Antebellum Vellum

I've yet to meet
my newest neighbor
but I heard him
for the first time last night
crying through the door
of his parents' railroad apartment
as I exited our building.

It hit me then
as hard as when She leaves:

There are doors I'd rather be behind
and tombs I'd rather leave behind
and anything less
than knowing the joy
of a pink and screaming baby
would be a wasted life.

I'll risk it.

Faraday Bag

And if you think
for one red second
that any of the madness
the stale cigarettes
and potholes on the ride back
the afternoons spent alone
on a couch, clutching guts
and a bottle and a smoke
burned down to the filter
while words replay
in a mind unduly cluttered
by the need and search for love
would be traded
like a baseball card
for one that's twice as shiny
and might increase in value
in some parallel universe
where everyone knows what matters
then, my friend
you've missed the finer points:

Read English;
speak Spanish;
try not to hurt anyone
on your stumble home.

Pontius Pilate of the Alps

Maybe
there's a layer
of Hell
hotter
than burning
jet fuel.

Savings in the Circular

I was mostly going for produce.
It was a Sunday afternoon
with the golden hour approaching.
Two cars were parked
on the far end of the lot
nowhere near the entrance
of the supermarket.
I knew.
I knew because I'd been there
twenty-something years ago.

Pulling closer to the scene
revealed that I was right.
A father hugged a daughter
of elementary school age
one last time for the weekend
before she'd hop into the sedan
where her mother was waiting
to bring the child back
to her version of home.
The courts call it "visitation"
but that's far too fair--
an overabundance of sharing
with a kid who's more like cargo;
a childhood of goodbyes;
sunsets fucking ruined
since they always meant the end.

I lucked out.
There was a spot right next to a handicapped.
My cart wandered the aisles for awhile
but I found those vegetables eventually
and brought them home to share.
I lucked out.

Armed Cosmonauts

The old man wasn't home
and the boy was taken hostage.
I didn't leave a note
for fear of being honest.
There's comfort in an evening ride
as dead conversations
play out in my mind.

Colors fade
from warm to cool
a border of white
between them.
Heaven's reflected
in silent ripples
on the only river I've known
above another mountain
refusing still to move.

The skyline's a melon rind
and I'm not finished chewing.

"Christ, kid.
I'll protect you from Christ."
A flock of one sleeps safest.



Currently reading:
"The Martian" by Andy Weird.

Deposit Slip

There's an engraved sign screwed to the heavy wooden door that seems more official than is justified. White letters stand out against a maroon rectangle that vaguely suggests some clinical version of warmth. Regardless, Rich enters the Production Room as if he owns the place. For a few minutes he does, and will be rightly compensated. It's not his best work, but that ended years ago. A masterpiece is only a craftsman's last achievement in the forgiving world of fairytales that dies with income tax and puberty.

Eschewing raw material left for his endeavor, he thinks of things outside of what's expected while coaxing his contribution:  virginal nicknames unused by prior suitors; the only person he knows who folds a fitted sheet with ease; a case of wine that soured when it froze in the back of his car overnight. "I'm doing this for us," he tells a beaker, unsure of whether walls have been soundproofed--or if some nameless nurse is giggling or frowning or both. The corkscrew motion settles the matter as it has since some ancient fellatrix informed him of its merit. It seems a shame to leave so many possibilities behind. Fate is out of his tired hands, parallel universes be as damned as the torpedoes.

After the crescendo and sterilized cleansing, he stops at a reception window to collect his check. The woman filling it out reminds him of a dream he once had. Rich wonders if it'd be like putting his tongue on battery terminals. He shakes his head free of the intangible world of maybes and reaches for his payment. Fifty dollars richer, he walks through the double-doors and ponders where to apply this temporary bandage--a typical modern American with just enough credit card debt to remind him of his follies.

He kicks his heel inadvertently while stepping off the curb, smirking since none of it matters more than what's waiting. At the end of the game, the pawn and the king enter the same box. He heads home, where he'll shower, eat dinner, and be taken by the woman who knows what scares him most. There's little more to ask for than a love as strong as sickness.

Triskaidekaphobia

It's in the mail already
though its meaning is uncertain.
The postman holds an envelope
that must, to him, feel empty.
With so much pinned to words
it's a wonder that we love them.
Ink is never permanent;
in air, in print, on skin.


Currently reading:
"Pulp" by Charles Bukowski.

Cut the Kid in Half

An old version of myself
would have rolled back out of bed
to make a tall White Russian
opened the living room window
lit a smoke for old time's sake
and told you some misquoted
parable from the Bible
decreed by King Solomon
the wisest man to have ever lived
aside from Charles Bukowski
about how "Power is the ability
to destroy something, but not."

This newfangled variation
of the same flawed heathen
who insists on bastardizing Scripture
in the name of a few drawled lines
has mostly followed suit
but this time, as the smoke's sucked out
by a fan perched on the table
I'll leave you with some words
uttered through the vodka
that may not be profound
but hold the weight regardless:

Power is the ability to love
from a distance
and I, like this cocktail
am stronger
than any
dead and buried king.


Currently reading:
"The Giver" by Lois Lowry.

The Universe, etc.

"The thing is,"
he says, whiskey-swaying
in his kitchen
"that shard
from the glass you broke
is never gone."

He slides a sweating tumbler
and dries the countertop
hanging his towel
from the oven handle
as early punctuation.

"You'll find it again,"
he assures
his captivated guest
"in your foot."

I Needed a Pack of Smokes, or The Day I Saved My Block From Exploding

So I decided to put pants on for the first time all day and walk to the bodega on the corner for some nicotine. While traversing a section of sidewalk in front of the Beacon Theater (the local one, not the good one) I noticed the pungent aroma of natural gas. I paced around, sniffing through my congested nostrils to see if it was a case of wishful senses pretending that I was back on the job engaged in some repair work. A neighbor-friend walked by with her dog and I asked if she detected the scent as well. She did. I called the police to report the circumstance and waited for the proper authorities to respond. "No big deal," I insisted. "Don't send the whole cavalry."

They did. Seven fire trucks descended upon Main Street, closing off the intersections at either end. Some guys in fire-retardant gear approached me and I showed them where the utility company, Central Hudson Gas & Electric (whose last bill was outrageous, I may add), had done some underground work a few nights prior. I remember seeing them out there with their excavator and some guys messing with something in the ditch. I'd been drinking wine with a good chum all evening while the boys in blue collected overtime for shoddy craftsmanship. Anyway, the firemen agreed that the presence of natural gas was evident and called the utility service to send a crew to the scene. The block is still shut down so parking and traffic are hindered, but I can't bring myself to apologize to any inconvenienced parties. I did what I felt was right and may have prevented the loss of life and property; at the very least, a waste of natural resources was curtailed.

If you smell something, say something. Union pipefitters don't leave blatant leaks of combustible materials in high-traffic areas in their wake. Smoking saves lives. My work here is done. Carry on. 

Winded

We were fueled by rampant hormones
and an awe of unknown sins.
Those with true experience
had the least to share
while the boys who bragged of conquests
romanced their own hands.
In the locker room we pulled on shorts
and T-shirts like thin armor.
Earth Science had bored us
right until the bell
but that period of basketball
gave us time to vent.

There were teams picked
based on strategy.
The Spanish kid was fast.
The Mormon had a three
and socks up to his knees.
Those whose parents didn't come
to conferences were best.
I was never first
but I was never last.

I threw my weight for rebounds
since I didn't know the rules.
No one ever called a foul.
It didn't get us ready.

Fourteen was a funny time
of change and mass confusion.
I wonder where those kids all went
and if, like me, they find themselves
still playing in their dreams.

Atelophobia

It's a good thing
I wasn't born
a woman.

To be expected
to throw a baby shower
for a friend or relative
the same year as my miscarriage
or abortion--
they don't make a bourbon
strong enough for that.

To be slowly, unsurely
entered by a man
who barely knows himself--
what can be more frightening?

To bleed for days
without death;
to live for decades
without a level table;
to stare at false perfection
dictated by children's dolls--
such standards would crush
a lazy drunk like me.

Tonight I take my whiskey
like unholy communion
thanking long-dead cells
that met to form a louse.

With hair unkempt I'll sleep it off
and wake to imperfection.

Eastern Standard

The hands read correctly.

Her living room is right.

"Did you fix the time?" she asks

like such a thing is feasible.

"No," he says

with grapefruit on his breath

and ruffled hair.

"Twice a day

even broken clocks 

can pull it off,"

as he tugs away the blanket

they've been hiding in

all weekend.

The forecast called for snow

though windows seem so far.

Detritus

"Leave it for the Emperor
of Doggerel," they threatened.
Coke off college toilet tanks.
Clinging to an era.

The angel wings on shoulder blades
you slept between were flawed:
heavy-handed shading
not centered on her spine.

Wine obscured her recollection
of the time she grabbed your hand
walking home on Main Street
both too gone to go.

But she always wiped her makeup
to spare your favorite pillows
and she understood innately
why you left her for a chance.


Currently reading:
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

Strays

His mother sends a message:
something vague about
the status of feral cats she feeds--
how they're freezing
in this record-breaking February--
and a birthday, coming like
taxes; asking of his plans.

"I've got somewhere to be,"
he says, leaving out key details
that imply his girlfriend's insides.
"And besides, I haven't seen you
in three months. How's Monday
different?"

She retaliates in form
throwing guilt likes balls of shit.
It doesn't matter.
His family's changed
to men who pull wrenches
and a kid who still pisses his pants
when he's excited.

