only home
lay the mountain
we tried to move
and its foothills
in which we lived for years--
the perfect backdrop
for what you left
twice, without warning.
I'm still there
behind a tree limb
outshined by your innocent grin
that's delighted by the thought
of children I would have given.
I can tell you this
without flinching
without wincing
without the aid of my gin:
I'm sorry I failed us
and I pray that he deserves you
every day.
For three long days
that patch of hardened mud
was cordoned off
by the Department
of Public Works:
One to fell the tree
whose roots had lifted
the sidewalk;
one to demo the concrete
that posed a tripping hazard;
one to plant a sapling
and pour a fresh slab.
In the midst
of local turmoil
for the lesser half
of a week
we all became
amateur urban planners
unable to manage
our own little lives
easily forgetting
what the City
and the calendar
had in store:
A full moon
that had us all
off our paths.
I pluck the forked twig
from her potted rubber plant's
soil and thrust it
into my aloe's earth
hoping it'll persuade
its growth back to center
where we all strive
to be
unsure of whether
or not
what she used
to prop the former
will help heal the latter
but it's important
to come off as being whole
when you're trying
to help fix
what's broken.
What it sometimes
means to be
a friend
to the friendless:
weaponized sex
for strategic advantage.
The cigarette
ruined the photo.
The rest of it ruined
the rest of me.
I need you to leave
because I don't want you
to hear it.
My head rests on his shoulder
in the Sunday stillness
of his bedroom.
I stroke his broad chest
back and forth
like the tide of the river
he's always lived along
waded into
and may or may not
have returned from
depending on who's asked.
If my hand stops moving
he'll assume I don't care
so my fingertips skate
across skin and hair.
I make the mistake
of stopping
and he shifts
half-an-inch.
"Sorry," I say.
"For what?" he asks
without opening his eyes.
"I'm not him,"
but in saying so
he's more "him"
than he would have been
in silence.
He swims in my stomach
until we both nod off
temporarily distracted.
What wounds to bear.
Between measurements
and cuts
at one of
our many vices
he blurts
what he shouldn't
with me
as his only witness.
I remind him
of his transgression
as only
a brother can.
"I'm an asshole,
but I'm your asshole,"
he reminds me
in the same way.
Together, as always
we throw rocks
from the shore
at an island.
Few want the truth
partner
(as my newly departed
uncle used to call me
a la spaghetti Western)
but you ain't
the only one
who bunches up your blanket
at night
and tosses an arm over it
pretending that it's someone
who's worth a walk through coals
though a captain should know
survivor's guilt be damned
that loose lips
sink ships
with strange ejaculations.
The garbage can stank
like meat juice on styrofoam
so I took it for a walk
to the dumpster behind my building.
After chucking the trash
I swung by my truck
in the adjacent parking lot.
Half in the bag
I asked the guy
who's living in his car
if he's living in his car.
"Nah, man."
"Need anything?"
"Nah, man.
I appreciate you."
I finished my smoke
and walked upstairs
to my lonesome luxuries.
We'd both reached a point
where it didn't make sense
to hide it.
Afterwards
she rubs his bare chest
like it's a brass lamp
with a genie inside
though no wishes will be granted
to either party.
The smell of her perfume's reminiscent
of the purple pew upholstery
in a Southern Baptist church
sending his mind
to a highway rest stop in Maine
four years ago.
He'd scratched his face
there in the bustling lobby
and his right hand
which had ridden a perfect thigh
in the passenger seat for hours
had the lingering scent
of elderly black women
in a state he'd never visited
and had never wanted to.
He'd finished draining himself
in front of foreign porcelain
alongside a dozen strangers
whom, Lord willing, he'd never see again
among poorly tiled walls and floors
or even the Pearly Gates
and was staring blankly
at undesirable food franchise logos
barely appetizing, in neon or not
when a familiar face appeared
within a crowd of other women
emerging from their corner
of the summer vacation ring.
There it was
her countenance
like the full moon
that keeps him awake these days
ready to get back in the car together
and share a bag of Skittles
he'd bought from a vending machine
more friendly than a teenager
in a greasy polo shirt
while waiting on
what he thought
was the rest of his existence
Bar Harbor merely one destination
of many for decades--
"'til death do you part."
