Rachel McAdams and Other Regrets

It sits on the dresser
that could legally vote
pissing away its ticks
in the wind.
There's a reluctance
to cast it out
from this den
where the unmade bed
and amends crave the same.

Its spot on my wrist
was replaced by a clone
when the band snapped
one morning at work
with a buzz.
The previous night
a fight down the street
raised my blood
raised the hair on my neck
like a dog.

It didn't take long
to flick my fresh smoke
making the hottest
march late in May.
There, never learning
with justice a farce
intervening like someone
with reason to care
we tossed them aside
like rag dolls in Kansas.
It was over before it began
like the best.
Later that week
the word on the street
was that one kid
attacked his friend
over shoes.

It left a poor taste
like the time decades back
when Dylan let friends down
by going electric.
I was forced to retire
a watch that worked fine
over something so null
as the tale tends to go.

She always cared more
that her thighs didn't touch.
I wouldn't have noticed.
Her ring size remained.
(The secret to reaching
the reader is simple:
Make them all think
your words are for them
when truly yourself
makes the pour worth the paper.)

We're Not Mere Sloppy Seconds

What I witnessed in the moonlight
that squeezed between my blinds
were your teeth clenched at the ceiling
that I couldn't call a smile.
The razor's touch had not been felt
for days, but I prefer that
since it proves it unexpected
as life's best blessings are.

This isn't a trick question
but there's part of me that
wonders: Who was it you saw
with your eyes closed
underneath me?
There's nothing wrong
with healthy doses
of unhinged pretending.
Funny, I'm the opposite.
It's missionary finish.

But it's myself I don't see
when I miss and catch the mirror
after washing off the handshake
that old friends aren't scared to make.
That's why I douse myself
with the same cologne I've worn
since a junior high school virgin
(back before the break)--
The scent of known components
in a system bent for lead
helps remind a drunk spelunker
that there's shimmer in the wake.

It's not dehumanizing.
We're not mere sloppy seconds.
There will be maps drawn on deathbeds
for the half they'll never puncture.

Jader

This time last week
there was breakfast to make.
Those dishes are still
in my sink.
A holy hangover
Sunday's true best
numbs my legs
as I've craved since
Long Island.

Today's not so
social, the pack has
been thinned.
The record is spinning.
The worn needle skips.
It's all been right there
in black and in blue.
You're right:
You're a fool for not knowing.

These frail little systems
which clutter our lives
crumble
as only they can.
A sage stuttered something
on feeding two wolves
but the hungry one
just gnawed my leg off.

The circling starts
when there's blood
in the water.
The Pinball Wizard strikes deadly.
Someone declared
Every Man for Himself
and we've all paid the price
ever since.

Head versus heart
versus dreadful appendage--
a battle that's raged
since the caveman.
My first-grade teacher
gave me a wink
that said
"Son, quit while you're ahead."

It's hard to be wrong
at five in the morning
but I'm not afraid of a challenge.
There are three things loathed more
than hot Monday mornings:
being born, being buried
and being alone.

The Time Traveler's Widow

Her train ran late
but better than never.
The hug was expected.
The kiss threw me off.
Somewhere in limbo
wherever that is
a roomful of naysayers*
craned their stiff necks.
(*our friends whom we'd slept with
without covering tracks)

No elephant lurked
in the room where we laid.
There wasn't a better
excuse to call in.
Well behaved hands
with saintly restraint
gripped certain curves
they'd almost forgotten
like a buoy in current
like a place to raise kids.
(If only more of this recital were true.)

The morning was long.
We dove under covers.
She was hungover, I was
in bliss.
There wasn't a smear
of mascara to speak of.
There wasn't a tear
I'd ever admit.

But you can't hang on
to what isn't yours
so I traded kids' waffles
for a beverage we'd like:
complex Bloody Marys
at a spot where I'd had
much like years back
the best of my life.

Let it serve as a testament
to the art of forgiveness--
there in the daylight
she smiled in earnest.
It's got nothing to do
with what I deserve.
Fate works in circles.
Nothing seems strange.

No One Looks Good Within Six Inches

The truth is that
as much as I tried my hand
and others'
I never became a fisherman

but stubbornly I went
launching lures into the lake
quietly content
with the water's still reflection
of burning trees, a crashing sun
and a man who knew himself
well enough
to know the score.

All the King's horses
down in the algae
confirm prophesies from
before eggs climbed walls:

The cat was not the only thing
curiosity has killed.

Name, Rank, Serial Number

How does one deal
with a day that's appeared
after five cheapened years
of hell in a frame?
Two wanderers cut
from the same cloth repent
both hoping to save
what's left of their name.

Burn turns to scrape
turns to scab
turns to scar.
A new understanding
of why men collide
comes forth with the truth
that the fine art of fucking
is nothing and nothing
like riding a bike.

Know what to savor
and know what to swallow:
a sour good night, a drag to the floor.
The whore strolls down Main Street
while nexts-in-line follow
to donate an organ
still hoping for more.

With ears under water
and silverless clouds
the home team
remembers to thank all its fans.
Character's built
behind bolted doors
when a boy takes no credit
for making a man.

Apples and Days and Doctors and Ways

Teach the boy
of carpentry
and firearms
and hangovers.
Remove the straggling
bobby pins
that only you
don't notice.
Hang your missing switchblade
which you swore
a friend had stolen
but was only hidden so well
that its wielder was deceived.

That sinking feeling in your gut
defined as disappointment
should be embraced
as evidence:
at worst you're still alive.
Collect front teeth of players
who left far too much unwagered
and excuse the doubting Thomas
who would kill to have your eyes.

Something rots in Denmark
and you smell it over oceans
or maybe that's the gas pains
of a fresh relationship.
You knock down walls when sober
like your father never taught you
but have to get your shine box
when the bottle frees your id.

Allow a man who's long been dead
his shotgun in his hands
to remind you of a cosmic fact:
The sun, it also rises.

Sleep until you can't sleep
and your back hurts
and you're tired.
Mayhaps there was a mix-up.
This was not to be your life.

Itchy Scabs Eclipsed

You didn't shoot the moon
but then again
you didn't have to--
It was claimed in the name
of your family's tradition.
What a brilliant way
to stay in ones thoughts
for years after blood's
come out from the sheets.

As I pull down Main
and aim for the spot
in front of my stoop
with a door you can't breach
that smirking Old Man
sinks down out of sight
below the named mountain
overlooking these bricks
and I whisper to him,  now
merely a rock
"Serendipity, Babe,"
before gripping the key
in the darkness created
by calling it quits
and starting anew
where I should've been.

Clutch for the Afterglow and Jettison the Rest

It was the first drag taken on my stoop for two months; unaccompanied, pensive, bittersweetly victorious. A young family of three approached on the sidewalk. They must've been going to dinner. Food and sad art pull the purse strings in this town. Kids have no say in what they suck on these days. There would be plenty of time for peer pressure, coffee breaks sans caffeine, and denied addiction. A look of distaste from a parent not ten years older than me tarnished my attempt at rare fairness. I kept the smoke in my lungs until they passed by my calloused knees. It was hard not to choke, but I held back the threat. The blue plume dissipated into the lights under the awning overhead. I flicked my butt at a storm drain along the curb, but missed. That's life for you-- no good deed goes unpunished.

A package on my doormat sent the same message. The return address was transcontinental, though still far too close. I wondered how long it sat there and why no honorable thief did me justice. Its contents were as baffling as the strange codes and places printed on the label: some candy for Easter, secondhand T-shirts, and a small stuffed rabbit that sought to draw blood. I tossed the shirts into the closet for later transportation to my mother's. She could use them as rags, she's big on recycling. The chocolate melted in my mouth as opposed to my hand as advertised. I popped a few more morsels down the hatch than I probably should have as the rabbit stared blankly into space. The candy shells crunched, filling gaps between teeth, and I turned the toy's head to the side out of guilt. A chew toy for the neighbors' dogs? Not even a chance of that lucky fate. Two fools built a home without knowing how, one hermit's torn it down for three seasons hence, an inanimate object sums up the wreckage. God, love is simple sometimes.

It takes eight trips to get my condensed life back into my apartment. The two flights of stairs make their play to wear me out, and win. How any of the boxes, bags, and suitcases sum me up is beyond me. How can twenty-eight years of trial and error in the name of discovery be contained within the confines of any combination of parcels? It makes the nomads of Asia Minor seem right; travel light, move like fluid. Someone in what's left of the world must have it nailed. Chances are it's not on this side of the prime meridian. I moved across the Hudson for a better shot at the search. It should've been farther if to be successful, but the coward in me cowered again. The notion of not having the support network that its constituents insist exists kept me local; us, I should say. It's not a pronoun that leaves my lips often and therefore should be celebrated. An only child flips out his phone and dials his impatient mother.

"I'm home and overwhelmed."

"Same here. No welcoming committee?"

"They're on strike. Do you want to come over and help me unpack?"

"At eleven at night?"

"I was kidding."

"No you weren't. You don't sound good."

"What does good sound like?"

"You'll find out one of these days."

"I'm more likely to be killed by a champagne cork, but thanks."

We go back and forth a bit more, then make tentative plans for a homecooked meal. I pry myself from the conversation through the use of a bathroom excuse. She's a good woman deep down-- strong and stubborn as seasoned livestock. But, like in some lessons I've learned on the pavement, we're too similar to ever be close. Two grays don't make a white. It turns out some traits are genetic. I cringe at the possibility of others surfacing as time goes on, visions of my father's fumbling at the forefront. The horror inspires a smoke break like I'm still on a union job.