"Spend it with your cats,"
and he means it
feigning nothing.

There are homes
without an address.
There is love
that doesn't break.

Misophonia

Shamefaced and gelded
the aspiring numerologist
drowns himself in fever dreams
Rivers That Have No Names
and the milky discontent
of a dozen ex-lovers
poised for cruci-fiction.

(You'll conjure yourself
in here somewhere
so I beg you
to refrain.)

Noble Slings and Arrows

I used to play guitar;

sold most of mine to strangers.

Now I lend lines to the faceless.

It seems a better fit and pays about the same.

My favorite chord has mostly been A Minor (Am).

I've written songs around it. 

People left the room.

I plucked its notes in solitude.

People left my life.

It came to be my friend.

It came to be my life, for awhile.

Some would compare it to E Minor.

They'd be wrong again.

A Minor requires more digits.

A Minor necessitates more work.

Isn't that more admirable?

Besides, even lifted fingers find it just fine.

A Minor only uses five guitar strings.

It says more with less.

Isn't that the aim?

That's another one you don't answer.

I loan the lines--remember?

Maybe you play already.

Maybe you'll learn someday.

The next time that you strum that chord let it be for me.

Cold War Carcinoma

All points west--
The women come
from sunsets
and tongue sex

too much of life dictated
by ersatz stunt doubles
and dry Irish pussy.

For fuck-stains:
hydrogen peroxide.

Alabaster.
Opalescent.
A mess of succulent sin and semen.

The only feat harder than finding her
is leaving her in the morning.

Bubonic

A ball of gray fur caught the corner of my eye and bounced across the linoleum without the aid of traction. I picked it up, palmed it, and showed it to my father.

"Get rid of that before she sees it," the old man said, referring to his skittish wife reading in the living room. She was from the city. Mice were miniature versions of giant subway rats to her. To me he was an unexpected guest, but it wasn't my place to extend an invitation in the home where I grew up. I was a visitor in a museum that housed a separate story. There was no bed, no dresser--but the heat pipes sounded the same.

I opened the porch door and tossed him toward the yard, the arc his body made like a living howitzer round. It was a quick response to an old man's request, something done under the assumption that benevolent actions yield happy endings. It was before I learned that only cats always land on their feet.

I slid into boots after dinner, taking out a bag of trash as a convincing cover. The mouse was lying motionless. It'd escaped the trap in the pantry, but not my lazy liberation. I winced with executioner's guilt and tossed the corpse into the bushes, hoping my kid brother wouldn't find it.

There was much to learn on mercy. There was ice cream for dessert.

Lover Fell Late

Nose against cheek
her mouth smells sourly of me.
I rock her like my mother did
as we lie, digesting breakfast
thinking of good names
for the children
we've prevented.

There's a blister
filled with blood
that will rub off
with some work.
There's a time
for being stubborn.
There's a blender
in my chest.

Late is always better.
Great Ones don't look back.
Taste the wine of yesteryear
and deserve it every day.

The Drawbacks of Having a Vivid Imagination

Faces change, but
the Dream's the same:
-Pistols won't fire
-Cars won't start
-Legs too numb to run
from personified subconscious.

Waking in ripped sheets
to dial fathers, lovers
lifelines
"It isn't real,"
you tell yourself.
Still, you load for bear.


Currently reading:
"The Dark Tower:  The Complete Concordance" by Robin Furth.

Green

I'd lodge merciful lead in him if I could.
The dog's been hobbling, nearly bedridden for a year.
My father's wife won't put him down.
He pisses and shits on a pad in the kitchen.
He yelps and whines with no goal in mind.
It's horrendous.
Someone should make it look like an accident.
Instead they thread their needles blindly.

"They're collectibles."
"What's that mean?"
"Don't bang them."
It's useless.
The kid will do what most boys do.
My Hess trucks are six times his age.
Somehow they survived one childhood.
This second bout will kill them before long.
They were safely retired in the cellar for decades.
"Why's this one missing a tire?"
"Because it's twenty-five years old."

The ankle-biter whimpers in the kitchen.
I pick a bone from tonight's steak out of the trashcan.
It's too big for the wounded Chihuahua to lift.
I trade it for a smaller one.
He pulls it into his bed and stops crying.
The miserable pooch almost looks happy.

I hear a collision of plastic on plastic in the living room.
A wince hits me until my brother laughs.
My muscles loosen to a smirk.
Nothing lasts forever.
Nothing is collectible.
The only love that matters is the type that doesn't hurt.

Associated Press

An Idaho elementary school
sponsored a time capsule project
in which students, faculty
and denizens of the community
were asked to submit
their favorite personal possessions
valued under $20
which could fit inside a pill bottle
for burial in the town park.
Not one person produced an item.

"The experiment was a success,"
declared principal David Vargas.
"If people aren't willing to sacrifice now
then nothing is destined to change in the future."

No one else was available for comment.

Mal de Ojo

The badlander plods on
in search of castles crumbling
and a market for spare kidneys.
He's marching off demerits
assigned by decades gone.
There will be a line to urinate
on his grave a mile long.
"I'm all right with that," he says.
The dust forgets to answer.

Steel against his thigh
strikes a nerve within his spine.
He stuck himself in crazy
and flushed out the infection.
They want to see the proof;
he's not practiced, nor a preacher.
Inamorata, lovesick, waits atop a tower.

Rambos We Are Not

Sometimes you need advice
through liquored telephones
from the kid you built forts with in the woods
with plastic rifles slung over shoulders
and cap guns shoved into pants
as not much has changed
since puberty struck
other than death's proximity
and vaginal complications.

A Fear Jackie's Ready To Face

She's got real
fucking potential
to break it off in your ass
again
but you'll still be you in the morning
that way
and if you happen to shoot a load
at the elephant in the room
you might wake up
to a goddess
every morning
for the rest of your allotted sunrises.

'Merican Sniper: A Movie Review

Let me start by clarifying my word selection. 'American Sniper' is not a film; it's a movie. The shame of it is that Chris Kyle deserved the latter. I don't blame Bradley Cooper as his performance was one of the strong points present in the project, though Clint Eastwood may have some explaining to do. One does not embark upon such a heavy endeavor without being sure that all bases are covered tastefully. It wasn't a complete abortion, but I expected much more. Before you continue reading allow me to warn you of the spoilers present in my assessment. I do not care about ruining any surprises for you. If you don't already know the ending then you haven't read the book, don't watch the news, and probably should stay home to masturbate to screenshots from a Clive Owen shoot-'em-up. 'American Sniper' was not supposed to be an action flick. It was supposed to honor a fallen hero--which brings me to another point. I'm not going to argue the pros and cons of any war we've sent men and women to recently. Any person who puts his life on the line so his buddies can make it home in one piece is a hero. Those in combat understand that mentality. When bullets are flying, it ain't about God, Country, Family. It's about the terrified bastard next to you in the foxhole with piss-soaked pants and not enough ammunition remaining.

There were some blatantly cheesy foul balls. The fact that a real infant could not be located for the family scene is appalling. That rigid piece of rubber used to represent a human child was about as realistic as one of those 1990s dolls that shit and pissed after some snot-nosed brat fed it fake food. Why would anyone want that thing anyway? Little girls are weird, which makes sense since they grow to be crazy women. Also, the 21-gun salute during the SEAL funeral was lackluster. While I appreciated the M14 being used for the tradition, the fact that the rifle closest to the camera did not actually fire once was too obvious for me to forgive. Shooting blanks is not that dangerous. Just ask someone who's had a vasectomy. The massive, Mummy-esque sandstorm which conveniently conjures itself during the final battle scene made me cringe with vicarious embarrassment, right down to the desperate hand-grabbing rescue of Chief Kyle as he ran to catch up to a briskly departing vehicle. I did appreciate the symbolism of the pocket Bible and bolt-action rifle being left behind in the dust, however. Chris was done hunting his demons--in this case the elusive enemy sniper who'd taken countless lives, American and otherwise. Therein lies another problematic sliver of the movie. The masked sharpshooter (who happens to be an Olympic marksmanship champion from Syria) scurries out of his bachelor pad to leap from rooftop to rooftop like a half-ninja version of Aladdin from the Sega Genesis days. Is that supposed to be believable? Even my girlfriend called bullshit on that one, and she's never shot a high-power sniper rifle, let alone pranced around with one after receiving a phone call as to the whereabouts of an American with a $180,000 bounty on his head. Speaking of head, allow me to back up. Since when would a redneck come home from a rodeo to find his girl having her back blown out by another goat-roping gentleman, only to kick him out politely sans ass-whooping? Since never. That's when. He tells her to pack her shit and leave, cracks a beer, and brainstorms with his asshole buddy on what is presumably the Meaning of Life (in Texas, where everything's allegedly bigger). I've seen 'Cops'. That's not how that story ends. There are at least 17 stitches involved and a few poorly-worded accusations to follow up said fisticuffs. I could go on ripping this movie a new sphincter, but I feel my point's been made. I admire the man, appreciate his sacrifice, and hoped for something better.