"Can we go again?"
"Maybe," he mumbles
his mind nine hours northeast.
She continues to paw
the urn that is his ribcage
not feeling the ashes within
and attempts years too late
to light another match.
As with the most
intriguing nicknames
I never knew its explanation
but from as early as I can remember
my uncle called me Turkey Breath.
This moniker tapered off
with the shedding of boyhood's
naive assumptions
replaced, most times, with how
he'd address me hencforth:
Partner.
Unsure of whether
it was a reference to Western films
upon which he'd cut his teeth
or a spillover term from his career
as a high-volume car-slinger
who understood that
taking care of business
was easier when
the wagons were circled
or if there were other partners
in the world beyond our conversations
about which I didn't know
I see now
albeit too late
that there was one thing
I called him in return:
Not often enough.
The two main
European despots
defeated in the Second
World War
and the third supreme leader
of that continent
a tentative ally
later turned Cold War antagonist
are often villified
by the victors, the writers of history--
easier to attack in words
these days
since they look the same
as us
but let's not forget
the emperor
of the sun flag
who lived 'til '89
distant and malignant
declaring the sacrifice
of sex slaves
given to young men
who dove airplanes
into ships
as "Divine Wind"--
kamikaze
until desperation
overcame compassion
with projected corpses
outweighing
the morality of physics equations
so men and women
on the justified side
built a bomb
to both end
and begin
the madness
for the brief remaining history
of mankind.
A bloodless coup
lacks passion.
Here we are
my brothers in Christ.
Wiping flecks of blood
from the medicine cabinet mirror
after flossing
makes us war buddies now.
It pays the same.
"Long live the king."
Weak chin
wide eyes
and a strong lisp;
they weren't mine
to share.
Let's trade problems
not hearts.
While embraced in bed
what they never realize
until it's the worst thing
too late
and they're poised to spring
like rats from a sinking ship
is that I'm mostly rocking
myself to sleep
or maybe they do
and that's why they stay
until the waves
have risen
so high.
Then an angel of
the Hebrew god
all safely clad in silver
impaled itself
slowly
on what was never
meant to be said--
a dagger emblazoned
in gold cursive
as follows:
The Almighty coughs
after orgasm.
Get on that boat.
Stare into the sun.
Keep your mouth closed.
Blame it on the spray.
A friend
who knows nothing
of your plan
is harder
to interrogate.
O Captain!
My Captain!
We had this trip
by the bag
while it lasted.
Hydroplaning
down the Palisades
Interstate Parkway
while watchlisted in
the wild gin wasteland
but grateful
for
the growls
from widespread eyes
dry
South African
wine
that little fox
nestled between
unlikely crevices
crawling out
before sunrise
to tend to her kits
and friends
who love enough
to refrain
from party invitations
laced with cocaine.
The best defense
is a good offense.
The best penance
is this sentence.
It must feel so lonely
being on top.
Excited to decipher your surprise
after facing tribulations
back on the mainland
we practice for the apocalypse
with end cut maple.
You don't know, and
you don't know--and
you don't know
and
you don't know:
That was the last
of the towels
that I didn't fold.
If only it were only
your cursive words in chalk
on fifteen magnetized spice shakers
half-full of leaves and peels
that we dehydrated
but there on that
once-shared refrigerator
are six canisters
still empty, waiting
for what can't come
like a fool
who saves boxes
in overflowing closets
but doesn't know
how to best use them.
Not long enough to twirl at night
or matter to most passesrby
strange tufts of hair
stepped over
by coronated impostors
on an even stranger sidwalk
fade dully in the diorama.
We are built unlike goats
with nothing behind the eyes.
Things I'm not:
Christlike.
Able to fix my dead
grandmother's antique and bequeathed
dresser drawer handle.
Things I am:
Decent at calculating risk.
Proficient at finding cigarette lighters
on the pavement
and using them until they run out of fuel.
Things I don't strive to be:
Dumb enough
to open that damn drawer
ever again.
