I pluck the forked twig
from her potted rubber plant's
soil and thrust it
into my aloe's earth
hoping it'll persuade
its growth back to center
where we all strive
to be
unsure of whether
or not
what she used
to prop the former
will help heal the latter
but it's important
to come off as being whole
when you're trying
to help fix
what's broken.
What it sometimes
means to be
a friend
to the friendless:
weaponized sex
for strategic advantage.
The cigarette
ruined the photo.
The rest of it ruined
the rest of me.
I need you to leave
because I don't want you
to hear it.
My head rests on his shoulder
in the Sunday stillness
of his bedroom.
I stroke his broad chest
back and forth
like the tide of the river
he's always lived along
waded into
and may or may not
have returned from
depending on who's asked.
If my hand stops moving
he'll assume I don't care
so my fingertips skate
across skin and hair.
I make the mistake
of stopping
and he shifts
half-an-inch.
"Sorry," I say.
"For what?" he asks
without opening his eyes.
"I'm not him,"
but in saying so
he's more "him"
than he would have been
in silence.
He swims in my stomach
until we both nod off
temporarily distracted.
What wounds to bear.
Between measurements
and cuts
at one of
our many vices
he blurts
what he shouldn't
with me
as his only witness.
I remind him
of his transgression
as only
a brother can.
"I'm an asshole,
but I'm your asshole,"
he reminds me
in the same way.
Together, as always
we throw rocks
from the shore
at an island.
Few want the truth
partner
(as my newly departed
uncle used to call me
a la spaghetti Western)
but you ain't
the only one
who bunches up your blanket
at night
and tosses an arm over it
pretending that it's someone
who's worth a walk through coals
though a captain should know
survivor's guilt be damned
that loose lips
sink ships
with strange ejaculations.
The garbage can stank
like meat juice on styrofoam
so I took it for a walk
to the dumpster behind my building.
After chucking the trash
I swung by my truck
in the adjacent parking lot.
Half in the bag
I asked the guy
who's living in his car
if he's living in his car.
"Nah, man."
"Need anything?"
"Nah, man.
I appreciate you."
I finished my smoke
and walked upstairs
to my lonesome luxuries.
We'd both reached a point
where it didn't make sense
to hide it.
Afterwards
she rubs his bare chest
like it's a brass lamp
with a genie inside
though no wishes will be granted
to either party.
The smell of her perfume's reminiscent
of the purple pew upholstery
in a Southern Baptist church
sending his mind
to a highway rest stop in Maine
four years ago.
He'd scratched his face
there in the bustling lobby
and his right hand
which had ridden a perfect thigh
in the passenger seat for hours
had the lingering scent
of elderly black women
in a state he'd never visited
and had never wanted to.
He'd finished draining himself
in front of foreign porcelain
alongside a dozen strangers
whom, Lord willing, he'd never see again
among poorly tiled walls and floors
or even the Pearly Gates
and was staring blankly
at undesirable food franchise logos
barely appetizing, in neon or not
when a familiar face appeared
within a crowd of other women
emerging from their corner
of the summer vacation ring.
There it was
her countenance
like the full moon
that keeps him awake these days
ready to get back in the car together
and share a bag of Skittles
he'd bought from a vending machine
more friendly than a teenager
in a greasy polo shirt
while waiting on
what he thought
was the rest of his existence
Bar Harbor merely one destination
of many for decades--
"'til death do you part."
"Can we go again?"
"Maybe," he mumbles
his mind nine hours northeast.
She continues to paw
the urn that is his ribcage
not feeling the ashes within
and attempts years too late
to light another match.
As with the most
intriguing nicknames
I never knew its explanation
but from as early as I can remember
my uncle called me Turkey Breath.
This moniker tapered off
with the shedding of boyhood's
naive assumptions
replaced, most times, with how
he'd address me hencforth:
Partner.
Unsure of whether
it was a reference to Western films
upon which he'd cut his teeth
or a spillover term from his career
as a high-volume car-slinger
who understood that
taking care of business
was easier when
the wagons were circled
or if there were other partners
in the world beyond our conversations
about which I didn't know
I see now
albeit too late
that there was one thing
I called him in return:
Not often enough.
The two main
European despots
defeated in the Second
World War
and the third supreme leader
of that continent
a tentative ally
later turned Cold War antagonist
are often villified
by the victors, the writers of history--
easier to attack in words
these days
since they look the same
as us
but let's not forget
the emperor
of the sun flag
who lived 'til '89
distant and malignant
declaring the sacrifice
of sex slaves
given to young men
who dove airplanes
into ships
as "Divine Wind"--
kamikaze
until desperation
overcame compassion
with projected corpses
outweighing
the morality of physics equations
so men and women
on the justified side
built a bomb
to both end
and begin
the madness
for the brief remaining history
of mankind.
A bloodless coup
lacks passion.
Here we are
my brothers in Christ.
Wiping flecks of blood
from the medicine cabinet mirror
after flossing
makes us war buddies now.
It pays the same.
"Long live the king."