Here's the good part:  They didn't show him getting killed. I feel that added a level of respect for the man which may have been desecrated by the corny one-liners Clint must have chuckled at from the director's chair. The date is shown during that final scene so even those who went blindly into the theater know that something's about to "pop off". The creeper vibe of the murderous Marine is evident. The face Mrs. Kyle makes while seeing her husband off in the doorway alludes to our protagonist's fate. And then the portion that moved me commences. The file footage from the funeral procession and memorial service brought me back to the reality that I'd sat in that chair to see. This was not a man with a .308, a Hollywood hard-on, and Zach Galifawhateverthefuck's number in his cell phone. This was a real-life hero who died in the line of helping a brother in distress, though the soil was not from a foreign battlefield. PTSD is a very real issue that our society does not fully acknowledge, though I fear that in decades to come we will hear comparisons made to those who went to 'Nam and came back as shells of their prior selves. Bradley Cooper, for all his hungover tomfoolery, nailed this transformation.

Short version:  Read the book. Watch 'The Hurt Locker' instead.

Half-mast in Hanoi

He'd been living off the dividends
for decades in the desert.
He'd been separating fools
from their money
and their lives.
He'd been praying late at night
for redemption like Jane Fonda
cackling into coughing fits
uncured by arid air.

They found him in his cabin--
allocated isolation.
No one wanted organs
despite his donor status.
The burial was brief
fifth-rate gods in trite attendance.

Smoking lost its cool this week.
The Marlboro Man is dead.

A Cunning Conifer

Driving south toward Bear Mountain
I rip my focus from the road
and spy across the Hudson
for long enough to spot the giant pine
standing like a sentinel
in my father's front lawn.
I can see it because it's winter
and the leaves of deciduous trees
that would normally block my view
are dead and fallen.
I can see it because for the first time
in thirty years I'm actively searching.

It hinders sunlight from hitting the ground
so grass has never grown under its girth.
Branches entwine the power lines.
My father's taken a saw to lower limbs
repeatedly over the years
but a tree doesn't bleed out
quite like the rest of us.

He confessed to me a few years back
that he once tried donating it
to Rockefeller Center
sealing its fate with harvest, trailer transport
and hundreds of feet of lighting
over dozens of thousands of tourists.
The rascal in me would tell you
that they sent a helicopter
to examine the prospective offering
but satellite photos sufficed.
They told him it didn't fit their criteria.
The rejection curtailed his desired free removal.
My father, ever frugal, succumbed to Nature's victory.

I'm in the opposite lane
when my eyes return to pavement.
No cars are there to hit me.
I slowly coax the steering wheel
gliding back to my quiet half
and hope the old man's home.

A List of Beers I'll Never Drink

The party's makeshift ashtray bottle;
A roofied brew meant for you;
The last one in your refrigerator;
Chewable stouts darker than our pasts combined;
The one I cracked when this seemed like a good idea;
The rest of the one I threw at her living room wall;
The ones you owe me;
Anything with a widget at the bottom;
Anything with too much head (as such a thing exists);
Anything to celebrate a kid on the way inside someone I still love;
And Coors Light.

Caramelized Curmudgeon

Then there are the times
washing dishes two days later
when you'll need some extra muscles
to scrub the frying pan.
The onions stuck, you didn't see
since you lost track of minutes
laughing in the kitchen
while you shared a gin-and-tonic.

Dylan bawled nasally
from speakers gone ignored
plowing through his verses
born on Greyhound stubs.
You talk of travel playfully
planning spring adventures
though you've reached your destination--
The proof is in that pan.

Why I Believe in Cyberbullying

I attended an inner city high school, or whatever the dulled equivalent of that would be in the clipped tongue of today's paranoid lexicon. There was ethnic diversity. There were social imbalances. A caste system existed that even the faculty perpetuated to some degree. I was thrown into the Honors classes and took Advanced Placement courses that did little to ready me for college. Rather, the latter made me believe that I was a semester ahead by entering with fifteen credits already under my belt. The truth of the matter is that I was surrounded by nerds. Even in that melting pot of culture where the foreign language hallway was more of an arena, I was safe from diversity in the insulated fishbowl where leaders of tomorrow allegedly honed their skills. College was no different. My dorm was in the newly renovated hall set aside for brainiacs. Again, I somehow managed to weasel my way in like a fox among the flock. "Tattoo Mike", they called me, since by that point I had two:  a snowflake and Bugs bunny. Can you imagine what type of ball-less wonders would give a kid with lame images like those adorning his arms that undeserved nickname? I was the hard-ass of the pansies. I was the king of the losers. I was a lot of things until I tried unofficially switching my major to Jack Daniel's and had my independent study program vehemently rejected. I became a lot more things, one of them a pipefitter. Then the Internet came along and gave us all the level playing field that we'd been lied to about already having in school:  social networking.

It started with MySpace, but we don't need to go there. That'd be like mentioning the handsy uncle who's groped us all once or twice during holiday party photo opportunities. Facebook is the way of the world. Twitter, Instagram, and whatever other timesinks we choose to indulge in also contribute to the creation of alter egos that swing from rays of Wi-Fi. No longer must we limit our interactions to those that'd transpire organically through the doldrums of our beaten paths. We encounter individuals from all walks of life--from the neck-bearded virgin on a computer that could hack the Pentagon to the yayo-slinging thug who spies on his shorty's latest activities via smartphone--and are forced to make a choice reminiscent of an Alcoholics Anonymous poster I've never seen in person:  Adapt or die. That's what it boils down to since we are held accountable for everything we portray ourselves to be online; even the things we approve of through clicking the Like button. There's a great equalizer which holds us all in check. One should not risk acting the fool in the presence of strangers from other walks of life; or one does, and draws the wrath of the modern-day version of the Old West vigilante: the Cyberbully.

The Cyberbully is a direct product of evolution. If cyberbullying didn't exist then Al Gore would invent cyberbullying, possibly in a room full of monkeys manning typewriters. Our sore-assed society which spews new buzzwords like Oppositional Defiant Disorder every-other-month to define a circumstance which is perfectly normal has coined the word and cast it in a negative light. I don't view it that way, however. Cyberbullying plays a vital role in policing cyberspace and assuring that order is maintained. From an IRL ("in real life", for those unaware) standpoint, the benefits are even more critical. We live in an age where adults fear their children and the forest is ignored for the trees. Too often the coddled individual who should be smacked is glorified instead. The battlefield is red with the blood of truthful speakers, martyred by the media at the hands of left-wing executioners.

That is where the cyberbully (who now assumes a lower-case status for the sake of simplicity) comes into play. The war waged on the Internet (still capitalized) is not under scrutiny by the dogmatic groups and agencies that govern our everyday lives. A grammar Nazi will correct your ignorance of your own language now and then, but other than that it's a free-for-all. If you run your mouth--nay, flutter your fingers--in a manner that's unbecoming then you'd better be ready to incur the vengeance of the nearest cyberbully. He is armed with scathing wit, credible links, and array of memes that may or may not be culled from scenes from the original (and only, arguably) "Willy Wonka" film. He probably didn't get laid last night and you're definitely going to pay for that. You'll be bashed with words that you can't use in your cubical, like "butthurt" and "douchelord", and groaning about it will only make matters worse. His sharpened tongue will belittle you to the point of considering FB suicide, but that could never happen since one does not simply pull the plug on the Matrix. There you'll sit, spanked and humiliated by someone who may be a total stranger, with only the safety of distance and invisibilty to aid you. The monitor's a shield. The keyboard is a sword. And the kids you picked on in high school who didn't manage to become members of law enforcement are now going to sacrifice you to the gods of bandwidth if you rock the boat too hard. Deal with it, and be grateful for the last stronghold of political incorrectness in this pussified America that'd make her forefathers weep.

Now excuse me while I go rattle my canary cage and rub one out to those leaked Jennifer Lawrence pics...

Sour Mash Beatitudes

Marc found Dale rummaging through a trash can between two gasoline pumps. A Hefty bag laden with plastic, glass, and aluminum beverage receptacles dangled from a belt loop at the side of his tattered dungarees. No razor had touched his face months, but the sweatshirt he wore managed to maintain its luminous white although it was months since Labor Day had passed. Broadway failed to notice his fashion blunder. "Perfect," Marc muttered to himself. "Perfect."

Dale glanced up from his industrious endeavor for long enough to strike Marc's eyes with silent spears that exposure hadn't dulled. No plea for pocket change came from his weathered face. Marc began to wonder if his prior assessment was correct. This outdoor entrepreneur seemed staunchly independent. Perhaps that's fitting, Marc thought as he composed a proposal in his head.

"What's your favorite brand of whiskey?"

"Maker's Mark," Dale shot, unhesitant to unholster.

"Want to come for a walk?" Marc asked. It was a gamble with odds like the literacy rate in Georgia, but he took it. "It's hard to find a man with a taste for bourbon in town these days."

"Sure," Dale replied. "Just no funny stuff." Marc wondered what he meant, then cringed at the possibilities. There were truths that no newspaper would dare to uncover.

There'd been a fire down the block. Remnants from the cracked hydrant coated the macadam. Rollers from the responders' vehicles reflected off the pavement. Two bearded thirty-somethings slowed their Zipcar and approached the curb in reverse gear. Rubber tore from the side of the rear tire while the god of parallel parking shook his head in the offing. Marc and Dale walked by, dodging a minefield of niggerspit on the sidewalk. Music from the adjacent barbershop blared through the fogged storefront glass.

"Ever been here?" Marc asked as he pointed to the hip new distillery a few steps ahead of them.

"Not lately," Dale replied, clutching his bag of empties. Dale heard the humor that hid beneath the dirt.

"Let's see if they've got anything as good as Maker's."

The two men entered a rowdy sea of revelers. Flannel was the dress code. Sarcasm filled the air. Marc led Dale to the counter unperturbed. A kid unfit for combat rolled his sleeves two inches higher, approached his two new customers, and gulped an imagined shot.