Christlike.
Let's suppose
since we're being frank
that there's no way
to properly process
what's entailed
in quantifying
this tower-bound recovery
as a neighbor put it
for herself
but a gentleman's work
is never done
and neither is mine.
"Of course
I'm here.
First one."
That sucker-punch
killed my butterflies.
Like a gutshot buck
I wander, confused
only knowing of the blood.
We've met many times before.
You just had a different face.
What a time
to be told
you're alive.
There are
worse fates
than being forgotten
like being remembered
by the wrong people.
And there are
worse plans
than breaking them
with folks
who are already broken.
And there are
worse words
than lies
like truths stated
for illegitimate reasons.
And there are
better places
to wake up
but I'd rather do it
next to you
or not at all.
The gas station coffee's too hot
to chug at 5:58 AM en route to work
so we fill our first few highway miles
with recent recollections
of the minuscule victories
and minor defeats
that shape our daily lives
laughing ourselves to tears
at these predicaments--
acknowledging how we're turning
slowly into our fathers
just enough to be grateful
while achieving
the one unspoken wish
that these better men
maintained for their sons:
Not losing ourselves along the way
like the embers of our cigarettes
flittering off behind us
between white and yellow lines.
The unrealistic
sexual expectations
prevalent in the modern male
are direct byproducts
of an Internet
with 20% of its phone searches
being related to
its 4% of pornographic websites.
You can tell
by the way
someone's looking for love
whether or not
they've ever beheld it.
Submission's a choice
but you can't have
what isn't
for you.
Currently reading:
"On Love" by Charles Bukowski.
I've always lost
people
but never
cigarette lighters.
The latter I find
on the pavement.
The former
find reasons
to hit it.
If you need me
I'll be swearing off
love
in the closet.
If you need me
I'll be highly surprised.
An undeniable mess was made
but the umbrella's dry now
so I bring it inside
from the hallway
and return it
to the closet
horse-trading the days between
hijacked evenings
spent tracing a bird on a back
and wondering if
the relevance of fingertips'
coordinates are noticed.
There's a word for it
that we can't say
due to different reasons.
We'll settle for existing
olive green with envy.
Maybe she's getting
her back blown out
by a guy with more length
and less girth.
Maybe it's the reaction
that her skin has to mine
when heightened immunity
meets stubborn cologne.
Maybe it's how my eyes close
while hers look up from my shoulder
like lashes can lock doors
for the night.
Maybe it's the way
that I inhale so deeply
when close together
as though I'll never
experience those pheromones
again.
Maybe she's worried
that it's merely the idea of her
but she's altered the thoughts
of a mind hard to sway.
Maybe we're all warned
not to pet burning dogs
and the best of us do
regardless
since the Doomsday Glacier's fake
ain't nothing that a bottle won't drown
and how it all ends
is what matters
right?
84,000 people
were sacrificed
over the course of four days
in the 1480s--
hearts ripped out
with obsidian blades
no neighbors or kin safe
from priests atop pyramids
appeasing a sun god, angry.
Either
they didn't know
a thing about science
or they knew exactly
the nature of man:
There's no substitute
for flesh.
Currently rereading:
"Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame" by Charles Bukowski.
Somewhere
out there
you're bleeding
and I wish
that I could help
but here we are
pretending
like we're able
to buy time.
But oh the air
of the heir apparent
in coming home
to a glass of water
left by a guest:
You know
that you can't
drink from it
as hard as you'd like
to bob for apples
in her wake.
Had a foreman once
turned friend
turned father
turned nemesis
turned nightmare
who said
"Don't complicate
a glass of water."
As much as I mistrust him now
he's right.
Jupiter and Venus
are pegged
above the moon
tonight
naked
to the eye
like you
in a few more decades
all four sneering
at the marvels
of modern science
resuscitated simply
by the basic understanding
that no rain checks exist
in this universal cul-de-sac
and sometimes
there's blood.
You're probably pissed
that I vouched extensively
over the phone
as to how valid a candidate he was
for 20 emphatic minutes
when you were interviewing
potential tenants
for your shared rental apartment
since there was a ton
of work to be done
as promised in unwritten portions
of his lease that you might as well shred
at this point in your grievance.