The Italian joint owned by Albanians is closing as I light up my menthol. My landlord locks the front door of the restaurant, notices me and makes a face implying that he should. In his soupy, struggling accent he asks where I've been for the last two months and what exactly it is that I do. I answer as best I can, but in reality it's an educated guess. The content of my replies sounds convincing. It's the tone that gives it away. My words come out like scrambled eggs. At least I don't give the typical Beacon townie response by blaming it on some failed passion. There's a time and a place for pity. Death row is one of them. Main Street is not. I lead him on by asking if we can pay multiple months' rent to stay ahead just to watch his face light up like a menorah. Sometimes I do that. Some people deserve to be stroked to a lather. I finish my game and bid farewell to the man with the unlevel building.

A family of raccoons scurries down the abandoned sidewalk like refugees from the apocalypse. The mother leads her three cubs down the storm drain in the curb at the corner and I swear I've seen enough. Without hesitation I head back upstairs for the last time that night to mix up some poison and tumble it down since it already feels like I have been.

Lust a la Cart

But maybe

baby we're getting too old

for this.

Rubbed raw, thirsty

and all lips are swollen.

Cracking bones

and sore quads

from what once

came too easily.

The sweat runs down walls

far too thin

for our neighbors.

Three times a night?

Cut back to twice.

Save a shot for later.

Utilize the flavor saver.

Do we kiss our mothers

with these mouths?

It's a conundrum.

But the curves

of the small

of your back

fit my hands

like the duct-taped

thesaurus

in a poet's

rape kit:

Chloroform.

Candy.

A wig

and some panties.

The flowers have left

the building with Elvis.

Paint-By-Number Conflagration

There was no imminent threat.
Nothing was behind schedule.
The stores that lined the mall corridor
weren't going anywhere
as I strolled to kill some time.
But when I saw the teacher
who most impacted my life
at the troubled age of ten
when family court was heated
my legs turned into rockets.

There he was, eighteen years later
but not that much had changed.
If anything he looked better.
His barrel belly had disappeared.
Tufts of black hair poked from beneath
the sides of his baseball cap
without a single white reminder.
A gold chain stood out clearly against
the black skin of his neck while he
smiled at the cashier, handing over
what was due. And I, the eternal coward
couldn't give it to him.

He would've seen the tattoos;
perhaps a few lines too deep.
My beard needed a trim
and my shirt was good at
fitting: "Poetic Justice"
it declared across my chest
the ironic smirk sapped from
its wearer, the cynical tables turned.

"Who are you again?"
"What was your major?"
"Where'd you go to college?"
"Why do your hands feel so rough?"
"When did you go wrong?"
"How did you waste such potential?"
It was a barrage of shameful questions
that my colon couldn't handle.
His mouth would not deliver them
though his eyes would tell the truth.

I sped away, a thief of fate
promising to stop as consolation
if he was still there on my way back.
He wasn't.
Opportunity's not stagnant.
It comes and takes its victims
leaving the rest to wonder
and make deals with gods
and demons for a chance
at bitter redemption.
The loudest aren't the weakest;
the ones who go silently are.

My truck served as no refuge.
I turned on the radio
to try to drown them out
but the women laughed in unison:
"The scalpel's in your hand."

Fishing, Mostly Waiting

She's got this smile
reserved for the luckiest
where the corners of her mouth
shoot out to jagged points
as if jerked
by invisible hooks--
like the tips of flower petals;
like arrowheads hitting their mark--
but that's not the case.
Somehow I'm the culprit
and the target
and enthralled.

There's a handwritten list
in my ribcage
of things sworn off for good.
I can't tell you
or you'll assume where you stand
but rest assured
as best you can
with the knowledge
of time's reckoning:
the law of averages
comes through in the clutch.

Words like 'serendipity'
mean more to the starving.



Currently reading:
"The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla" by Stephen King.

The Nightly Milking

"Do you want your keys back?"
she asks from her doorway
at what I know will be the last time
she sees me intentionally.
Small towns have only so many
dark corners in so many bars
where drunks can hide.

"No. Just don't lose my father's ring,"
I reply, screwing up my face
in a gesture that confused even myself.
He'd given it to me shortly before
going AWOL for five years.
There was a long period of time
when it had more power
than it should've.
I'd put it on the chain before
I headed out of town for two months
and what I knew would be the end
of many things. Funny how we mortals
insist on playing out what's predetermined.
Tending the universe-- what a crock.

She closed the door behind her
before I even got back to my ride.
See Spot run. Watch Mike whine.
Listen to the slurred songs
of a sick and unwed sailor.

Not that it narrows it down any
but I'd just returned from playing
"Angie" on the jukebox when the
newest voice of reason chimed in
with a precious morsel of the unpalatable.
"You're not gonna find your wife at a bar,"
said the whiskey on the rocks in what was
a backhanded consolation and the most
profound sentence stabbed into my ears in months.

It dawned on me like a cheap shot of grain alcohol:
I haven't had a functional relationship
since I was seventeen.
And it's not them. It's me. It has to be
or I wouldn't be here.
Or, I wouldn't be here.

I need to tell my father about those five years.
Something leads me to believe that he already knows.
Something suspects that that's why he left.
That ring with my name inscribed in its gold
was supposed to remind me to remain my own man.
Sometimes a circle binds more than its angles.
Sometimes a ring holds more than it should
at least to those who give it
to all the fine messiahs
and trust the wrong people
with the right things
making the worthy wish we'd never met.

Don't be late for your date with the sun.

Said Sotto Voce

Like partisan fighters
through fences at night
they sneak back to see
the wounds they've inflicted
where roiled lungs lurk
in the mess that's been made
of years' worth of detritus
peddling flesh.

Take no prisoners.
Give no quarter.
Make the most
of the rest of the minced.
No warspoil's worth
our sacrificed sanity.
Play them in close
like they're Aces and Eights.

Within the parameters
and outside the box
is where it's still safe
to diddle Eve's seeds.
Lies like the Husband Stitch
stole through the blight
betting all lips
for this heads'll roll.

Wore out a welcome
in this town too soon.
A brace of pistols sits on the bed.
Anything solid's been bolted down hard.
Nobody moves and no one gets hurt.


Currently reading:
"The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass" by Stephen King.

...and the High Horse You Rode In On.

An oblivious colleague
blasts Skynyrd's "Simple Man"
on his SmartPhone
as we sit in the break room
at four in the morning.
I'm brought back
to when an old friend's
cover band used to dedicate
that song to me at gigs.
Seems ages ago.
Seems I haven't listened.
Two hours 'til daylight.
I give up on repentance
and go for a puff outside
where it's seemingly safe
from accusatory lyrics
and failed endeavors.

As I light up near the smoke shack
an old-timer reads my face.
"To be a pipefitter," he says
through nicotine-stained teeth
"you must marry, divorce
and wander the earth
for forty years."
He doesn't get the laugh
he was seeking with his proverb.
The prospect makes me cringe
and consider a career change.

I suck the butt down quickly
and walk back to the trailer.
It's silent in there now.
My book provides refuge
for the remaining three hours
of our shift.
My mind is relatively numbed
except for the time
when a passage I read
sends an old pang of guilt
to the tips of my boots.
I slept with my roommate's
girlfriend in college.
Why?
Because I could
and not get caught.
Karma lasts a lifetime.
The wrenches take their toll.
It wasn't a fair trade
but when has it been
ever?

The day crew comes like cavalry.
We pour out through the gates.
There above the cooling tower
a slew of sharp-winged sparrows
dance where steam usually rises
from this nuclear power plant.
This nomad thinks back
to our almost-matching tattoos
and wonders if she'd do the same.

The problem's not their leaving.
It's that they always will be there.


Currently reading:
"When God Winks at You" by SQuire Rushnell.

26 Lightyears Apart

Soon I'll sleep well
even alone.
There is no doubt
in my mind
that I earned my pay
last night.
The twelve-hour shift
was brutal;
true blood money
for a change.

When we finally came out
a buddy slapped my back
to celebrate the end.
My sweat splattered
off me like I'd been
dunked in a pool.
"Gross," he said
glaring at his palm
in disbelief.
My feet could barely
leave the ground
but I felt myself crack
that smile that people
seem to like
from a distance.
We all rehydrated
as best we could
and waited for
7 am to deliver us
to our respective beds.

But there are other mornings
not so chipper and promising.
There are times of downright
hopelessness where I wonder
why I bother doing anything at all.
Sometimes there's a new cure
for that, though.
All it requires is cell phone service.

And someday
when I can convince myself
that Josh is old enough to get it
I'll tell him that after my roughest days
of work I'd climb in my truck
and play the last voicemail
our father had left me
of my baby brother babbling
and asking where Michael is
in a timbre so innocent
that it's a marvel we share eyes.

It hasn't ceased to work yet.
It always brings me back to center--
"Stay in the middle of the road,"
as my last therapist said.
There's someone I'll have to
guide someday
even if I don't always know
the answer to the kid's question:
"Where are you, Michael?"
He's still hiding
but he'll be back.

The Truth In My Rear-View

Somehow I'm running
on three hours sleep
my foot hard against
the gas pedal's spring.
The truck up ahead
has out of state plates--
we're both hired guns
here for the quick cash.
We storm over
rolling, back-country hills
at warp speed
whizzing by off-season corn
and a river that's lazy and laden with trout
en route to our cherished
but lonely hotels.

Seventy-two in a fifty-five zone
without a care until we come up
on a tired old truck
that's spotted with rust.
It clearly belongs to a native
of here, a farmer or fisherman
or Jack-of-all-trades.
Its cargo of scrap rattles in bed
as the truck putts along
at a turtle's top speed.
My cohort and I take
the first chance we get
to zip around Cletus
and make up lost time.
No finger, no horn
no lights flash at us
as we disregard local
respect for the norm.