"What'll it be?" he asked.

"Something like Kentucky." Marc elbowed Dale, but didn't get a rise.

"That'll be eight bucks," said the timid employee.

Marc raised his eyebrows. "The sign says there's a tasting."

"That's for..." the kid behind the counter began. "Sure," he said, amended. He poured them out two jiggers.

"This tastes more like Tennessee," Marc said after swigging.

"Tastes more like my boxers," Dale belched without a pause.

The hipster with tattoos he'd regret in three years didn't know what to make of it. "How about this one?" He doled them out and wiped the bar. Marc and Dale sniffed their whiskeys, then took them to the hilt.

"Are there bubbles in yours?" Marc asked his companion.

"Sure as hell are. Are you serving us dishwater, Jack?" Dale inquired.

The youth behind the oak succumbed to his assailant. A given name is trivial. There were larger problems looming.

"What's that one in the small bottle up there?" Marc asked, pointing to a remote corner of the top shelf.

"That's not on the tasting list. It's limited. My boss would..."

"Are you some kind of test-tube baby?" Dale was proud of his contemporary insult. He once slept under a newspaper with a headline about that phenomenon. It stayed with him.

"Let me have a bottle of it; sealed." Marc eyed the slinger of booze, poised for swift retaliation.

"Sir, that's a two-hundred-and-thirty-dollar bottle."

"Do you take cash in this dump?" Marc replied. Dale seemed shocked. Marc plucked the bills from his wallet and waited for the change.

The clerk placed it in a paper bag and slid it across the counter. "Enjoy."

"It ain't for me," Marc said, passing the package to the stranger to his left. "Dale here's celebrating." There was no further mention of what fortunate event had transpired. Clarification was not required. One doesn't question greatness. One merely nods the head.

"For your troubles," Dale said as he laid his bag of recyclables on the bar. It was the first time he'd tipped in awhile.

Ten Lords-a-Leaping

There's a rare and certain comfort
when a story
lived or printed
ends exactly how it must.
The universe is sated
by our sacrificed desires.
Out there in the offing
Strunk & White are even pleased.

We mortals set aside
the arbitrary yearnings
that will someday drain
from catheters in deathbeds.
Taking fate's cheap shot
leaves us pissing blood for days--
days that seem longer
than those years we battled ourselves
without knowing our opponents.

The horn will go dead when the battery dies.
This isn't a soliloquy
to commemorate a path.
It's thinly veiled specific;
our futures drop like flies.
Consider it a blessing
to live on maps forever.

Sloppy Jalopy

But it's funny
this folklore we make;
how we sit at coffee break
telling tales of prior lives--
Kira Sherwin, the quiet student
who fucked five guys
at a high school party
thirteen years ago
and blew three more in the woods.
Whether or not it's true
or a rumor, like the pickle chick
we laugh and breathe
and pray that life's not over
then look to the apprentice
smugly perched across the room
and wonder if he's busted
hymens, hearts, and the rest.

It's a raucous life we live
chewing bacon-egg-and-cheese.

From the Chapped Lips of a Taxpaying Subject of Her Majesty

Be brave enough to put yourself aside
in the name of whom you think you are.
Set down the vices that make you human
for long enough to be the Ideal
that beckons you in the morning.

When an iron hand in a velvet glove
sends your head sideways
be gracious, ye sinners.
It is only a friend who tells of your folly.

Peter called the authorities
as soon you paid Paul.
Learn to drink the cheaper wine.
It suits you more than handcuffs.

And, if nothing else, beware of the uninspired.
Apathy is the drug of the dead
and every clock is a dealer.


Currently reading:
"The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

Marauder Eyes and Water

She wants a Polaroid
and I think she's got one coming
since she isn't fond of cameras
but knows what shots to take.

They say a lady's hands
speak chapters on her habits.
I'd bet those pretty fingers;
I'd wager those blue eyes--
somewhere she still has
the notes I leave her in the morning.

Sash

She took her clothes off
for money, but that was OK
since for me they fell for free.
We'd met again eight years later
and it seemed some sick joke
which we foolishly pursued
for a few months.
You may remember them:
the ones when I seemed crazy--
really crazy.
It started as a pit stop
but became a destination
as toxic as the Chinese sky.
We ignored her monthly
with a black towel
and her profession
with the same.

She loved yellow flowers
so I brought them every week
although I wasn't working.
They were her mother's favorite
until she died a year prior.
The color of cowardice
didn't make sense until the end.

I'd watch my girl get ready:
makeup, hair, packing bits of lace--
putting her war paint on, she called it.
She'd text me all night from the club
counting down the hours
until she could crawl into bed with me
after a sad shower
rinsing lavender and glitter
but when she disappeared
for too long my mind wandered
and it stung.
One night I woke up
to her pulling piss-soaked sheets
off the mattress; three empty bottles
of wine and some whiskey
on the counter.
That was the worst of it.
After that it got better.
She framed a poem I wrote her
and it was on her bedroom wall
until she ripped it up
one night when it got worse again.
I'd thrown her flowers on the floor.
All of them.

Others knew her stage name
but I knew her real name
and that her stepfather raped her
until she was eleven
when she told her mother
who did nothing
so cancer killed her.
How can a man
who's worth a damn
blame a woman
so detached
when life
does that
to a kid?

Alexithymia and Other Happy Accidents

The source of my existence
was on my father's curb
and almost lost to the nearest trash heap.
I'm known to pick through leavings.
I thrive on memorabilia.

This token of nostalgia
is a rectangle of plastic;
an image of a lobster
above my mother's name.
The pin on the back of the tag
still catches.
If my old man saw her now
she still would catch his eye.

He worked locally.
She was a waitress.
The rest of the tale
is as rote as the franchise.
Here I am thirty years
after that missed pill
picking up trinkets
of a love that almost was.


Currently reading:
"The Stand" by Stephen King.

The Concubine of Lazarus

He suggests we round the corner
to admire his latest feat;
"later" meaning "now"
we comply and view his painting.
The title slips from lips
between his sips of stout.
I'm familiar with the book
from which he stole the name.
"You've read Céline, haven't you?"
he asks about my journey
hoping to feel superior
in our own predestined night.
"Any Bukowski fan should,"
I fire at his oak.
He turns away, a poet
still working on his tan
and I wonder if his walls
can scream through dusty glossies.


Currently reading:
"The Walking Dead:  Compendium Two" by Robert Kirkman.

He Limps Across the Plaster, a Body Drained of Grace

My lady was the pen
and I cheated with the bottle.
There were Claymore mines
and concertina wire.
There was blood unspoken for
on sheets that went unclaimed.
Plaid button-downs
covered chests unfit for medals
and when the eagle fucking cried
she really fucking sang.

Now hobble that sweet ass over here
and show an old pervert
how well a wounded bird
can kneel.

Currently reading:
"The Colossus and Other Poems" by Sylvia Plath.

Tabletop Bloodletting Americana

If I could get
my head out of my ass
I'd be a decent husband
and if you could keep
your ass in the air
you'd make a decent wife.
Now are you going to finish that
or am I taking it to work for lunch tomorrow?

A Sentence Worth the Crime

There's gravity and magic
that no physicist nor director
can capture
in absorbing a scene
for what one's gut knows
is the last time
like the sunset from Hither Hills West Overlook
while leaving Montauk, New York--
a first taste of the scale
tipping closer to the grave
with nothing about it
being anything short
of perfection
(Fuck you
wherever you are
Rocco Esposito, Jr.).


Currently reading:
"Howl and Other Poems" by Allen Ginsberg.

Cosmos

"Wait, what was his name?"
I stop my fifty-year-old cousin
mid-sentence in search of clarification.
He repeats the victim's name for me.
I lay my beer down on his coffee table.
"I played soccer with his son in elementary school,"
I tell him, dumbfounded.
The boy I knew fell off the face of the earth
or maybe I did when my parents split
and I moved out of that one-horse town
with my mother many moons ago.
The revelation feels fraudulent.
Things like that don't happen
to people we know;
or maybe they do
and that contributes
to the world's current state.
"How'd it happen?"

My cousin continues
after a long drag of Coors.
"He was on a snowmobile
with his son--your friend--
on the back when the old man
plowed into him.
There were targets
and casings in the car
when the cops searched it afterward.
He was on the way home
from the range when it happened.
As soon as he opened the door
to rip that old man out of the car
and pummel him for almost
killing his kid on the back of that sled
he was shot with a pistol.
Then the driver got out
aimed at the ground
and unloaded in his face
while he bled out in the snow.
His son witnessed everything.
The old man got away with it.
He argued self-defense.
It was sickening."
He punctuates the account
with another swig of his swill.

My cousin continues
his rambling, but my ears
are under water.
What else had been censored
by that hamlet's parents decades ago?
Where does that old friend
call home these days
and did I kick the ball his way
enough times on our field?
Sometimes the world isn't big enough.

Don't Tell Me How to Live My Lie

Casting aspersions over a sundowner
our genius stares into the offing.
Cesarean fleshpots.
Rheostat dreams.
He's crossing the Rubicon armed.

He'll never outgrow the symbols he knows.
That degree works wonders on townies.
An albatross hangs from his neck
to the rest of us;
fugazi, a cubic zirconia.

Forgotten the taste
of fruit that's forbidden.
Searching for devils in details.
A windowless room that reeks of bleach.
I've never grown out of that mean streak.