Weak chin
wide eyes
and a strong lisp;
they weren't mine
to share.
Let's trade problems
not hearts.
While embraced in bed
what they never realize
until it's the worst thing
too late
and they're poised to spring
like rats from a sinking ship
is that I'm mostly rocking
myself to sleep
or maybe they do
and that's why they stay
until the waves
have risen
so high.
Then an angel of
the Hebrew god
all safely clad in silver
impaled itself
slowly
on what was never
meant to be said--
a dagger emblazoned
in gold cursive
as follows:
The Almighty coughs
after orgasm.
Get on that boat.
Stare into the sun.
Keep your mouth closed.
Blame it on the spray.
A friend
who knows nothing
of your plan
is harder
to interrogate.
O Captain!
My Captain!
We had this trip
by the bag
while it lasted.
Hydroplaning
down the Palisades
Interstate Parkway
while watchlisted in
the wild gin wasteland
but grateful
for
the growls
from widespread eyes
dry
South African
wine
that little fox
nestled between
unlikely crevices
crawling out
before sunrise
to tend to her kits
and friends
who love enough
to refrain
from party invitations
laced with cocaine.
The best defense
is a good offense.
The best penance
is this sentence.
It must feel so lonely
being on top.
Excited to decipher your surprise
after facing tribulations
back on the mainland
we practice for the apocalypse
with end cut maple.
You don't know, and
you don't know--and
you don't know
and
you don't know:
That was the last
of the towels
that I didn't fold.
If only it were only
your cursive words in chalk
on fifteen magnetized spice shakers
half-full of leaves and peels
that we dehydrated
but there on that
once-shared refrigerator
are six canisters
still empty, waiting
for what can't come
like a fool
who saves boxes
in overflowing closets
but doesn't know
how to best use them.
Not long enough to twirl at night
or matter to most passesrby
strange tufts of hair
stepped over
by coronated impostors
on an even stranger sidwalk
fade dully in the diorama.
We are built unlike goats
with nothing behind the eyes.
Things I'm not:
Christlike.
Able to fix my dead
grandmother's antique and bequeathed
dresser drawer handle.
Things I am:
Decent at calculating risk.
Proficient at finding cigarette lighters
on the pavement
and using them until they run out of fuel.
Things I don't strive to be:
Dumb enough
to open that damn drawer
ever again.
Christlike.
Let's suppose
since we're being frank
that there's no way
to properly process
what's entailed
in quantifying
this tower-bound recovery
as a neighbor put it
for herself
but a gentleman's work
is never done
and neither is mine.
"Of course
I'm here.
First one."
That sucker-punch
killed my butterflies.
Like a gutshot buck
I wander, confused
only knowing of the blood.
We've met many times before.
You just had a different face.
What a time
to be told
you're alive.
There are
worse fates
than being forgotten
like being remembered
by the wrong people.
And there are
worse plans
than breaking them
with folks
who are already broken.
And there are
worse words
than lies
like truths stated
for illegitimate reasons.
And there are
better places
to wake up
but I'd rather do it
next to you
or not at all.
The gas station coffee's too hot
to chug at 5:58 AM en route to work
so we fill our first few highway miles
with recent recollections
of the minuscule victories
and minor defeats
that shape our daily lives
laughing ourselves to tears
at these predicaments--
acknowledging how we're turning
slowly into our fathers
just enough to be grateful
while achieving
the one unspoken wish
that these better men
maintained for their sons:
Not losing ourselves along the way
like the embers of our cigarettes
flittering off behind us
between white and yellow lines.
The unrealistic
sexual expectations
prevalent in the modern male
are direct byproducts
of an Internet
with 20% of its phone searches
being related to
its 4% of pornographic websites.
You can tell
by the way
someone's looking for love
whether or not
they've ever beheld it.
Submission's a choice
but you can't have
what isn't
for you.
Currently reading:
"On Love" by Charles Bukowski.
I've always lost
people
but never
cigarette lighters.
The latter I find
on the pavement.
The former
find reasons
to hit it.
If you need me
I'll be swearing off
love
in the closet.
If you need me
I'll be highly surprised.
An undeniable mess was made
but the umbrella's dry now
so I bring it inside
from the hallway
and return it
to the closet
horse-trading the days between
hijacked evenings
spent tracing a bird on a back
and wondering if
the relevance of fingertips'
coordinates are noticed.
There's a word for it
that we can't say
due to different reasons.
We'll settle for existing
olive green with envy.
Maybe she's getting
her back blown out
by a guy with more length
and less girth.
Maybe it's the reaction
that her skin has to mine
when heightened immunity
meets stubborn cologne.
Maybe it's how my eyes close
while hers look up from my shoulder
like lashes can lock doors
for the night.
Maybe it's the way
that I inhale so deeply
when close together
as though I'll never
experience those pheromones
again.
Maybe she's worried
that it's merely the idea of her
but she's altered the thoughts
of a mind hard to sway.
Maybe we're all warned
not to pet burning dogs
and the best of us do
regardless
since the Doomsday Glacier's fake
ain't nothing that a bottle won't drown
and how it all ends
is what matters
right?