It's not until miles
of pavement ahead
that a scene slows me down
to the specified speed.
A house that I've passed
at least thirty times
was gutted by flame
since I've last seen the place.
The firetrucks must come
from townships away
and can't save the timber
in time like back home.
Caution tape lines the yard like a threat.
No Trespassing signs
dot the doors on the porch.

My neck cranes while soaking
the tragedy in and I let my conspirator
race off alone. We're guests in
this town, ours smells just the same
their lives will drag on
long after we're gone.
It takes something more
than a heavy right foot
to make it in such a desolate place.
True grit, some call it, but that's
nothing more than saying
that some folks don't hurry
to death.

All of this is challenged
two days later
when I ask about
the fire
while paying for my gas.
"No one died," she tells me
while reaching for my pack.
"Arson or a meth lab
according to police."
I smirk on my way out
strangely feeling better
since no matter how you spin it
we're all in the same shipwreck.


Currently reading:
"Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell.

Road Trashed

Your boots aren't off for long enough to let the swamp of sweat evaporate. One costly pair have already gone by the wayside. You learn your lesson and where Walmart is located in the strange town you're temporarily inhabiting.

You save all your receipts in an envelope for your tax guy. If he's worth his salt he'll get back a decent portion of what Uncle Sam robbed from your overtime pay.

You shave your throat once a week no matter what. No one respects a neckbeard and it hurts your eyes to see yourself in such disrepair when you wash up in the morning. If there were women in your hotel they'd be frightened. Your outside appearances matches your soul.

Your meals come at times so random they're not designated with fancy terms like lunch or dinner. You just eat what you want when you're hungry. That's often sardines at three in the morning. No one's there to judge or smell your breath.

Your friendships feel on hold until you'll be around to be one. Relationships are a luxury of the past. You fall in love with your bed and your check, though not necessarily in that order. Rare rest and blood money fuel your heavy steps like phantom forces.

If you get hurt on the job you don't say a word. You wouldn't want an OSHA Recordable. They're frowned upon by the men who sign the checks. You've got other fingers, others hands, other feet. You'll use the ones in better shape. If only you'd been born with doubles of every organ.

Using anything above a three-dollar word becomes pointless. You'll only have to define it afterward and risk being scorned a snob. When in Rome you become Roman and don't ask folks to pardon your French. Anything else would be Greek to them. You swallow words like that last sip of a generously poured cocktail that you know won't end well for anyone involved.

You don't remember the last time you signed your name on so much paperwork. It means less with every feeble stroke of the pen. It crosses your mind that even infanticide can be anonymous. There are rights for things like fixing a problem, but not installing pipes for a living. Still, you make your mark when asked. It's good enough for government work.

Your senses are sharpened, your awareness heightened, despite the fact that you're a walking corpse. You turn your head so abruptly at the delicious sound of a woman's voice that it almost spins off your spine. The floral scent of a lady passing by sends you reeling into a world of fantasies where you don't need the money more than the heartache and none of this has happened. None of this.

Your sex life becomes laughable, an unfamiliar thing of the past. Your reunion with your hand makes you feel like a teenager, though now the novelty's faded. You wonder if you'll ever have intercourse again, let alone engage in what no man admits to doing: making love.

And the sick part, the rub, the thing that makes the least sense to others who haven't done it, and even sometimes yourself, is that there's only one thing on your mind while you drift to somewhere safer as the sun begins ascending: when you'll get the holy chance to do it all over again.

But hasn't that always been your case, oh stubbornly cyclic stranger?

--Michael "Shakespeare" Vahsen, Journeyman Pipefitter, Local Union 373
   Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station. Oswego, New York. April 2012.


Currently reading:
"Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins.

Another Shelved Memento

I almost end a life
with my foot there in the gravel.
The smoke's got me
at ease, my mother's
voice distracted
but I notice the blue oval
right before my boot comes down.

There are no trees
within stone's throw
and the roofline's got no nests
so this windblown robin's egg
will not return to nature.
It's cold to touch already
so I'm guessing it's too late
but I stow it in my pocket
while we end our conversation.
The sorry sack of nerves I am
I take the thing inside.

Some socks within a pot
simulate an incubator.
I turn the bathroom heater on
and leave the manmade nest.
It's doomed to never hatch
if it didn't die in transit.
The sunny side is that
the scrambled chick
was over easy.

It'll wind up on my dresser
with the rest of the sad trinkets--
the reminders that what comes
must go
and all the in-betweens.
Someday someone
who thinks she knows
a shred about her lover
will pick that silly shell up
and ask him what it means.


Currently reading:
"American Sniper" by Chris Kyle.

Another Reason Why I Don't Use Mind-Altering Drugs

No more going to bed on an empty stomach. I dream of what I long for. That kind of ride qualifies as a nightmare, especially when I wake and find it's not there.

I was with her. We were going to ride down with one of her friends to meet a group of people at someone else's house, maybe her uncle's. I don't even know if she has an uncle, but that's where we were going...until I couldn't fit in her friend's vehicle, funnily enough. It was decided I'd ride down with someone else. In an incongruent, dreamworld plot hole, however, I was instantly teleported to our
destination.

Two of her male friends were there waiting as well. We sat on couches in the living room and made awkward small talk. Then a big brute of a man wearing a wifebeater came in and harrassed us a bit. It was his house, he was allowed to. I stood for it, or sat, until he came back a second time. "You and you," he spat, pointing at me and one of the other apparently unwanted guests. "Start sweeping. It's a mess in here."

When he went to procure the brooms I stood up, put my welder's hat on, and made my way for the door. It wasn't worth the aggravation, curly red hair or not. On my way out I bumped into the man's wife and two girls in their twenties, presumably their children. I explained the situation and my desire to bow out gracefully, then continued down the walkway toward the street. I wouldn't make it far, though. My angered host would see to that.

I don't ever recall being hit so hard in a dream that I felt it in reality. Not until now, that is. All of a sudden I received a devastating blow in my left ear that loosened my teeth and caused my right ear drum to pop. A southpaw with a mean sucker-punch. Figures. I saw stars and wound up in the grass, the man's bare arms locked through mine as he pinned me to his lawn.

"How dare you leave without cleaning!" he shouted. "And then to tell my family what I asked of you..."

My head spun as I tried to make sense of it. This nut asked two strangers to sweep the hardwood floor of his living room for no reason and then attacked one of them from behind for choosing to leave instead. What was the world coming to? I was afraid I already knew the answer.

Somehow I managed to wriggle my hand into my right pocket and get a solid grip on my cell phone. I opened it up and went to dial the lady I'd been waiting on, but realized she wouldn't be able to help. Perhaps I merely wanted to hear her voice one last time, to tell her I loved her, to apologize for all the damage I'd done. You know: the usual. I opted for 911 instead, but immediately between thumbing the 9 and the first 1 I reassessed the situation. With this goon on top of me I wouldn't be able to effectively communicate what was going on, let alone my location. It made more sense to take matters into my own hands, or so it seemed at the time.

I ditched the phone and reached down for the razor-sharp pocket knife I always carry-- the one that mysteriously went missing at my ex's house one Christmas, thus forcing me to drop $60 on a replacement. The original turned up again almost a year later. She gave it back, even though we were through by that time. I passed it along to the friend I've known the longest in the hopes that it'd bring him better luck. My presents were great that year, but the presence wasn't. There are some things best left uncelebrated. She was peeved when she found out I gave it to him. That made it all the sweeter. I'd given her enough already, most of which could never have a dollar amount assigned to it. What's the cost of sanity?

But back to that knife. I beg your pardon. My thumb flicked open the actuator and it swung into its glory. I flipped it around in my hand so the blade was protruding from the bottom of my fist and positioned it in front of my assailant's liver. All it'd take was a quick jab and twist to end the senseless, brutal beating being doled out like I'd earned it. I hadn't, at least not as far as this man was concerned. Something inside of me couldn't make that incision, though. There was a fine line between carrying a knife and using one to take human life that I wasn't prepared to cross. For what deceptively seemed like an eternity I held the point to his skin. Finally he felt it poke his gut and wrestled it from my hand. It was all over but the screaming, as my mother used to say. I don't know where he decided to plant that sucker, but I'm aware that it slammed home. I woke with a jerk and felt like one. Killed with my own knife. What a way to go. And all of it happened while waiting for a woman, for my love to arrive. The whole scenario dripped with so much irony that my pillow was literally soaked; at least that's what I figured the thick layer of drool on my face and the linens could represent in a perfect literary world. You know us writers: always looking for meaning in metaphor though we couldn't add our way out of a wet paper bag.

I lost the girl. I didn't save the world. I had my own phallic weapon used against me. I died so hard that I woke up disturbed and haven't been able to sleep again in the four hours since.

When my kids get to the chapter on dad's first time working out of town this is the overcast sky they'll discover. It ain't easy to face the Lake Effect winds alone, let alone nuclear radiation. But like Roland of Gilead, son of Steven and last gunslinger said many times over, "Do not forget the face of your father."

Currently reading:
"Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins.

The Gunslinger's Bluff

The features
of his apparition's face
are so soft it's as though
his Maker
used a dull knife
when carving his bones
or didn't bother
to finish whittling.
Then, as a final kidney shot
to whatever chance
the kid had
He slapped some
red hair on his head.
For thirty-five years
he's slinked about
with this curse
though he looks
not a day over my age.
All six-four of him
could easily disappear
back home out west
and very few people
would know the difference.
I can tell.
It's in that baritone false confidence
he whispers all night long.
Part of me feels bad
for not paying more attention
to his tales of female conquest
which bore me more
than counting ceiling tiles.