Crumbs in the Carpet

I wake to candles burning
and a third bottle of Portuguese red
that I don't remember opening
keeping guard from the nightstand.
She lies naked under bedclothes
on the side of the mattress that's typically mine
while I fumble in the 5 a.m. darkness
for my denim attire.
The notion of leaving
this warm place for work
seems ludicrous.
I lace my boots dizzily
and creep back into the bedroom
blowing out the final flame
before kissing her mass of hair
that conceals her face from sight.

You know what my versions
of Hell are by now.
Now let me tell you
what Paradise could be:

Five more minutes spent
in places like that bed
and a chance to address
a list of things I almost did.

West Point Folklore

A soldier on base
shared classified information:

When someone else is servicing
the wife of an officer
who's been deployed overseas
the invading faction leaves
some stripes from his uniform
in a corner of the violated party's sock drawer
to let his fellow warrior know
that his wife's been waging a war of her own
against the most sacred of orders and vows.

It's no apology, but honor amongst thieves
and if you think your freedom's free
then you've never had your wife fucked
by a buddy while you're at work.


Currently reading:
"I Am Soldier of Fortune:  Dancing With Devils" by Robert K. Brown with Vann Spencer.

Variations on a Theme

Sometimes I stand
and sometimes I stand
corrected.

She tried to see
the fading good in me.
I showed her a photo
of my brother.

The dog is dead
but we're going to keep it;
maybe have it bronzed.

It takes a certain strength
to pour wine down the drain
without a stubborn sip
to confirm that it has soured.

The Pacific's a puddle
in relation to her depths.
Ask a man with shaking face
since surely he has plumbed them.

And now, eight years too late
to matter to either of us
I see why she preferred to walk the woods alone.

Parenting in a Valley

Contents of their burn barrel
shoot sparks that flash the alley.

"Why do we hear the freight train
louder at night?"

A horn unnoticed in daylight
blares on through punctuation.

"Because the river slows down
enough to carry the sound.
Everyone knows that.
Now hush and eat your beans."


Currently reading:
"The Walking Dead:  Compendium One" by Robert Kirkman.

Through Disregarding

Her eyes arrive as words.
She picks me out across the room
pins me to the wall
with a stare no man would get away with
and whispers how easy it'd be
to regret it in the morning.
I tip my beer and focus on the band
while college kids around me
try to fill their dorm rooms
with strangers in their majors.

It's a young man's game.
I tire of statistics.

The pint glass in my hand
is the only thing that's definite
in measure, in existence
in the way the West was won.
"I'm spoken for,"
my irises reply
through disregarding.
"In love with someone
I've yet to meet."
Her retinas scan the taproom
for a nocturnal accomplice.

The singer plays the song
that he knows I came to hear.
It talks me into one more drink.
I tip a dollar extra.


Currently reading:
"Granta, Vol. 125:  After the War"

A Decade and Redemption

He made her out of always
from a pocketful of nevers
laden with revisions
to transform a sin to legend.
Memory was blurred
for the sake of new religion.
Edges of the facts
were chipped through use like flint.

A fool became a martyr
in worse cases
a jester
to consummate a marriage
of callouses and hope.

Somewhere walks a goddess
who doesn't know her power.
He made her out of always
since eternity can't fade.

To Vilify the Baptist

David holds the smoke in
while converging on the sidewalk.
It's what a man should do
when confronted by a lady.
She's wearing a doe-colored jacket
that extends beyond her knees--
an homage in the name of
some dead and buried Hepburn.
Her hair is barely darker than the cloak
that hides her form.
His trichophilia's tamed.
He keeps his thoughts from straying.
Neither of them look
at what they'll never know.
A stream of carbon's spewed
once the path ahead is clear.

Jim waits on the corner
dressed in haggard denim.
His overalls have holes
and dirt that's not from farming.
A Steinbeck novel character
escaped and found New York.
David's not a gambling man
but Jim's bereft a deck.

He's choking down a nameless brand
given by a stranger.
He holds his other hand up
in a gesture smokers know.
"Do you have another, Dave?" he asks
without the need to.
It's extended to a twitching hand
before his words are done.
"Enjoy it, Jim," David says
in a wake of jumbled street talk--
something about carpets
with the phrase "most folks don't know."
"That's a good cigar, Dave,"
the outdoorsman says with gravitas.

The clothes don't make the man;
neither does the smoke.

A Pedestrian Cresting the Ramparts

Main Street's not as bustling
due to recent change in weather
but some players are still out
being pawned across the board.
A gas station clerk
sweeps cigarette butts
from around his empty pumps
shaking his head in disbelief
that some would take that chance.

One block down
a crossing guard dozes at his post
STOP sign in hand resting on his orange vest.
He dreams of kids and grandkids
too absorbed to lift their phones.

Leaves fall arrhythmically
and mix with refuse in the gutter.
A storm drain waits for all of us.
It's merely a matter of when.

Even in the Hamptons

I'd stayed in some stranger's bed
a happy home away from home
while working out of town on Long Island
and was driving out against the piercing sunrise
to Montauk, a place they call "The End"
when a stoplight revelation
woke me from the recap
right in time to read the score.

In the shelter of a bus stop
three Latin day laborers
watched an old man on his knees
pounding lengths of tarnished copper
ripped from a house
to cram into his backpack
and sell at current scrap rate.
The light turned, releasing me roadward
but I'll never forget that man's sweat
at seven in the morning
stealing and toiling
and there with the aliens
in the wealthiest part of New York State.

I wonder if that bus ever came.

Rocks

"No, really. I don't want any whiskey,"
I tell him, subconsciously rubbing
my stomach while filling a corner
of his couch beneath the distant ceiling.

"I didn't pour you a whiskey,"
he corrects, handing it over my shoulder.
"I poured you a rye."

I sip it gratefully
and listen to his stories.

Prick a finger.
Sign in blood.
Hope that you make friends
like this.

The foulest days
can't steal the fact
that some men aren't afraid
to love.

On Crosses and Crossroads

There's tuna on my breath and I mean that in the literal sense. I had a can for breakfast, spiced by some seasoning with a marketed name that I don't remember buying. The ghosts are becoming more bold. They're stocking the shelves with condiments they enjoy. At least I can share this space with some company, even if it's not the variety I've been chasing off for three years.

That's not to say I'm celibate. Last night there was a romp. She's a grand old girl, a throwback to Dorothy Parker and other sharp diamonds who didn't care what society thought of women who admit to craving carnal pleasure much like men. In the twelve years that I've known her it's always been that way. I've left her place scratching my head on more than one occasion. Was that the beer talking, or did she really mean to have such a pointed tongue? It didn't matter. We came so we won, at least for the evening. Distance lends perspective. By the time I returned home I had that much figured out. How much longer I can pretend to quench the expected thirst is a different topic, however. Nothing seems enjoyable for more than thirteen strokes these days. It's equally trite and emasculating to confess that I miss making love.

The accent wall was her idea, but breaking up was mine. We'd been together for long enough to know that we shouldn't have been, and therefore did what most couples do in that case:  we moved in together. The dog was dead, but we were going to keep it; maybe have it bronzed. It lasted for all of a month until I suggested a rift. The rent is double what I'd been paying at my previous place, but sanity is more important than prosperity. I've managed ever since. I've chased them off with sticks, and by that I mean choice words. In the three years since my three-year relationship I've refused to settle and I've abided by the rules of the road I've learned along the way. There's a whistle in my head that keeps me sleeping alone at night, or as alone as one who's haunted by ghosts who shop for groceries can be. The Great Ones have been coming to me in my dreams more frequently.

The character varies, though the theme is the same. The theme is the only one worth a damn in any book or film:  redemption. Last it was Angela. Before that Stephanie. There are others on that list, but we'll stick to those two since they're recently married with children. The internet is a cruel tool for the lonely masochist. I'm not sure if the knowledge inspires the dreams or vice versa. The plot is usually the same. One of the Ones That Got Away returns to make it right. I adore her, dote on her, tell her all the things I used to notice without having the sensibility to say. It may be the tiny circles in the skin under her eyes or the way her teeth are so much straighter than any line I could draw or how she whimpers so slightly before she falls asleep. Whatever it is, it's rounded and softened by the dreamscape--and that's when I notice it's fake. At first the revelation's heartbreaking. I know that when I wake my euphoria will cease to be. Regardless, I savor every stretched second for the solace that it is. When a cab's horn or the need to urinate wakes me I'm out of luck again. The only fate worse than losing love once is losing it over and over in the mornings.

It's not entirely selfish. A part of me's elated. They've given into instinct, those stubborn former lovers. The Great Ones are all safe now. They're safe and far from me. The women I meet in the wake of my prime don't last as long as a carton of milk.

Nocturnal Calculus

Tires slosh the streetrain
on a tired Wednesday night
walking back from a delivery
that leaves a man's jaw sore

when it goes out
quite like clockwork
once it's stridden under
goes off like a gunshot
that'd send the sirens soon
(perhaps it's more reliable
than anything man-made;
more like Newton's Law--
the third one about motion)

though there aren't too many things
that trump the net of clockwork
unless we're talking streetlights
or a friend who keeps a secret.


Currently reading:
"The Juliette Society" by Sasha Grey.

Garter

I'd been drilling through foundation
to install a new hose faucet
one October afternoon
when the sin of my vibrations
startled sleeping fauna
back to slithered life.

It dangled from the doorframe
flinching not an inch
once its presence was detected
and my face went wide in wonder.
I exited the basement
making strides to grab my gloves.
Protection of the leather
would help me catch the vermin
but that brief time with my back turned
had let the snake escape.