I'm more pissed
that my adopted brother's in rehab again
and didn't reach out to me
before he surrendered his phone
so I've got no way of knowing
what it was this time
how close he came
or how he's doing
aside from what's chirped
down the line.
Godspeed with your eviction.
Our rent's always punctual
but we are not the same.
They ask what happened
after nearly five years
together, but not
as discovered
too late.
Shrugged shoulders
and blown lips
don't explain it
as well as this:
Today, stomping in my boxers
like on the best of Sundays
at what used to feel like home
I moved six houseplants
to different zones
of shade and sunlight
based on their color and turgor
instead of watching them
die.
That's my new response.
Final answer.
I'd propped the Remington against
a closet door frame
in the spare room
of what was my apartment again
since I could then
without question.
One night
bored by the film plot
with more holes in it
than my whiskey's cork
I repeatedly cycled the scattergun's action
in my lap on the recliner
ripping through the steel's shucking sound:
a song from a smoothbore
born in Ilion, New York
at the Turn of the Century.
Suddenly it jammed
leaving me with an ironbound headache
almost as jagged as newfound
single-income living in our inflated age.
After three hours of attempted repair
sore and sooty fingers
reached for the lamp switch
on my nightstand
wincing when a bloodied knuckle
rubbed brass unexpectedly.
Freshly defeated
by stubbornly stuck steel
for two nights
I slept exclusively on my side of the bed
though it didn't 't matter any longer
like sliding into fresh sheets
as she'd always treated as a holiday
that these days were going to waste.
Soft-spoken, middle-aged
Midwestern men with too much spare time
lulled me to sleep through Internet anonymity
safely tucked away from their wives
with tutorial videos made in their basements
about this 12-gauge albatross of yore.
I dreamt of traveling back in time
to kick the firearm's designer
in a place he'd always remember
perhaps hard enough to dissuade him
from over-engineering the model in question.
If only our pasts could be changed.
On the third day I succumbed
and rebuilt the debacle
with intentions of confessions
to ill-advised disassembly
made during gunsmith surrender.
To my surprise the slide ran smoothly
and all moving parts behaved in the choir.
I pumped it triumphantly
for the better part of a minute
until a half-inch shard of steel
shot from the ejection port.
The tune came to an end.
The tool no longer functioned.
I identified the broken component
and sourced a replacement online
grateful that this failure
had occurred in a safely controlled environment
as opposed to on a camping trip
in upstate bear country
that we'd never embark upon again.
Wood and steel.
Tried and true.
At least we weren't married
with kids and a mortgage.
That's what I told myself
while trying to decipher
the screws and springs
strewn about the floor
sharing the cause
of residual curse words
stuck in my throat
beside her name
and those of New England towns
I'd never be able to revisit
in this lovely, limited lifetime.
Currently reading:
"Rattle: Fall 2020".
One of these days
and days
and days
and days
the Universe will send
a sympathetic seventh chance
who wouldn't leave anyone
on read
with eyes soft and brown
evasive like a feral cat's;
nipples perfectly asymmetrical.
Until then
my brothers in Christ
the couch ain't the only thing
that's pulling out--
driven to thirst
by ancestral expectations
and mediocre excuses
for only being taken
in small doses
like a Band-Aid
we all wear
but still insist
to hide.
Not to jinx it
by being brazen
with Lady Luck
but we haven't had
a major airline catastrophe
in what feels like longer
than I remember
growing up;
not one of those rich pricks
in a privately owned Cessna
that was probably grandiose suicide
or insurance fraud to save their heirs
sans golden parachute
but a media feeding frenzy
with images of floating fuselage
and mention of children
who could've grown
to cure cancer
had they been given
that imaginary chance--
news anchors spewing sea coordinates
and Boeing models with lots of 7s
that degenerate gamblers
like the ones I've grown to love
would later play
in the lottery.
I'm not saying
we're overdue
but they must've fixed
the plane problems
because we haven't fixed
the people.
Being a Pisces
ain't all
it's cracked up to be:
a glider
adrift
with no landing strip
in sight.