But when Buffalo's best lover
starts in on giving pointers
I perk up like a puppet
who's suddenly been fisted.
"You've got to talk to women
like you already know them,"
he says regarding the newly acquainted.
My eyes make the rare gesture
of locking with this ginger's
and give it to him straight
since my tongue's not bred for biting.
"If I knew the girl already
I wouldn't waste my breath."

He stares from stupid eyes
now belittled by a cynic
whose words have cut more flesh
than the Good Lord's busy hands.
Smiling, I change the subject.
There are some battles
best left for better men
way out there across
the desert.
When I find my true opponent
I shall take a sandy knee.

They Should've Stayed In Their Cocoons

I was barely over
the legal limit
on my way home
Monday morning.
My crew stopped
for liquid breakfast
after Sunday night's shift.
The bartender dates
our foreman
so no one could
shoot for the moon.
Free rounds kept coming.
I gave my last chip away
when I started to feel
like staying.
One more brown bottle
may have made
my right foot heavier
during the ride home.
It wasn't worth the jail time.
There were no motivators in sight.

It was the first real
springtime morning
up and out at sixty-five.
God Rays shined down
from between magenta clouds
making fresh grass greener
than the money I'd be making.
In the humid bath tub air
the first brood of butterflies
floated to their deaths
against my windshield
for fourteen semi-sober miles.
I had to veer around
a horse-drawn cart
conducted by an Amish man
in a wide-brimmed black hat.
At first it made me wonder
if I'd felt them more
than I thought, but then
I heard the truck behind me
blow his horn in protest.

When I pulled down
the driveway, parked
and hopped out
lunchbox and backpack in hand
I saw the dusty outlines
of fragile wings
all along my front bumper
and felt immensely guilty
for dousing nature's fire.

A voicemail from my father
set the tone for feeble sleep:
"Hope that you're not lonely
and you're doing well
up there."
I could hear it in his voice.
He knew it all
already.

(I've Been With Women...)

...I should've married.
...who are engaged.
...who deserved me.
...who DESERVED me.
...so innocent they made me seem sadistic.
...so psychotic they made me seem sane.
...who'll take my secrets to the grave.
...who exploited my greatest fears.
...who were out of my league.
...who knew I could do better.
...who said I was a catch.
...who treated me like a chore.
...who were good in bed.
...who were better at sleeping.
...who should've had my children.
...who knew we weren't ready.
...who've hit home.
...who've hit me.
...who still ask how I'm doing.
...who've tried to forget.
...I've never lied to.
...who got tired of catching me.
...who could almost go drink-for-drink.
...who tried being Irish, but only grew horns.
...who encouraged my passion.
...who scoffed at my hobby.
...who deserve a few lines.
...who ruined some songs.
...whom my mom loved.
...whom my mother tolerated.
...who knew it wasn't my dad's fault.
...who blamed my father for my sins.
...who were in the right place at the wrong time.
...whom I should've cut out like a cancer.
...who miss how my saliva feels.
...who know how far I can spit.

Oh God
if You're up there
counting coup
and keeping tally
of all the poor bodies
I've been inside
do this tired clown
one favor
and let them know
I'm sorry.
My only defense is simple:

I've been with women.

You Brandish Summer Nights

I slip it
from my pocket
hold it above the wheel
and examine its profile
using illuminated highway
ahead of me.
It's the smallest one
I own, can hide it
in my palm.
Naysayers scoff
at a .22
but in proficient hands
it can do the same job
quieter.
The mob used them
to plant men's faces
in their final bowls of spaghetti.
One behind the ear
rattles around in the skull
scrambling gray mass
like some grotesque
ostrich egg.
I'm no gangster
but I'm good
with what I own.

A closer lane-dazed look
tugs me out of autopilot.
The cylinder is angled
down into the barrel.
It should hit when fired.
It should blow up in my hand
but hasn't
and won't.
There's a grand design beyond me.
What's meant to be will be.

I slide it back where it belongs
and head to my motel room.
The part I can't make up
is that a star fell
in the woods.
They asked us on the psych test
if we believed in signs and symbols.
I told the truth and held my breath.
I'm not sure what it means, though.

A Cannibal's Trophy

Samson made a riddle
of a lion's head and honey.
Samson made a mess
when he trusted in Delilah.
She took his hair, they burnt
his eyes, and squared up
for the jaw bone.
Samson made a few mistakes
that outweighed all his strength.

I'm waiting for a verdict, too.
The blade is in the fire.
This one's meant to cauterize
a wound that's bleeding out.
A word will come to sear
the skin, my callous will be formed
and nothing like a hero
I'll go back to taking scalps.

Some Sacrilege to Warm the Ham

On the day
when "He is risen"
gets rammed into
ears of children
as they search
for painted eggs
and the candy
rots their teeth
I find it unimpressive
how the clergy
slung their story
with a stone rolled
to the side
and some linens
left behind.

It'd make for
better headlines
and more candles
lit on street shrines
if their hero
kept His promise
and remained
among the dead
but instead He stole
His thunder
and pulled some strings
with Daddy.
Martyrdom's prerequisite
is rotting with the rest of them.


Currently reading:
"The Waste Lands: The Dark Tower III" by Stephen King.

On Picking Wildflowers

Call me Ishmael.
Call me Ahab.
Call me anything
but late for dinner.

There are times
to use words
to cut down
at the knees
but this one is best
left in silence
where you like me.
Do you know where you belong?

Four-out-of-five dentists agree--
Sugar makes
the world go 'round
and suds slow it down
to a dizzying spin.

The two women
with taut tethers
to my heart
suggest I sprout a set.
Here it is:

Comedic Timing; or, At Least I'm Not the Only One

He almost resembles
a humanized Muppet
a caricature of himself
a beer-soaked plumber of sixty
with white hair wrapped
around a shiny, liver-spotted dome.
Words jiggle through
his loose-skinned throat
with an elder's authority
that can't be faked convincingly
by a cocksure youngbuck.
In every other sentence
he refers to the listener as 'guy'
a trademark poorly reproduced
by impersonators in the local.
The Silver Bullet next to him
on the counter
has freed his lips
to share with the grateful stranger
who's doing the dishes
for the third night this week.

"It's almost time to call the bride,"
he confesses to the can
and whoever else is listening.
What's not to admire
about that quaint expression?
It keeps their love young, makes
the matrimony seem as fresh
as yesterday's bad news.
"Twenty-five years
and we've never had an argument..."
he brags while his pale blue eyes lock
with a set of dark marbles
trying not to flinch
with Heineken and envy.
"...That I've won."

The kitchen roars
with sympathetic laughter
or it does in this sterile placebo
while the hen-pecked victor
proceeds to tap the Rockies.

All is as it should be.
We mortal men are tamed.
Somewhere in the distance
a fox outruns its tail.

Congrats, Brock Davenport

In the hours between
waking and dawn
when my begging bladder
longs for release
come the dreams
that can only
belong to a leper
praying for one chance
at redemption.
Words flow like antifreeze
almost as sweet
with a host of those folks
who in daylight, in real time
would not drop their zippers
if I were in flames.

Sometimes they buy it.
Some mates are stale.
There's always a jolt
when the ruse is discovered--
Waking to radio silence and cereal
for the sixth time this week
along with the blues.
Victories in the world of the conscious
come as the flipside to smaller defeats:
She finally got her single karat
square cut diamond
and one loser claps
from the nosebleed seats.

Right Church. Wrong Pew.

For five years his voice
scared the piss out of me.
Now it's a reminder of
how relative things are.
I heard it last night
in the form of a message.
When he called
I sent him to voice mail
since I didn't feel up to
pretending to be anything
than what I was: lonesome
in a crowd.

As soon as he finished
I dialed and listened.
"Hi, Mike. It's Dad.
Josh keeps running
around the house
saying 'Michael, where are you?'
It's really cute."

He hands the phone
to my two-year-old brother
for corroboration.
"Mi-cull. Broth-er,"
he chirps into the mouthpiece
with an innocence
that can't help
but make me smile
even though I can hear
him being coaxed
a bit from the background.
"Where are you, Mi-cull?
Mommy says..." and then
our father repossesses the phone
while the kid stumbles through
unchartered linguistic territory
that's still mostly undiscernible.

"See? I told you, he misses you.
I took him swimming last week.
He's treading water."
There was more to the recording
but all I could think of
from that point forward
was that one more thing
was shared between the boy and me
aside from common genes.

Treading water, huh?
You and me both, brother.
Let's stay in the game
'til you're old enough
for me to buy you
a celebratory cocktail
or four.
I'll do what he didn't.
I'll tell you where I went wrong
to give you a running start.
You'll never forget
at least one dress
whether or not
you deserved its contents.
Keep kickin'.


Currently reading:
"The Drawing of the Three: The Dark Tower II" by Stephen King.

The Donning and Doffing of Weekly Apartments

It's as good a place as any
to churn up my stomach
at the end of a shift.
Horrid wallpaper
nail-holed wood paneling
and peeling linoleum
help see to that.
The claustrophobic choke
of their dreary earth tones
are aided by the poorly installed
drop-ceiling, its tiles of three types.
Thumbtacks hold
the curtains back
and staples fasten signs
to walls in the kitchen
reminding me when to leave
and not to smoke.
God forbid an outlet's grounded
or any lumber leveled, squared.
There's a clock on the wall ticking away
precious seconds of my life
though none of its three hands
see me worth their movement--
a metronome, a cadence, a soundtrack
to the madness that shall undoubtedly ensue
with or without the presence of poison.