I suppose that's how it should be.
There's no outsmarting nature.
The rest of that day's plumbing
was done with restless eyes.

Connie

There've been two years
of avoiding those serpentine eyes
"You didn't do this last time"
Fingernails dig into an arm
while their counterparts
run through wet hair
"Yeah, well"
No sign of the Messiah
but there's been a Second Coming

Protective rationalization
In his defense it's basic math
Steal their thunder playing 'possum
with an Ace up the sleeve
that comes through in the clutch
whether he knows it or not

"Thanks"
"Goodnight"
The scent will hang
in sheets; until shaving.


Currently reading:
"The Long Walk" by Stephen King.

Salud, Comrade

When it's gone
as it almost is
I'm not sure what will happen.
Maybe the boy truly dies then.
There are no by-laws for the supernatural.
I hadn't thought about it until today.

Mocking acquaintances
from a time when they were tolerated
called it the Dead Guy Disaronno.
The large bottle of Italian liqueur
had come from a cleanout job
I did in the East Village years back.
Cancer even kills in Manhattan.
Cancer even kills 21-year-old kids.
His family paid us to empty his studio
in order to avoid further heartache.
It seemed to be the right decision.
I'd want the same in a similar scenario.
We discovered a bong and dirty movies in the closet;
a used rubber behind the bed.
I found recording gear and a deviant
pornographic film script in a shoebox.
I haven't told anyone about that until now.
Among the syringes, pill bottles
and expensive pieces of plastic medical equipment
that didn't earn their keep
there were packs upon packs of empty Marlboro Reds.
He was Russian
and wanted to be a cowboy
but instead he died
an ocean away from his birthplace
nowhere near the O.K. Corral.

My employer salvaged some usable items
unworthy of the trash heap
and encouraged me to do the same.
It lessened our trips to the dump
and the fees.
I copped that bottle of amaretto.
My bar back home needed some sophistication
amidst the mags of whiskey and rum.
Wasting the nectar of freedom is abuse
and I'm not one to abstain.

It didn't get much play
in our weekend cocktail rotation.
Only now, in my hermitic years
has it had its cap removed.
Coffee is better with a bite
like a kiss
so I've sipped and been bitten
and grateful.
Tonight as I indulge
with a pungent cigarillo
the dusty bottle stares back
two portions left.
It's dawned on me
with teeth, as death often does:
When the vessel gets tossed
in a week when it's empty
that Russian stranger dies
for the last time in my life.

Persecution Complex

Her room's a museum
with blankets of dust--
a shrine to poor choices;
potential that was.
The saltwater therapy
didn't pan out.
Her legs found the land;
refused to leave ground.
To spit out a tantrum
and call it her art
is as useless as friends
who can't shuffle cards.
Damn the torpedoes.
We're coming in hot.
The flesh that's not burned
is destined to rot.

Lunatic Smiles of Guerrilla Warfare

Blood fills his left boot
as it pounds against his steed's sweaty flank
during what will be
their last ride together.
His wool sock soaks up
most of the warm plasma
though even through the ringing
of gunfire in his head
the sloshing sound resonates
giving a wet cadence to his unraveling.
"They're only flesh wounds,"
he'd lied to his Corporal
the darkness of night being a co-conspirator.
The good Corporal is dead now
so none of it matters.
Only the cavalry on his trail
will determine the final detail of his life:
When and where he shall perish
by a violent cloud of smoke.

Tree branches thwack
against his tattered uniform
as he rides through the cover
of close-enough-to-midnight.
The smell of sulphur
in the air is overwhelming.
The smell of copper
on his breath sours his nostrils.
He spits a wad of blood to his left, then coughs up
something large and nondescript
solemnly swearing that another bodily function
has shut down as a result.
No one needs a pancreas
as much as a few more rounds
would help him now, but the days
of his dealing in lead are no longer.
He tosses his carbine over his right shoulder
in an effort to lighten his horse's last load.
The stock of the rifle slung across his back
was cracked in half by a bullet, slowing it down
before entry to make the meeting intimate.
The good Corporal would have dug
the slug out of his flesh
with his bayonet like clockwork
but the good Corporal is dead now
so none of that matters.
The rhythm of hooves on the forest floor
gets closer and louder and more like ferrous metal.
A volley of shots ricochets off
the wood in his vicinity
splinters of bark exploding into shrapnel.

"It's as good a spot as any," he says to his
brass-burned stallion
running more on adrenaline
than any healthy sustenance.
When the next low limb
catches his chest
the Captain succumbs
taking him from his saddle
into the mud
where the contents of his boot spills
and is soon joined by the rest.

Through visions of love
he sees what never was
and by speaking of death
refuses to die.
Most of the barrage
lands in the softened earth.
None of the ones that hit
mar his face or chip his teeth.

Consider it a victory.

Confession of the Sawbones

One of the most terrible things
is when a man telling the truth
goes unbelieved
and can't sway his detractors--

which is why I never tell the truth:
to avoid terrible things.

Cheapskates Leave 15%

She lives in her parents' basement
and admits to nightly pale ales
while watching their backyard chickens
but from my corner of the ring
on the south side of our table
I notice that her bottom teeth, like mine
are deceptively out of line
and that's perfect.
It takes some extra stuffing
of a sandwich in my mouth
to keep from blurting out
the number of the faceless
who've picked children's names
like beacons plucked down
from a Van Gogh Starry Night.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Admit when the mission's been compromised.
That being said
I'm enamored again
as before; as I will be next week.

Canon Fodder

I really should read more Neruda;
spin magic like Garcia-Marquez;
Borges, romantic as Shakespeare's pedantic;
Rilke spits fire with Nietzsche.

cummings is mostly an acrobat.
Dickinson's caught in her pause.
Whitman walks right through the line breaks
while Jeffers confuses his neighbors.

Kerouac--the jittery camera--
does little for Plath's dance with death.
Artaud, Rimbaud, and that sad Baudelaire
slowly go crazy (in French).

Stevens' talent escapes me.
Williams is vague as his name.
Aiken and Auden and Lawrence and Browning
dive nothing like tragic Hart Crane.

Thomas, alone in the Village;
even old Hemingway played.
The filterless Hank gets a nod for his wink.
Oxygen, ink: overrated.

Postpartum Impression

"'V' as in 'Victory'," he tells the receptionist
through my telephone. The flower beds
I helped him build last spring
stand empty and waiting for Indian summer.

"I'm trying to find my wife," he continues.
You and me both, and my old man goes on:
"Room Number 12? Thank you."

The kid saw the ambulance
while playing in the neighbor's yard
but didn't decipher the same thing I can't.

Maybe they're marigolds.
Maybe magnolias.
My mother never told me the difference.


Currently reading:
"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller.

The Sneeze of the Nazarene

Her skirt was winter white
a creamy patch of fabric
compliant with the passing of Labor Day
from which her legs dangled
two feet above hallowed ground--
a lithe apparition alive on hot macadam.
The comprehensive presentation
seemed too good to be true
and its witness proved his genius
again. Everpresent fly-spots
unveiled themselves on the overhead lighting
and the deer crossed highways en masse
at 4 a.m., aiming for punch-drunk headlights
but if you'd heard the thunderstorm
that waited for penetration
maybe you'd believe that this time
it seemed real.

The Bloodiest of Gears

"It made a few uncomfortable
to see those burning tanks
but it was better them than us
smoldering and charred on the roadside..."

Spare us these threats of armistice now.
We've seen reasonable men
slaughter children with a cadence
not unlike a lullaby
while the anchor read the script.

A culture raised to glorify war
before the altar of a flag
far enough away
to hide its tattered state
is lured astray by shine
and gossip
while young men learn
the smell of human flesh--
the promise of a future
dangled high above their noses.

"It's not that we wanted to die
for our country, but the guys
to our left and our right
had to live."

The End of Aphesis

An amputated stairwell
thrice reneged by the castrato.
A newfound sense of duty
not as sacred as it's swift.
Black towels hide the blood
that was destined for the bedsheets.
There's a list of ways to slay them.
It's endearing 'til it's not.

A Hippie, a Heron, and Two Fishermen

When the sun hit my eyelids it wasn't stopped by skin. I felt the burn of hydrogen and helium from 92,960,000 miles away--miniaturized, purified, made safe for human consumption. My head was tilted over the edge of the inflated rubber inner tube which pulled me down the creek. Loose strands of hair dipped into the September Catskill water, and when capillary action failed to soak my head to my liking I reached back to cup some stream my way. In fitting fashion the words to 'Yellow Submarine' played in my head; the only part of the verse I knew: "In the land where I was born..." For another gracious instance I was grateful for that place: the Hudson Valley, New York State, and the sleeping hills of the Atlantic Northeast.

Opening my eyes into the stark, late-summer sky revealed clouds which would never harm a picnic. If white is gauged by absence then those nebulous bodies were barely there. The river's current was picking up pace. Rapids laid ahead in wait, but first a friendly denizen. He was piling flat stones atop one another, his gray chest hair shamelessly displayed, while his wife looked on in innocent bliss from her perch on a creekside boulder. "That's not a rock," I jibed, floating by, as he approached his zen creation with a two-foot piece of yellow-painted driftwood. "I'm bending the rules a bit," he replied. His submarine had landed. He knew right where he was. His wife, in her modest one-piece swimsuit, crossed her legs and winked my way--or maybe it was a reaction to that far-off furnace blinding her left side.