Currently reading:
"Insomnia" by Stephen King.
I shaved my head
after bald spots developed
stress induced again
and my father asked
if I wear a wool hat to work
when he saw me
but I don't
since I like the brisk feeling
of air on bare skin
though I wore a black
watchman's cap
the next time
that I visited him
for his sake
not mine.
Walking by portraits
of men
in my home
and mannequins
on the job
I can attest
to the fact
that we all wear
smiles differently.
Some of them hurt
like a trap expertly set
italicized
parts per million
but I see them
and cherish them all:
Dead languages
other than Latin.
Currently reading:
"The Bear Speaks" by Eric Tomlins.
A charity organization
for cancer, but not for bald kids
line mine
finally sends
her complimentary address labels
though she's no longer
here to receive
those invalid stickers
from invalids.
I save them
just in case
again.
"It's not my business,"
an old friend concedes.
"Hell, I never met her."
Maybe I didn't
either.
Unwilling to verify whether or not
the experiment's been performed
since science has been bastardized
and the Internet's been hijacked
I'd wager what's left
of a poorly squandered soul
that if most indoor houseplants
were only watered when it rains
the majority would survive.
The laws of mortality
transcend manmade labels
of flora and fauna:
We get what we need
on a schedule outside
our control.
I bet Bukowski was better in bed
and Hemingway was more fun at the bar.
I'd kill to converse like Vonnegut
and speak of the dead like McCarthy
all while laughing in the face
of Satan a la King.
Here's to having heroes
in a jaded age of frauds.
I, [state your name],
was nothing
short of mortified
by the wasteful void
at the bottom
right corner
of p. 62
in November's
tidal issue.
I clipped the poems
apart with scissors
that cut me once
and rearranged
them in five ways
that preserved space
for an even longer
spilling of one's guts
than the one-ninth
of a page
which your design team
deemed unfit
for local souls
to purge.
I'm keeping this plea
short and unsweet
for the sake of brevity
in the hopes
that it takes up less space
in your Trash email folder
since it won't adorn
your publication
but please
for the sake of those
who need this catharsis
and validation
in order to survive
keep this in mind
when laying out
what's more than words.
Sincerely,
Everyone Who's Bled on Your Pages
This is the first time
I'm saying this
but I know
that I'm dying.
My hair's falling out
in clumps
fistfuls in the shower;
the blame I used to shift.
My time here's fleeting
like a pre-coffee glance
at gas station boner pills
glistening in dusty plastic
on the foreign clerk's counter
between his calls to home.
Several times a day
I reach to place items
on a table that's no longer there;
a precursor to a tasty oblivion
obnoxious in the present.
The box fan in the window's
not blowing the smoke out
fast enough
against a whipping wind
that's left from this hurricane.
Even the smell
of my father's basement:
smoke and must
and wood from the '30s
can't comfort me any more;
a lease signed
away from me
that won't be broken.
How could you?
A sailor to some
a cowboy to few
recalcitrant misfit to most;
here is the lie
I told:
We're all dying
some slower
and more blessed
than others.
We count our days left
on calendars
fingers and toes.
Currently reading:
"Bagombo Snuff Box" by Kurt Vonnegut.
Teach me to poach an egg.
I'll teach you to poach a heart.
We'll teach each other many things
we've failed to learn so far.
I haven't gotten cleaner
from scrubbing with your soap
but it's one less sad reminder
as I struggle here to cope.
I had to buy new sheets
to replace the ones you took.
I wish you'd taken more things.
I'd rather sleep than look.
You wrote me one that rhymes.
I need the ones that don't.
It's another reason why
you're right. We shouldn't; won't.
"I see that you didn't
shave today
to fit into
your character."
When I was a kid
my old man was asked
to play the Penitent Thief
hanging on one
of three makeshift crosses
in the Crucifixion Christmas play
put on by our church
in downtown Newburgh.
The role of Christ
had been reserved
predictably
for the pastor
but I sometimes ask
its writer, Luke
what if it hadn't?
Messiahs run
in our blood.
"Lady, this beard
took a week."