If anything matches it's a coincidence
possibly a blunder. The couch's burlap fabric
could probably rub off skin, though I wouldn't know
for certain since I haven't felt the need.
I'll assume the boob-tube works sans disturbing
dusty buttons. There are far more
fitting ways to rot what's left of brain cells.
If one rides on the porcelain
he risks his sliding forward as a draft comes
through the molding to laugh and taunt at feet.
Doors of cabinets won't close
and a sadist did the paint job. Still
I'll call this home until it's time for me
to leave.

"The bed, man! The mattress! What of its
ancient springs? Surely the blanket
is moth-eaten and the sheets are stained
with strangers' blood."

I tell you, friend, I can't complain.
I sleep like a lamb amongst lions
so long as that balled-up tank top
which I've never worn
emits its fragrant magic
from the altar erected
of a pillowcase as fair
as her tenderest of skin
which I, once this job ends
will be privy to again
unlike the jealous sun.

On Petting Burning Dogs (When There's No Option C)

Cigarette ash
falls to the tip
of your black leather shoe
as you knock on his door
being sure to stand to the side
even though there's no peephole.
Too many detective shows
watched growing up
but you won't solve this one--
You're no Dave Duchovny
sex-crazed or sober.
The light was on, you saw it
from the street, but still
no one answers
this wood thick with paint
and years of nicotine stains
between you and the truth.
It's odd, smoking in the third-floor hallway
of a derelict tenement, but no one here will mind.
Tobacco's the least of the sins
on these premises, especially this late at night.
This is what happens
when the day's good deed
brings you to the scene
of a crime.
So you leave
but still love him.
He drinks Coke
but not Pepsi.
The ancient case is cracked:
We're all our worst foes;
some go to extremes.

A train coming at you
(not being conducted
by a prominent male figure
in your life
since that'd be too predictable)
with time only
to push one out
of the way:
the junkie you've known forever
(and haven't they all been
one way or another?)
or an innocent bystander
(who may as well not have a face).
All they find are your shoes
on the tracks, feet still in them
and a few Marlboro butts
smoked by the lone survivor.
(Don't feel bad. There was
no other person standing there.
Is there ever?)
Even in dreams
you die alone.

Nuclear Reminders

I'm not even sure
if it's real gold or not.
My father was never
much of a spender
but he insisted
that the jeweler he met
on his pilgrimage to Israel
five years ago
was selling rings
like they rose out of the sand.
Not being one to miss out
on a deal, he called me
long distance and had me
get sized.
(A ten or eleven, though
I've since forgotten.)
The girl at the counter
wished well to the groom.
The snake oil token
would soon be delivered.

When he came back stateside
and presented it to me
over dinner at his favorite diner
I was rather confused by his reasoning
as usual. It was scrawled with funny lines
on either side of what looked
like a lobster. Upon seeing
the bewilderment on my face
the old man clarified:
my name, Michael David
inscribed in Hebrew
with a menorah in the middle
for good Godly measure.
All of this came as a shock to me
being that we're not Jewish.
I thanked him and tucked it into
my pocket for safekeeping
until I could get home to toss it
onto my dresser where it'd
collect dust with the other
knickknacks time, unlike me, had forgotten:
fortune cookie proverbs;
forklift keys;
hair ties belonging to lovelies long gone;
bits of cardboard with bits of lines
when I should've bitten my tongue.
An ironic Holy Land T-shirt would've sufficed

but that ring, real or not
took on a new role
when the rift hit
that November
like Axl's shrill downpour.
For over five years
my dad was estranged
too jaded by Jesus
and sins of our fathers
to acknowledge that sons
have clouds of their own.
His last gift was treasured
if only for its timing.

Tried wearing it once
but it wasn't my style
even with the image
turned in toward my palm.
The ring rode in pockets.
It hung from a chain.
A few heartless sadists
I mistakenly laid with
tried stealing it on me--
they knew where to cut.
It went into hiding
within my steel safe
flat on one side
where a drunkard had thrown it
against his bedroom wall
during a dark time
when a father's words would've
worked wonders while waiting
for the world to rewind.
Its inscription never told me
who I was, or why.
Funny how letters don't always
give meaning.

With him back around now
it won't be the last.
He's already given me
plumbing work, guns
and a bouncing baby boy
whom I can call brother.
My ring was recommissioned
linked onto a keychain
late at night near
the time of my birthday.
I'll be far upstate
on a powerhouse job
while its keeper
holds down what's left
of the fort.
I ain't got gold
and I ain't got money
but I'll happily share
the fortune I've found.


Currently reading:
"Pulp" by Charles Bukowski.

Coeducational

The edges of memory
are blurred to the point
of questioning boundaries
the details, exchanges.
What does the heart
choose to remember
when the mind and the shaft
have forgotten the truth?
A twin long bed, Christmas lights
bourbon, desire
to raze a sure crop
since the penchant's genetic.
Dorm room rules
were thrown through
the windows
of suites too big
to fit we immortals.

The classes came easy
the hangovers hard
and the tale tells the rest
of countless young prospects
cursing, and spitting, and pumping
through credits
that may or may not
have earned a framed parchment.
Some saw the change
from freshman to sophomore--
a cocky young protege
feeling his oats.
The subject himself
could not sense the calm
waiting before
the foreshadowed storm.

Sour mix mornings
and counterfeit handles
were strewn through the hallways
of a State-funded campus.
Drool on the pillowcase
blood on the sheets
and a girl, exits south, tongue-tied
and belittled
by a fool in dark denim
and black too-tight T-shirts
who held what he thought
were the reins that were promised
by good marks in high school
and pats on the back
from mentors and cohorts
forgetting the odds.

But he made it through death
as he makes it through lay-offs
and bills that come promptly
and rent through the roof.
Sometimes he wonders
if things had been different
would that girl who loved dresses
still toss to the floor
the fabric as thin
as the threads that are tethered
to fates that are options
if strong cards are bet.

He knows what he's holding
this time around.
Not even the Dealer
can pry free his hand.

Three Drivers, One Song

It was a week ago
but relevant now
as it was then
and will be until
the nukes stop
the seasons.
A passing schoolbus honked
as I settled into a chair
on my friend's sunsoaked porch
and cracked an ex-cold beer.
My head jerked up
from my bottle in time
to catch the driver's raised thumb
as she rolled down the lane.
She'd be doing the same
as soon as she could.
I commenced vicarious living.

Then there was the hearse
cruise-controlling up the Thruway.
Its driver, almost fifty
but could pass for thirty-eight
lingered long enough
in the non-passing lane
for me to see the smoke
careening from his Marlboro.
Was it wrong
or unprofessional
in today's antiseptic society?
He caught me staring, shrugged
and I nodded in agreement.
The deceased wouldn't mind
one more in his name--
the one taped somberly
to the black Caddy's window.
An homage, considered
by honorable thieves
replete with caveats.
I pressed harder and passed
them. There was nothing more
to see but doomed floral arrangements
and I'd had enough of those.

There are fleeting cosmic moments
when one knows one's not alone
and another soul's in tune.
Sometimes they happen
with clothes on, too.
Most times the grain's involved.
It's a reminder:
You can only go halfway
into the woods;
any further and you're coming out.



Currently reading:
"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins.

Cardboard Crux

All at once the gods let go
of a nourishing nectar
new to my nerves:
Canadian whiskey and plain club soda
with two maraschino
cherries dropped in
(three, if I'm honest, since my tooth
needs the sweet).
It tastes like sand and bitterness.
It tastes like two-and-a-half years
of my twenties.
My number's still blocked.
I'm grateful

for things like humor
and piety;
for the way that she knows
I'm asleep
once I've rolled;
for the fact that
the fridge light goes off
and saves on the bill
when the door's shut.
There's air in my lungs;
I'm erect; I'm awake:
There's a list carved
into my skull's flattest plate.

My friend hasn't called
'cause he let himself down.
I told him my love's like the sun:
not a choice.
For now he fights demons
alone in his closet.
His hair lines my sink
from the buzzer's brief shakes.
His head was pitched over
my trash can. His mohawk
would not get a job
for Pete's sake.
His parents were not
so punk rock.
Attempts at distraction
came off like a tic
while I prayed that the
poem wasn't noticed
down there; some stanzas
in marker next to the plant
that I threw out along
with her artwork.

A Sobering Drunk Conversation

It's been a few months
since we've spoken.
Funnily enough
he too has a phone
that goes one way.
Seems a common theme.
Still, it beats the alternative.
I'm not one for faking nice
when the weather ain't so pleasant.

"How ya' been, brother?"
he drawls into the mouthpiece.

"Hurtin' like everyone else
in our local,"
I reply in the tone that comes
naturally to a jobless craftsman.

"I'm not so great either," he tells me.
"Things up here ain't no cakewalk."

I ignore the double-negative
and snort into my cell. It's hard to find pity
for a guy who's been working sixty hours
per week for the last six months.
Then there's that pretty little wife
and two young kids waiting at home
for him when he does finally return.
A dagger to the hilt in the thigh
for that.

"I know a lot of guys who'd kill
to be in your boots," I remind him
somewhat peeved.
There's a fine line between brotherly
empathy and ignorance.
He may have crossed it
aided by the six types of liquor
swirling in my stomach.
Long Island's quite the melting pot.

"You don't know what they have me doin'.
I'm fitted with a respirator, wear a full body suit
with gloves, a face shield, glasses.
None of my skin's exposed.
The chemicals I'm working with
can kill on contact. They eat through everything.
Even bone."

I take a swig while he does
two hundred miles away.
That's one hell of a way to earn a living.
Makes your standard crawlspace plumbing
look like a smelly vacation.