After the accelerated ration of ripples I came upon a fisherman, clearly from out of town. His pole was too long for the limited casting distance, his waders were too new to have experience behind them, and his gait within the water seemed as though a frog had stood erect. I pitied his doomed excursion and empty creel. The net tethered to his hip would not be needed today. I anticipated a glance and was ready to silently point upstream, then lift four fingers to indicate the number oncoming tubers, but no such look was given. His polarized lenses stayed in the eddies made by rocks. I wanted to warn him in case of collision. Instead, he focused on trout out of sight that would have laughed him back to Long Island if such a thing was possible. The Esopus carried me closer to Phoenicia. I didn't argue.

The next peaceful stretch was a lesson on the stubborn. I was just as guilty since I'd ventured north alone. It seemed a sad break in tradition to not enjoy this rustic pleasure I'd indulged in for fifteen years due to a lack of constant company. Abstaining from my annual tubing adventure would be silent confession to the sin of getting old. Thirty meant Reality, but thirty wasn't Dead. Neither was the river. There were strangers I could talk to. There was Nature, always listening. And as the case has always been the words played in my head. A heron, not so cheerful, watched as I approached. The shallow pool she hunted would soon be disturbed by my presence. Her four-foot wingspan opened and she floated, airborne, thirty yards downstream. A few half-hearted pecks at the water yielded no stabbed sustenance. From the corner of her eye she saw that dreadful human. I smirked apologetically. She lifted off again. The pattern repeated for what felt like ten minutes before she flew into the forest. I felt bad for my trespass. I knew the pang of hunger.

There are themes throughout our books and lives, though none of them as strong as redemption. The second fisherman I saw was a poem by Robert Frost. His sway matched the current, man and momentum as one. His clothing and gear were older than the teenager who rented me the tube in town. A pipe was pinched by the corner of his wrinkled mouth, giving him a mild resemblance to Popeye, and if the fish knew what was good for them they'd acknowledge this man's talent. I lifted my limbs from the water to avoid stirring up the muck or spooking wary trout. My right index finger found its way to my pursed lips in the international symbol for "Shhh" to imply I was aware that trout fishing's more like hunting. The old timer smiled with his eyes, creases jutting towards his temples, as he lazily let his lure plop into a hole he trusted. "If more people went down like you I might actually catch something," he said above the din of rushing water. "I thank you." I remained silent for the duration of my passing, well knowing that his modesty was not founded in truth. He'd had his shares of beauties. Those who have don't talk about it; still the sailor shares his day.

Hip Replacements and Gentrification

Mirrorless crusaders
haunt the city streets
one block in particular
more repressive than the rest;
bred like pit bulls
guardians of Children
spawned by guilt
they'd never have
if neighbors weren't so cultured.

Down back there's a strip of trees
too small to hide a corpse
but if they have their way
that forest will be named
with a sign to carve and paint and hang
and directions from the train.

Table Scraps & Doggie Bags

Sunday morning
mist commute;
colored ribbon
over job, wishing job
was over.
Bottom found
for first time
stemming from the Hudson:
Diamonds, but no gold.
We take what's left and precious
when the rainbow leads us there.

Birthday barbecue due east.
Fighting not to jerk the wheel.
No yellow flowers
either: a sign of growth
like shedding.
Ride home
to sweat it out.

Staring up the stairwell.
Scrapes of knives on plates
through deadbolt doors.
Found the rainbow's bottom once.
It can be done again.


Currently reading:
"Jorge Luis Borges:  Selected Poems", edited by Alexander Coleman.

Floored Pillows

And when he turns
he turns hard
ignoring the rustic architecture
in favor of feminine frills.
Safe middle names
always on the palate.
A recent increase
in feet tucked to thighs
with emphasis on
a foreign alarm.

Languish in lavender.
Roll through the smoke.
He hails from the marshes
forgotten by maps.
If it happens that cell finds cell
then so be it.
There are holy days made
without the permission
of bank and federal calendars.

Marxist Mojitos

I have a bowl of garden tomatoes
rotting
and a gallon of good intentions
gone sour.

You have a winter white vehicle
loan
and the libido of a twenty-year-old
tree.

We've been on two trips together
to the ER
and the sex is the best I've had
this week.

"Are you in love again?"
the birthday girl asks flippantly.
And she's right
to flip
through ten more pages, ten more weeks.

The bravest man I've known
this summer
has a kid coming next month
with no idea of its gender.

More lime.
Less mint.
A floater of rum for your comrade, please.

An Ending or Two

He's perched on the porcelain when he smells it.
Blue smoke bleeds through the cracks
around his bathroom door
nearly rattling its brass hinges
as it enters--searching, grasping.
That oracle on 40th and 9th
called it years back.
Both of them were in common form
though one managed to make sense.
He wishes, now motionless like quarry
pinched by steel, that he'd dropped
more money in that homeless man's hat.
He wishes for a lot of different outcomes.

But there's no smoke to smell
and no one's coming to get him.
It's another delusional daydream
set in place to pass the time.
Creative, they used to call it.
Now it's diagnosable.
He stands, rightly constipated
and almost forgets to dispel
the water he made.
He used to scold her
for not flushing
in her effort
to save the world
but now he'd love
to enter his bathroom
tainted by the faint stench of urine.
It'd help him remember
that there's still something left
worth saving.

The knot on his tailbone
throbs harder as he rubs it
wondering if he's devolving
like some Kafka creature--
an exacerbated exercise in karma.


Currently reading:
"'Salem's Lot" by Stephen King.

Playing God in Pine Bush

She's got pictures from a path
I remember from my childhood.
There are placards notating flora
and a statue of Walt Whitman.
I remember the font and the bronzed stride.
"That's the Bear Mountain Zoo,"
I inform her, as if she doesn't know.

"Most of the animals there
were rescued after being wounded
in the wild or maimed by poachers.
A friend of mine brought an owl.
His dog found it in the woods
wandering the ground
disoriented. He wrapped it in a towel
and brought it to a vet
who discovered it was blind.
Now it lives in that zoo.
Did you see it?
How's it doing?"

She's forgotten if she saw it
or perhaps I've stopped listening.
Another thought has taken hold;
a notion which had to come out
eventually:

Maybe that owl was meant to die
in that forest.

Some lessons you only learn
through repeating to another.

A Silent Mayday

It starts as trivial blips:
I pull up the mail key
to lock the front door;
Refrigerate my wallet
and pocket ketchup packets;
Answers get longer
when strangers ask questions
and I find myself talking
to myself in paragraphs.
Then the echo sets in.
Interpret that how it suits you.
Some hear reverberations.
I see mine.
She's smirking at me, naked.
These days she doesn't respond.

I ash into a tray
someone made for me
from stainless steel.
I'd say "a friend"
but you have to be a friend
to have a friend.
I haven't.
I'm not.
It's all about the spiral
and how to end it
in my sliver of reality
where reflections look
less and less like what others see.
Even the father and husband
I claim as my brother
cringes at some of my antics of late.

There's an odd vulnerability without mountains
so I live in the shadow of one.
Every morning and every night
it groans at me through curtainless windows
picked by the last person who knew me
three years ago--to the month.
Even she wouldn't recognize me now.
I'm paying the price
for what a little bird told me.
My father would call it a snake
though I prefer the secular cliche.

A consistency I'm fond of:
I've always lived in river towns.
Come Hell or high water
I'll be that fluid Pisces.

The moonbow doesn't cackle back tonight.
I spit when I type, not when I talk.

That hotel laugh in New Hampshire
is the last time I was happy.

And the Walls Got Loud

Dinner's almost done
when she shows
choosing water over wine
though I indulge
for the both of us.
"We moved too fast," she says
like it's news.

I stir the pasta in silence.

"Anything? What's on your mind?"
She sips that water
like it has the answer.

I pluck a strand of linguine
from the pot and try it.
Perfect al dente.
Eight minutes.
It's one thing I've perfected.

"Well?"
The water didn't cut it
for her.

I finish chewing, unaffected.
"I've spoken my mind before.
It's why I'm here.
You should have called;
Saved the gas,"
I say, pragmatist to the end.

She leaves as desired.
I eat at the table
not clearing her empty plate.
It stands as a reminder.
The wine washes the garlic down.

A sink full of dishes
and it's back to bedding widows.
I wander my apartment
approaching several countertops
and a table
checking their height
for impromptu penetration.
There are  none.

Tom Petty makes a promise
he can't keep
on the radio.

I crack a window
and smoke inside
for the first time in months.

Catching Up

Any longer
there's no ketchup
kept at my
mother's house
the kids having scattered
to starve elsewhere.
I learned this
when I brought
a fast food
burger and fries
for lunch.
She confessed
the condiment's absence
with a weary widow's voice
her husband
at the gin mill
his headstone
not yet carved.
Holding back the curses
for the Shadow
slow approaching
scythe and contract
in bony hands
I finish my meal
and starve elsewhere.

State of the Union

Waking with his watch on
he ignores the morning news
another workless week lined up
and apathetic bedclothes.
It stinks there
like a slave ship
his mother teaching nothing.
The atlas in his back seat--
that's his father in him.

Necrotic limbs
too weak to chop
spare the amputee
but the heft of muscles atrophied
becomes a latent anchor.

The novel reads like prophecy
foreshadowing a storm.
No man can be an island
for longer than a heartbeat.

De Rigueur

Aroused on numb wrists
from sleeping off a decade
of a Pisces night with warpaint worn.
There are laws passed to prevent this.