Currently reading:
"Dreams of the Astronaut" by Boom Boom Shapiro.
You really haven’t lived
until you’ve watched a rainstorm
from an open garage door
on a farm in western Vermont
with a mason jar of Argentinian wine
in your dry hand, post-peak foliage.
Currently reading:
“Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes.
Going to market
or gallows
the same:
This facelessness endures/
Dehumanization.
(They beg for more.)
Don't ask him
to break stride
while appeasing a Pisces
with a lust for the sea.
Be part of the process
but not the Machine.
In the bowels
of a storage unit
I puked into during a move
eleven years back
I find a pristine tackle box
that he made for me
decades ago:
brand new lures
a stainless steel filet knife (made in China)
pliers without rust
sinkers not attached to my ankles.
If only he'd helped
prepare me
for more
than the fish I'd never chase.
Currently reading:
"The Dark Half" by Stephen King.
The artist tried to warn me
on the gripe with purple ink.
I look now at my shoulder
where my skin has faded: pink.
Currently reading:
"Rattle: Summer 2020."
The shot rings out
as desired.
If they can't spare one
they can't have any.
"Armorer!" his intended customer
three stories below his abode
yells from the ground after firing into the air.
Crouched in a corner of the room
he turns his head toward a mirror
that's aimed at a second one
which delivers the image
of a man standing
in the designated parking spot.
Long ago he outlined it in orange paint
for the use of his patrons.
"Two boxes of of .243 here.
Forty rounds.
I'm seeking .223
or 9," his voice carries
plaintively through the window.
"You know that ran dry months ago,"
he replies as politely as an ammo dealer can.
"How about some .22?"
He envisions this man in tattered clothing
with a rabbit skewed on a poorly whittled spit
above his campfire later on that evening
a tiny hole in the flat skull
courtesy of his offer.
"It's a deal in your favor."
"It'll feed you for the night."
The vagabond presents no argument
approaches the building
waits for the brass man to lower his basket
by a rope that he'd never expected to use this way
and deposits his half of the trade.
The recipient counts the cartridges
checking primers and projectiles
then scoops a handful of .22 rimfire rounds
from one of a dozen buckets
wraps them in a rag that was once a shirt
and lowers them to the hungry man
awaiting the basket's return.
This is how it's been for longer
than he's marked on his improvised calendar.
Some of them bring canned food
bottled water, or chocolate that's gone pale
but the payment for these is less.
An armed survivor can use his wares
to obtain any other item if he's got a gut
strong enough to do what many
thought they never could
prior to the collapse.
It pays to get comfortable
with violence.
No one's tried to overtake him.
The only obvious method
would destroy the stockpile they seek.
Fire and gunpowder don't play well together;
or too well, perhaps, depending on perspective.
He used to hate the added elevation
of his brick-and-mortar residence
on laundry, shopping, and garbage days
but in these un-Presidented times
it's served him well.
Even patriots and prostitutes
know better
than to play cards
with a man named after a city.
Fiddling through his Winchester shells
he hears another holler
but sees no figure standing
in the specified space.
"Hoarder," his guest implores.
"Where are you?"
He contemplates the question
unsure of true response.
"I've got a box of books,"
declares his unknwon company.
"Which of them do you want?"
Collections of fiction and facts
were burned in the streets
during the collapse.
Only poetry remained.
They deemed it inconsequential.
"How many? What titles?"
He can't get the words out fast enough
to convey his excitement.
"Take a look," his salesman says
from the lot below his window.
He rises from his corner
and tilts his head over the sill
to read the covers
he's been previously denied.
There's a flash in the woodline
that he'll never see.
He was partly right:
It wasn't only fire.
The shot rings out
as desired.
If they can't spare one
they can't have any.
While bushwhacking this morning
my mentor took a tumble
after gaining much momentum
down grade too steep for his knees.
I watched him land his dive
tossing his cane to the side
as he plowed into the dirt.
Starting but soon stopping
a woodland jog
I helped him
in the kindest way
by showing the teacher
what the pupil has learned:
I let him rise
on his own
and brush the leaves
from his beard.