"Jesus, Johnny," I call him
by the wrong name.
A few drinks ago I would've remembered
he prefers to be called Jay.
"Does your old lady know?"

"Not the extent of it. She'd make
me come home. No one else
wants to do this job. It's the only reason
I'm still here. We need the money."

There, he's got it. The elusive pity
of Michael David Vahsen. Someone
admittedly has it worse than I do.
"Well, if they're ever looking for
a few good men feel free..."
I tell him, unsure if I'm
kidding or serious.
He assumes the former
and takes the conversation elsewhere.

"I'm going on the road
down south next year,"
he says. "Power plant
shut-down work.
You want to come
with me?"

"I'm there,"
I tell him.
"I've always wanted
to work on a Southern accent."

"When this toxic chemical job's done
I'm going to Tennessee and West Virginia.
They'll have work there at the nuke plants.
Do you want to come along?"
He punctuates the offer
with a belch that'd start an avalanche
then repeats himself.

"Next year I'm going..."
but I cut him off before he can continue.
It's as though he's telling himself at this point.
He's deeper than I am tonight
at least as far as the bottle's concerned.

"Take it easy, Jay," I say
before cordially hanging up.
There's one truth that rings louder
than any hotel room alarm clock:
Someone's always got it worse.

An Offer I Couldn't Refuse

I swear on everything Holy
that I thought it was the end.
Something about the way
that black luxury sedan came
to a confident halt in the
middle of Main Street
in front of me as I sucked
the night's last cigarette
on my stoop
a little after one in the morning
sent images of mob-style
drive-by shootings
through my over-imaginative mind.
The windows were tinted
beyond the legal limit
preventing me from seeing
my assassin until he was good
and ready to unleash his sub machinegun.
Time froze while I waited to
be gunned down in an epic finale
to what was left of my laid-off life.

It caught me off-guard when the driver's door
opened and a man with black hair
greased straight back and a sweater vest
under his tux stepped out slowly.
At least I'd be murdered with class.
He opened the rear door of the Lincoln
in what I thought would be my final acquaintance.
I braced myself for the end. I wished I'd left
the combination to my safe with one of my buddies
from work. My welder friend would
torch it open, careful not to touch off
the powder. None of my collection would
be lost in the mix. I knew my mom could use
the money once everything was auctioned properly.
A peace came about me while I waited for the hail.
There wasn't a wish for a firing squad's blindfold.
I wondered if that was how Dostoyevsky felt
before the imperial pardon.

But in case you hadn't noticed
it was not my lucky day.
God still had a purpose for His
stubborn clown to breathe.
A small Asian woman in her late-twenties
stepped out of the back seat. The chaffeur
popped the trunk and handed her
her bags. My life unflashed before my eyes
as a new lease on it suddenly presented itself
in the form of my upstairs neighbor's
apparent return from the airport.

"Hey," I told her with a genuine smile
as she approached our apartment building.
"You got me good with that one."
She looked at me, puzzled, until I
explained that I used to live
directly on the other side of the bridge.
"I'm scared to go to Newburgh," she said
clutching her bags more tightly.
I opened the front door and said Goodnight
before burning one more to celebrate.
It's the little things in life
like not being riddled with bullets.

Painfully Pisces

"Did I ever tell you the one
about your dad being psychic?"
she asks, roping me in
like a proficient storyteller
and explaining my curse in the process.
I'm glad he's 'dad' again
and not 'father' or 'sperm donor'.
Those were starting to get as hurtful
as his five-and-a-half-year absence.
Word selection's key
when dealing with a typist.

Dinner at mom's was amazing
as usual, but it's this kind
of quiet conversation in her
dimly lit living room afterward
that's been making my visits
so rewarding as of late.
With her husband out of town working
I get to enjoy her company
without her being stressed as to whether or not
his food's hot enough or the kitchen
is clean in time for their program.
Maybe the void left when it's my turn
to go on the road this spring
will let other people breathe easier, too.
That's not so pleasant to think about.
I push it back out of my mind.

"We'd just bought a new couch
that he was very fond of for some reason.
One night when I was watching TV alone
in the living room he got out of bed
and asked me not to fall asleep on it
for when my water broke. As soon as
I stood up it happened. 'Whoosh',
right there all over the carpet."
How eternally disgusting that image is.
I start to reach toward the coffee table
for a drink that's not there.
The thought of my life beginning
with a stomach-turning mess of amniotic fluid
makes me feel less like a person
than one of the fish in my zodiac sign.
I mentally apologize decades later
to the person who had to clean up that mess.

"I went into labor at three in the morning
but you wouldn't come out 'til nine at night."
The childhood vision of my mom's Cesarean scar
hovering over her bikini bottom at the beach
while visiting Mickey Mouse and my uncle in Florida
during one of our summer vacations
makes me feel guilty for putting up such a fight
and leaving a mark to prove it.
"It was my big head, wasn't it?" I joke.
Mom laughs lightly into her stemless wine glass
as her eyes stare off into almost thirty years ago.
"No. God wasn't done perfecting you yet,"
she responds lovingly. In that case
I wish I'd waited a bit longer. Maybe some of
these flaws wouldn't show. The best of
my critics pick them out like black squirrels.
The rest of the cast doesn't notice, poor things.

The subject changes inconsequentially.
My mother comes back to her present dilemmas.
A man of the pen comes to grips with the fact
that he's part of another's own story somehow.

Derangements

The moments when I feel
the most like my hero
aren't riddled with drink
or smoke or the word
but rather when watching
a tulip walk by
while thinking what brand
of hell she delivers.

The vase's herd thins
as the dead ones are plucked
day after day
'til they're all in the heap.
It takes gentle fingers
a head clear of bias
discernment of death
to promote making most
of what's left to living
and what's fertilizer
in the grandest of schemes
that's lost in the kiss.

The fragile can't do it.
The ignorant chuck.
Some amateur florists
get stuck on perfection.
Sooner or later
we'll all push up daisies.
For now it's a treat
to sniff the survivors.

March Madness in the Downtime of Cardiac Trench Warfare

What you see's what you get
if you're lucky.
What you paid for may not
fill the bag.
There are times when you won't
get it out of your mind
whether or not there is leverage.

Security's sold by the liter.
Gallons will get you back home.
Thread count will speak
of how soft we may sleep
but without the first two
it's a bandage.

I can't change the way that I shared it.
I've pleaded with many closed doors.
The lines were discovered
through hours of ink.
I promise it wasn't for pity.

There's good, there's bad
and there's ugly.
The world's not ashamed
to dole scars.
We have our fair share
but the present's a gift.
I've meant it since when I first said it.

The Weakness of the Breed

A brisk mist falls
on me
and the February sidewalk
as I stubbornly stroll
to the post office.
People've been whining
of the weather as if it couldn't
be worse, like twenty and snow.
Reminds me that the human condition
is one bereft of gratitude.
Makes me not want to bother with friends
or their wasted little words.

There's a man more foolish
than I am on the corner.
He's huddled under an oversized umbrella
attached to his dull, silver hotdog cart.
No one's in search of a tube steak today.
You can read that however you'd like.
The soggy buns will be a loss
that his wife will pay for later.
It's a sad attempt made
by a sad attempt at arguing
that Beacon's like the City
with its shops, pretentious hipsters
and everything in walking distance.
His lukewarm cup of coffee makes for
poor company while its lid collects a puddle.
Even if I had three bucks, even if
my stomach grumbled
I wouldn't give this fool
the idea that he's got it figured out.
You've got to know when to cut your losses.
There's no honor in forcing
what's not there.

Later on while driving
I see three men circled on the west side
of Fishkill Ave. They carry on their business
like its May in Tuscaloosa, a smile
and a hand way up in the air
for emphasis during a story.
Their clothing, location
and disregard for the weather
tell me that they're crazies
from the madhouse allowed to roam
that side of the street. I've seen ones
thumping Bibles, pleading desperately
with telephone poles, talking to their children
whom they haven't seen in decades.
Part of me envies the innocence there
the simplicity of life when the mind's not left
to wonder things
like how many times I drive by
a trapped genius every day
and why I bother breathing the same air
as men who don't know when
to keep their hotdogs dry
and stay home with the wife.

At this rate I hope the Mayans were right.

A Warm Gun

He's back on the wagon
or maybe he's off it--
That expression never
made much sense to me
since both options sound shitty
for different reasons.
Regardless, it's good to see
my friend again.
Whether or not he knows it
and whether or not he's sober
he'll always have that title
be it a blessing or a curse.

"Thanks, Mike," he says
in a humbled, lowered tone
as he picks his cup o' Joe
up from the counter.
We sit and make small talk
avoiding obvious sins
at a decrepit table which should be
thrown out, but is kept for
its shabby chic peculiarity.
"What a piece of shit," he comments
as he fingers the cement hole
where a dozen tiles are missing.
I wonder how many times a day he says that.

We tighten our black wool hats
and mount up after
making a crowded table
of soccer-mom-aged women
in denial about their artist status
uncomfortable with his sailor's mouth.
I'd feel bad for his verbal transgressions
if they'd come from any other person
but from this kid I've known
for most of my life I expect nothing less
than an innocently blind vulgarity.
"Defusing", as his father rightly called it.
Most find it hard to stay mad at a man
whose only true enemy is himself.
This comes as firsthand knowledge
which has helped me notch my pistols.
It's those low-toned Thank Yous
and overzealous questions about
the state of things on my end that worry me.
When manners are grown I wonder.
I like the poison with the snake.
It's consistent, if not comforting.
It doesn't sound like Meeting-speak.