Bite a bottom lip
and wake up still a dreamer.
Scrawled graffiti promises
on urban concrete lie.

Hair too long to cut
like a house too old to paint
swiped around the ear
to help amend the stubborn.

Judge a man by numbers:
statistics, accounts, dimensions.
The objects most protected
are not found in his safe.

Papal Resignations

I'm draining myself in a way
less scandalous than five minutes prior
into one of those faulty toilets
that requires you to hold its lever down
for the duration of the dismissal.
It's mounted so crookedly
one corner of the tank a solid inch
further from the wall than the other
that I almost pity its owner.
She's fifteen years my senior
and has dealt with far worse
than skewed plumbing fixtures
with weak flushes.
If I had any intention of returning
to this place I'd bring my tools along
but that won't be happening.
We haven't exchanged numbers
after meeting last night
and there's a silent thieves' agreement
that none of that will change.
Her bedroom's down the hallway.
She's in it, feigning sleep.

I wash my hands symbolically
and chalk it up to hygiene.
There are gadgets on the vanity
with purposes beyond my comprehension.
A white contraption with hoses and dials
and a tube of some sort, all centered around
a reservoir of blue liquid. With a gun to my head
I'd guess it somehow cleans teeth, though
how blue can yield white is beyond me.
Next to it there's a smaller device
with less frills and specifics.
It's plugged into an outlet
blinking to verify it's alive.
There's a handle, a head, and
what seems to be some rotary component.
I flick water from my hands into the sink
since I'd rather not touch any towels
swearing to myself that I'd make a terrible woman
the opposite also being true.
I've made some women terrible.

There's a photo on the wall;
one of those themed numbers
they take at amusement parks
with people dressed as cowboys
or Prohibition gangsters.
This one has the Western motif.
She stands, dressed as a harlot
behind her two teenaged children
the boy bracing a rifle over his shoulder
while his left hand fingers a holstered revolver.
If he was here he'd shoot me
but her offspring are down south
for the summer with their father.
She'd advertised that at the bar
where we met. I called her out on it
but dropped a line of my own.
"I'm not leaving here without you."
I didn't.
She acknowledged my acting prowess
in the darkness of 4 a.m.

I close the bathroom door behind me
making sure not to trap any cats inside.
The floorboards creak menacingly
as I navigate this gin-soaked vessel
back to its latest port
and fall asleep dreaming
of a life spent in one harbor.

Photo Albums Died in the Digital Age's Wake

The caffeine hasn't taken hold
since you've yet to brew it
but there's a subtle tremble
in your hands that breaks the eggs.
It's not the pan.
It's not the spatula.
You're slipping.
You haven't flipped them without popping
in months, though it used to be
an art you'd proudly honed.
Yolk oozes out accusingly, solidifies
and mocks you.

Your bike sits flat-tired in the spare room.
No one's around to justify making the bed.

"Looks like we'll have to take
over-easy off the menu, Jack,"
you tell your stubborn self as you dump
a late breakfast onto a plate
that won't be washed for days.
There's something subtly magical
about hearing your voice
for the first time in the morning.
It's proof that you're still here
if only talking to the dust
standing naked in your kitchen
with food you make from habit
and a cloud that rubs your brain.

The coffee goes down
better than she ever did
or would have, given a chance.
The rest of your day
seems a blessing
irreversible.
There's a god still on your side
whether or not you deserve that.
If you ever learn her name
you'll have to carve it somewhere.

Your Clitoris Is an Inside Joke

A woman in scrubs could make me move mountains.
I've witnessed it.
They didn't.
Be that as it may, stethoscopes are expensive.

The difference between Disney World and Disneyland
has nothing to do with Mickey.
Walt was not a fascist; a mere fan of efficiency.

Stuffed bears strapped to stop signs at intersections
where some faceless kids died make me cringe
for the wrong reasons.

The Irish Goodbye should be an Olympic event.
Perfecting it is high art.

My landlords raised the rent fifty bucks
but refuse to repair the intercom system.

If you love something
(more than from the waist down)
let it go.
When it doesn't come back
hunt it and kill it with fire.

No lie can be told in the pre-dawn purple
of a bedroom so beautifully desecrated.

Your clitoris is an inside joke

and Jill went tumbling after.


Currently reading:
"William Carlos Williams:  Selected Poems" edited by Charles Tomlinson.

Repeater 21

Mary's favorite flowers
had been propped upright
in the back seat of Troy's sedan.
He took the time to position them carefully
nestling the bouquet betwixt his
hard hat and a case of Coors Original
which, with any luck, would aid
in the redemption process
picking up where the flowers would end
and increasing the odds
of horizontal reconvergence.

Troy savored that part of romantic quarrels.
He, like his contemporaries, had
become accustomed to the delicate cycle
and reveled in the art of dangling in the
emotional no man's land tightly tethered
to relationships which burn too fiercely
for their own general health.
His mother always warned him
of that passed down zealous passion
but Troy was the type of man
who sought his own Battle of Waterloo.
Besides, Mary loved the flowers every time
and the cans of pale lager
could soften the edges
of any jagged evening.

The summer heat subsided
by the time he hit the highway.
Air conditioning seemed to be
a waste, the compressor stealing gas
so Troy rolled down the windows
of his car and laid his arm out.
A feeling of July reflected from his limb
and smacked him in the face
with decades of fond remembrance.
It was the first time he'd allowed
himself a windblown ride this season.
The thought of summers dead and brewing
added to the admixture
of pleasant mental images--
he and Mary rolling in the dark
like apologetic panda bears
though it wasn't all black and white.
Still, he soaked the night
through pores as best he could
anticipating solace in the form of his beloved.
Counting down the miles in his head
he joined the chorus
of a song played on the radio
that fit the mood too well.

When he arrived at Mary's cottage
in that godforsaken valley
he heard his mother chuckle
at his stubbornness and swore
as soon as he reached back
to grab his feeble gift
and saw that all the petals
had been blown off by the wind.
Troy cracked a can of Coors
and thought of what to tell his girl.

The ride home was in silence.
The boys were at the bar.


Currently reading:
"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman.

Another Deadly Hoax

The French missionaries to Cameroon
left that radio as a gift
to their pygmy converts
in the early 20th century.
It's hard to blame them
for the aftermath.
Even Orson Welles
walked away unscathed.
The low-hanging clouds
of the ionosphere
would be safer scapegoats.
They bounced those radio waves
from CBS headquarters in New York
to the coast of western Africa
on that ill-fated evening
of October 30th, 1938.

When "The War of the Worlds"
was translated
by an elder of the tribe
who had learned
the White man's tongue
a massacre broke out
leaving fifty lives
hacked to bits
by steel machetes
while hovering above
in their spinning Martian saucers
the only intelligent life
within a thousand light-years
laughed at man's irony
and waited.

The Test

Someday we'll look back on these weekend nights and laugh--
Maybe at the party of another married couple
whom we seem to charm enough to earn frequent invitations.
The white wine we bring will be chilled
and safer to us than our hosts' amateur Margaritas.
I'll shamelessly raid their cupboard for chocolate
after the third glass.
Not a chip shall remain by the time of our departure.
At one point we'll be introduced (against our will)
to a fellow bride and groom
who will bore us with the tale of how they had first met.
"...Then I moved across the country, but she waited
for two years," the beaming fool will croon
pausing for the sighs that usually pour forth
but our pupils will be locked across the coastered table,
our feet will meet and rub, and we'll laugh
within our minds at amateur Margaritas
and cookie-cutter romance.

Our story is a secret
and that's what makes it real.

Family on Parole

His seventies have left him
looking like a jack-o'-lantern
but no one with half a heart
would say so. In his time
he was an athlete, an officer
an eldest son, a lover
a fisherman who took
his nephew chasing trout
on long summer days
that started and ended
with strong Spanish coffee.
That's the hero I choose to remember:
Rafael, a man of the Renaissance.

There are five lives
directly the result of his own;
twelve if you go downstream
to his great-grandson
whom he's never met.
His youngest daughter, a wisp
at thirteen, plays on my mother's computer
in the next room while my uncle and I
pretend to watch a program
on the history of the Underworld.
Hieronymus Bosch paintings of Hades
from the era of Columbus
have been chopped
doctored, and animated
with demons floating
across the screen
for the sake of this
fake documentary.
He keeps muttering
protests under his breath
a recurring one being
"The Bible doesn't say that."

The subject matter
swells too much. I offer up
the title and plot of a book
I've been reading
as a merciful sacrifice.
"I know that one.
Great story. Books are like
taking a trip," he states
in the mystified tone
of an old man who once
was excited by life.
It sounds like there was more
to his thought, but the words stop there.
A man who did fifteen years
in state prison would know about
the various means of escaping one's mind.
Literature, that trip, can tunnel under walls.

I remember the river we were fishing
when he told me. I was ten. I didn't care.
My uncle was not a manslaughterer to me.
Our eyes return to the screen
though we already know what Hell is.
"Do you need some more water?"
I ask as I rise to stretch my legs.
"I'm good, man. I'm good," he says
without adjusting his bifocals.

On my way back from the kitchen
I slip a crisp Fifty in my teenage cousin's hand
as she plays a game on mom's computer--
the only time she'll get to use one outside school.
My right index finger hovers above my lips
in the international code for
"This can be our secret."
Her eyes light up as she snatches
the bill and shoves it into the pocket
of her shorts, mouthing two words
that I should learn to say more often.

It's the first decent thing I've done all month.
I decide to ruin it later by sharing it with strangers.