"Want one of these?" I ask
handing him a crisp, white menthol
as our feet pound on the sidewalk.
"Thanks," he says again with a tint of shame
that I wish would disappear
considering shared time.
We walk back to his place
not letting our smokes
get interrupted by too much
half-assed philosophy.
I start to recite an inside joke
from fifteen years ago
but trail off for fear of foolish nostalgia.
He finishes the sentence
and sets me at ease.
It does him the same good
to spit out the old lines.
We're two habits we can't drop.

We watch a movie sequel in his room
as an excuse to stay together.
He was right: it's not as good
possibly due to less sex scenes.
"Nice bush," I say sincerely
during the one bone thrown
by the director. He laughs
unsure if I'm joking or not.
There are some oddities
that even old schoolmates
can't decipher, though they
don't outweigh the cadavers.
Once the credits roll
he hits the lights like they'd repel
ghosts. Some of us have more than others.
We both avoid the City
for our own switch-hitting reasons.

A tiny bug crawls along his makeshift table.
"Is that a roach?" I ask.
He kills it instinctively, swearing he
hadn't seen any for a week.
The hundreds of dots on the sheets
covering his futon shapeshift into vermin.
My mother warned of bringing them home
in clothes, but I suck it up.
Leaving too soon would be disrespectful.
I'll shake out my jeans under the overbearing
overhead light. There's an exterminator
who comes to my building every week.
My friend, on the other hand, may not
be a neighbor for much longer.
Living is prioritizing.
We've seen each other naked
in the showers at the neighborhood pool
growing up.

There isn't much left to discuss.
There isn't much time to deny it.

The Spaniard's Salute

My mother's on her own
search now for her father
who died before her birth.
Her tactics, as always, are razors.
She forwards me a list
of his medals, says the Army
would be happy to get the
cloth-and-brass tokens
of bleeding blue bravado
in the mail right away.

Neither of us met the man
but somehow these pins
will mean something, so she thinks.
Their names are vague:
Good Conduct Medal
American Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal
Honorable Service Lapel Button, WWII

But was he the guy who would always bum smokes?
Did he listen when the riflemen ranted of home?
Would any honest Joe want him in his foxhole?
Those are the things that'd make me proud now.
Hitler blew his own head off. It took a Little Boy
and a Fat Man to beat the Japanese.
My grandfather knew nothing of winning wars alone.
He died and left a family to fight their own battles.

There's a portrait of him in her living room.
His tie's tucked in to his khaki dress blouse
between the second and third buttons down
from the top. The near-black hair of his pompadour
and thin mustache glisten from the yellowed canvas.
In his eyes there swells a sadness that his kin
know all too well. Perhaps he sensed his day would come
so early in that car crash. A taxi's back seat soaked with
blood tells the tale. What are the odds of a fatal wreck
in Manhattan where traffic rarely exceeds thirty?
What are the chances that a poor single immigrant mother
who never learned the language would raise her two sons
and third unborn daughter in spite of adversity
stacked to the ceilings of factories, commercial kitchens
and churches doling out bread and secondhand clothing?

Send me the ribbons for that, Uncle Sam.
Show me the certificate you've penned in her name.
Where is the placard, the mural, the bust?
A street in the capital named in her honor?
Instead she waits in line for a glorified madhouse bed
where rotting minds die as the pills preserve bodies.
That's the fate the true heros suffer.
That's what waits at the Thirty-ninth Line.

There are veterans of wars that waged on for decades
who silently sink to the depths they've desired:
Five feet down to a merciful grave on a hill
near a soldier who died in the Fifties.


Currently reading:
"The Gunslinger" by Stephen King.

A Profitable Practice

They're funny, nerve endings.
That name is misleading. They seem
to be connected to parts wholly unrelated.
I've been conducting research on myself
and others lately.

The smooth spots between my knuckles
tickle the back of my throat when rubbed.
If you breathe in my ear a tingle shoots down
my spine and directly through my loins.
Merely hovering over my right armpit
will send waves of electrons through
the sinews of my lower back.
There are places, here unmentioned
that could crumble me like Jericho.
And, like in most men, a secret path
connects my stomach to my heart.

As for the fairer sex I'll state
the obvious applies
with the colorful additions
that no charlatan could learn.
You can be the judge of neurons
since I won't divulge my findings.
There are saints and there are scholars
and I define myself as neither;
just a man with two hands
and a mouth that loves the searching.

Gringo Red

It's a rare instance where the two of us
are riding together. Usually one follows
the other or we meet at the customer's house.
Today he's my passenger, or maybe it's more
that I'm his driver since he's the one sitting
on a thick wallet. That's how this system works--
the man with the green makes the rules, calls
the shots, decides how to handle the debriefing.
Capitalism's not afraid to get dirty. It lingers
in plumbing just the same as in sales.
My friend, most times my boss, is one of its agents.
He leans against the arm rest and points through
the window on his side of my truck. "I worked
at that house once. A Mexican almost died there."

It's not uncommon for unskilled labor to be injured.
They often don't take proper precautions to work
safely since time is of the essence when trying
to keep a job that a thousand other illegals would
give pints of blood to possess.
For conversation's sake I take the bait.
"Oh yeah? What happened?"

He turns his head and shoots me that sinister grin
that finds its way to his oldest boy's face
when he's about to drop a line.
My friend's fortunate for cloning himself.
He comes from good stock, or maybe he doesn't
but made his own fate and broke cycles.
"He was a carpenter's helper. They were tying off
a temporary scaffold and the Mexican slashed his
wrist by accident. Blood was spurting everywhere.
Major arterial bleeding." He pauses to take a sip
of his coffee as if to flex his hardened stomach.
I fail to see where the punch line is coming
but know that it's there from his tone.
"He refused to go to the hospital. Told his boss
he couldn't because he'd be deported. The guy
was going to bleed out and die on the jobsite
if no one did something quickly."

The corners of his mouth spread. I know
it's going to get interesting, but never
would guess what comes next.
"His boss decked him good. Knocked the little beaner
right out in one punch. We duct taped his arm
as best we could and carried him to the back of
the carpenter's truck. I held pressure on the wound
on the way to the hospital. That guy was lucky."

He shifts in his seat and waits for my commentary.
A good storyteller knows when to pause.
The lousy ones don't allow for digestion.
They fill the air with words like a canary
lines its cage with shit.

"So he made it?" I ask once my laughter subsides.

"Yeah, and they didn't send him back to his country.
That contractor made a tough call. He could've let him
die stubbornly, dumped his body in the river
and saved a few days' pay." He follows his statement
up with what we both know is a lie:
"I would've."

But a man who tapes an unconscious immigrant
day laborer's severed wrist, carries his limp body
to the bed of a truck, and fights against the pumping
of blood into daylight could never do such a thing.
Again, since he's paying, I let him play lead.
"Yeah. One less guy to cheat the system and
take an American's job," though we know
that's not always the case. It just sounds right.

We drive on in silence feeling sorry
for our fellow man who has to sell his soul
in order to make a living.
We only sell pipes and porcelain
and even that's debatable.
At the end of the day it's comfort
we peddle. Who in their right mind
won't pay for that? The luckiest among us
get it for free. My friend and I are blessed
and know it without saying. The saying
sometimes takes away from the doing
and we don't want to risk that loss.

Not for My Agent's Critical Eyes

I have a magic power:
I make streetlights
go out by driving under them
sometimes.

Dale used to do it, too.
It has something to do with
electromagnetic fields
or so he said.
He called it being a slider.
I call that his way
of getting his tongue into
your brain, your rifle on his side:
you and him against the world.
Being a motivator of men
is a power in itself, but there's
a fine line between
motivation and manipulation.
Dale believed his own lies
and didn't see the danger.
The honest painters find
the world in gray.
I'm no good with brushes.
Wrenches aren't my forte either.

You didn't hear this from me
but I have another magic power.
It has nothing to do with lights
or cars or Tesla
or kids I used to drink with at twenty
or anyone else, for that matter--
not even a woman for once.

I don't use it like I should.
The guilt glares at me.
You're watching it bleed out slowly
like a leaking boiler in a basement
no one cares enough to enter.
Maybe you're clapping. Maybe you're cringing.
Maybe you're vicariously embarrassed for me.
It has nothing to do with plumbing
or blood or cellars
but it's too late to shut up now.
It's too late for a lot of things.
Twenty-eight came too soon.
Dale never did, that slider.
I know that.
We shared women
and turned out lights together.

Now go look up Tesla.
He's still in the air.

DNR

My grandmother's shell
lays in the hospital bed
no longer combative
or tethered to the rails.
Her face is unfamiliar
with its new slouch created
by a lack of dentures
to match an absence of mind
and the fresh dose of sedatives
coursing through her tender veins.
The sterile stage is set, but the
lights won't dim to curtains.
She's propped up carefully
like a ventriloquist's dummy
sitting on the lap of Death.
Cruelly, He won't take her yet.
To us she died years back
but He prolongs His performance
for reasons unbeknownst.

"Mira, que bonita," she says
in an innocently excited tone
reminiscent of a five-year-old
at Christmas, her gnarled right hand
fingering the purple bracelet strapped
to her left wrist. If she knew what
its three letters meant
she'd find it even prettier--
a ticket out of this pointless encore.
"Si," I quietly agree in the
second language she taught me
when I was growing differently
than I am at twenty-eight.
Love, the first, yearns for a merciful
last show by the Silent Entertainer.

We lock eyes through her cataracts
and smile for very different reasons;
or maybe, in retrospect, our thinking
was the same.

Detox

A lazy, brazen doe catches my headlights
while I blame myself for letting
the steel find my friend's arm again.
I'm driving to pay the bills
at an ungodly morning hour
with an empty passenger seat
and too much on my mind.
Those stacks of twenties
that called him back to the fix
came from my zealous hands.
He needed the work, we needed
old friends; too much needing is a curse.
The victims can verify that claim.

I wanted to believe that his
chemical struggle was behind him
just as much for myself as for the kid
who gave me my first cigarette
back when homework, curfews
and dirty knees
were the worst of the world's problems.
The first two disappeared.
Dirty knees are still an issue.

I take a turn too hard and crush a hubcap
in the shoulder. I took the news too hard
and hit the bottle like a champ.
There still may be some poison floating
in the shadows of my system.
We have our separate demons
but we're addicts just the same.

"Your past doesn't define you,"
lies a sarcastic roadside church sign.
A few miles down another congregation
promotes a pancake supper with black lettering.
Those Christfolk have it wrong:
Eggs are best for dinner
and the devil's not so bad.
It's we mere mortals who
mislead ourselves every day
into believing that we can change
a Goddamned thing
other than our clothing.
The skin we're stuck in's welded.
The cover's like the book.
There must be a thirteenth step
that's gone undiscovered.
Kid, we've let each other down again
and this time youth's no excuse.

On Damaging Sold Goods

A sore day of non-existence
is best punctuated
by this one-line message
from a friend who's been
silent for months:
"Bukowski was right
about everything."

Solder Me

A long day of slinging pipe
renders me useless
from the neck down
and arguably north as well.
The sweet stench of that amber
non-precious metal
used to transport water
sustenance, life itself
permeates my pillowcase
my bloodstream, the very core
of who I am--
But I am not a plumber.
I'm a man who pays his bills
with pipes.

Someday, after pocketing some change
in a checkout line and then scratching his face
my son will think of me
when smelling copper on his fingers
if the penny doesn't die
along with my trade and my dream.
"Dad would've been happy,"
he'll tell himself to justify his purchase.
And somewhere, in the special hell reserved
for those who deny what they are, I'll be
nodding my head in sweaty agreement.
One can only be so lucky.

I'll take my chances
at the wheel.
Put it all on red, Abe.
I've got this funny feeling.

Stay True

It used to be lager
and then it was Jack
that gave me the courage
that my stomach lacked
to say what I meant
when it mattered most.
I read all the Russians
and prayed to their ghosts.

I know what you're thinking
'cause they've wondered, too--
Would it be someone else
if it wasn't you?
But I've played the field
so I know what's not there.
Most of those damsels
won't let down their hair
for a guy with a penchant
for blood and the pen
who isn't quite now
what he almost was then
but he wakes in the morning
with a saint on his mind
who unlike the years
has been mighty kind.
I'll never be perfect
but I'll try to be
the man you deserve
to rock you to sleep.

Sometimes it's Sailor.
It sure won't be Jack.
That speech I was slurring--
I don't take it back.

A Master of Suspense

"We're different," Tone confesses, failing to acknowledge that he's not devoted much time to either party's true desires. "I've got all the time in the world, but I feel I'm wasting yours." He takes a sip from his bottle of dark lager and ponders the pending response. Its courier isn't there to spew it. He's talking to the walls. His overly creative mind would normally run rampant with possibilities, but the alcohol's served its purpose in that senses and brain cells have been successfully numbed for the evening. And to think he once foolishly yearned for the traps of drunkenness and monogamy, though not in that order.

Tone takes another liberating gulp. He's starting to remember why he preferred to drink alone when it used to flow like water in his dusty, whitewashed rooms. He's starting to miss no one but the kid who could've turned out differently had he known his full potential. Tone was a fan of nostalgia, especially when it involved former selves. Even the regrets didn't make it worth forgetting: Tone could've been a contender someday. At the end of thirsty, self-destructive nights there were only facts like that one on which to cling for dear life. Tone was a meager realist. He knew which truths could save him. The list was short, but it was there, much like his temper, his vision, his cock.

The dog scratches desperately at the door between his room and the next. Tone breaks his stride as the seventh beer is cracked. If Jodie were here to see him now she'd shake her head and wonder. How could a man so hellbent on living sentence himself to a life of confinement? Even only children need their time in the playground. Tone's problem was that he didn't know how to jump off the swings when the sun was setting. He'd ride it out until no one else was left. He'd done it before, over and over again to the point of an ailing stomach and ringing ears. There was no margin of error once the learning curve was eroded. A conscious declaration to ignore past mistakes prevented him from making more healthy decisions. "It's not conducive," they tended to remind him. "Conducive to what?" he wanted to ask. They never finished their sentences. They never finished anything but that which he hoped would last a lifetime. He was still naive enough to believe in forever. It'd be a few years before words like that would lose meaning. It'd be a few more Jodies before he'd pack it in for good and resign himself to an existence of sporadic carpentry gigs and lonely conversations with strangers while walking the dog. There were worse fates than that. At least becoming his father wasn't one of them anymore. There are people who learn your name because they want it. There are people who learn your name because they want to add it to their lists.

Tone almost knocks his brew off the nightstand while grasping for his ringing telephone, a lifeline tossed from a raft. At this hour it could only be one person. The others got their respective hints one way or another. He saw to that, though the means and ends weren't equal. "Hello," he chokes into the receiver, beer breath bouncing off the plastic and back up into his nostrils. "How was your night?" he asks ever timidly.

"I don't want to sleep alone. Come on over and I'll tell you all about it," Jodie suggests from her end of the line. Tone's not one to argue when a beautiful woman wants his company. He walks to the kitchen to pour what's left of his lager down the drain. There will be other nights to over-analyze the fare on the pity train. Reality seems a better bet than hypotheticals this time. He grabs it before it can pull its head back into its shell and swim away.

The round is won, but not thanks to him. The wrath of Modern Woman is surpassed only by her mercy. There are times to beg, borrow, and steal. Tone, like a reformed criminal worthy of his salvation, knows the difference.

Slumber Rumblings

I stand in the January evening
enjoying a rare solitary cigarette
at the base of my stairwell.
Everyone's your friend in Beacon
if you've got a pack to share.
Truth be told I never mind.
It leads to conversation, stimulation
of the brain, signals shot
to nerve endings reminding you
that there's more to it
than where the rent will come from
next month and how your father
sleeps at night.
The homeless, a laid-off neighbor
some slob walking home from
a minimum wage job--
they all stop and share a story
for the mere price of fifty cents.
It's a bargain on both ends.

A boy about my age
walks a woman to her door
on the opposite side of the street.
His plaid flannel shirt clashes with
his sneakers, the air temperature
collides with his words in the form of
steam pouring from his mouth
to accompany his desperate plea.
"Tonight was nice. Maybe I'll see
you again sometime."

The lie is coming. He's too jaded
and cocksure to see it, but it's there.
Thousands of years of perfected rejection
escape her lips like it has from her mother's
at one time or another
and her mother's mother's and every
combination of possessives therein.
"Yeah," she says with a shiver in her voice
implying that goodbyes should be brief.
The world's limpest hug ensues as I suck on my
Marlboro, grateful to be out of the hellish
woods of first-dating. I flick my butt and walk upstairs
leaving the stinking scene to play itself out
like a fire the gods have pissed on for kicks.

There's a glass half-full of water
waiting on my coffee table when I enter
my apartment. It's been there for days.
It isn't mine. I smile and hang my coat up
right next to my holsters
feeling blessed to be defeated
by someone other than myself.

Take Her Home, Old Man

The eggs Benedict try their hardest to settle
their greasy hollandaise place within my stomach
as I approach the red light
trying not to let my bald tires skid
on the cold and wet macadam.
A series of cars comes crawling by
in the opposite lane
led by a hearse and a limousine.
Minivans, luxury sedans, economy subcompact
commuter death-traps, and contractor grade
pick-up trucks roll by in the procession
all clearly designated with flags that say
'Funeral' on the red and white-crossed rectangles
fastened to their rooves via magnets.
There are loosened ties, one stiff white collar
on a priest paid overtime, and see-through scarves
on see-through women. Most of the faces
are pensive, if not utterly anguished.
I'm too far to notice tears through the
trails of neutral rain, but there must
be some there. Dying is a change
that most people can't handle.

My heel taps against the
floormat in tune to the beat of my stereo
while the ball of my foot holds the brake.
Then a car comes along with four happy passengers
who would seem to be regurgitating a performance's
best jokes on their way home from a comedy club
if that dismal flag wasn't fastened to their vehicle.
The light turns green in the corner of my eye
and I roll on to face the day and what it may bring
of my grandmother's fate in the hospital
suddenly comforted by the fact that at least
four folks know what it is to die well:
A celebration of having lived at all.

Both Jonesin' for a Spoon

This nagging half-sickness finally comes in handy.
One stuffed nostril wakes me from my dream.
My partner in crime was trying his hardest
to convince me to enter an underground tunnel
we found in a seedy back alley somewhere.
I had to remind him that I'd been the voice
of reason since we first met in fourth grade
and that my blood had not been kissed
by the unfairly annointed good luck of the Irish.
Oh, and we were Ghostbusters. The slumbering
plumber shows his age through his heroes
as well as a touch of ironic desire.

A few hours later I call him to check
what he wanted to tell me at one in the morning:
that his meeting went well, that he loves me for caring
that he's trying his hardest to do the right thing.

For him that means waking up before noon
without the wrong person or belt on his arm.
I know that he'll make it, he knows that he has to
since this kind of chance doesn't beg when it knocks.
There's hope for the homeless, scripts for the addicts
and perhaps, if played right, some love for the lost.
If we can both rise from our pasts in this town
with a moat and a bridge and our saints to protect us
then maybe it's not too far-fetched to say
that our ghosts, like our trade, have limited days.