84,000 people
were sacrificed
over the course of four days
in the 1480s--
hearts ripped out
with obsidian blades
no neighbors or kin safe
from priests atop pyramids
appeasing a sun god, angry.
Either
they didn't know
a thing about science
or they knew exactly
the nature of man:
There's no substitute
for flesh.
Currently rereading:
"Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame" by Charles Bukowski.
Somewhere
out there
you're bleeding
and I wish
that I could help
but here we are
pretending
like we're able
to buy time.
But oh the air
of the heir apparent
in coming home
to a glass of water
left by a guest:
You know
that you can't
drink from it
as hard as you'd like
to bob for apples
in her wake.
Had a foreman once
turned friend
turned father
turned nemesis
turned nightmare
who said
"Don't complicate
a glass of water."
As much as I mistrust him now
he's right.
Jupiter and Venus
are pegged
above the moon
tonight
naked
to the eye
like you
in a few more decades
all four sneering
at the marvels
of modern science
resuscitated simply
by the basic understanding
that no rain checks exist
in this universal cul-de-sac
and sometimes
there's blood.
You're probably pissed
that I vouched extensively
over the phone
as to how valid a candidate he was
for 20 emphatic minutes
when you were interviewing
potential tenants
for your shared rental apartment
since there was a ton
of work to be done
as promised in unwritten portions
of his lease that you might as well shred
at this point in your grievance.
I'm more pissed
that my adopted brother's in rehab again
and didn't reach out to me
before he surrendered his phone
so I've got no way of knowing
what it was this time
how close he came
or how he's doing
aside from what's chirped
down the line.
Godspeed with your eviction.
Our rent's always punctual
but we are not the same.
They ask what happened
after nearly five years
together, but not
as discovered
too late.
Shrugged shoulders
and blown lips
don't explain it
as well as this:
Today, stomping in my boxers
like on the best of Sundays
at what used to feel like home
I moved six houseplants
to different zones
of shade and sunlight
based on their color and turgor
instead of watching them
die.
That's my new response.
Final answer.
I'd propped the Remington against
a closet door frame
in the spare room
of what was my apartment again
since I could then
without question.
One night
bored by the film plot
with more holes in it
than my whiskey's cork
I repeatedly cycled the scattergun's action
in my lap on the recliner
ripping through the steel's shucking sound:
a song from a smoothbore
born in Ilion, New York
at the Turn of the Century.
Suddenly it jammed
leaving me with an ironbound headache
almost as jagged as newfound
single-income living in our inflated age.
After three hours of attempted repair
sore and sooty fingers
reached for the lamp switch
on my nightstand
wincing when a bloodied knuckle
rubbed brass unexpectedly.
Freshly defeated
by stubbornly stuck steel
for two nights
I slept exclusively on my side of the bed
though it didn't 't matter any longer
like sliding into fresh sheets
as she'd always treated as a holiday
that these days were going to waste.
Soft-spoken, middle-aged
Midwestern men with too much spare time
lulled me to sleep through Internet anonymity
safely tucked away from their wives
with tutorial videos made in their basements
about this 12-gauge albatross of yore.
I dreamt of traveling back in time
to kick the firearm's designer
in a place he'd always remember
perhaps hard enough to dissuade him
from over-engineering the model in question.
If only our pasts could be changed.
On the third day I succumbed
and rebuilt the debacle
with intentions of confessions
to ill-advised disassembly
made during gunsmith surrender.
To my surprise the slide ran smoothly
and all moving parts behaved in the choir.
I pumped it triumphantly
for the better part of a minute
until a half-inch shard of steel
shot from the ejection port.
The tune came to an end.
The tool no longer functioned.
I identified the broken component
and sourced a replacement online
grateful that this failure
had occurred in a safely controlled environment
as opposed to on a camping trip
in upstate bear country
that we'd never embark upon again.
Wood and steel.
Tried and true.
At least we weren't married
with kids and a mortgage.
That's what I told myself
while trying to decipher
the screws and springs
strewn about the floor
sharing the cause
of residual curse words
stuck in my throat
beside her name
and those of New England towns
I'd never be able to revisit
in this lovely, limited lifetime.
Currently reading:
"Rattle: Fall 2020".
One of these days
and days
and days
and days
the Universe will send
a sympathetic seventh chance
who wouldn't leave anyone
on read
with eyes soft and brown
evasive like a feral cat's;
nipples perfectly asymmetrical.
Until then
my brothers in Christ
the couch ain't the only thing
that's pulling out--
driven to thirst
by ancestral expectations
and mediocre excuses
for only being taken
in small doses
like a Band-Aid
we all wear
but still insist
to hide.
Not to jinx it
by being brazen
with Lady Luck
but we haven't had
a major airline catastrophe
in what feels like longer
than I remember
growing up;
not one of those rich pricks
in a privately owned Cessna
that was probably grandiose suicide
or insurance fraud to save their heirs
sans golden parachute
but a media feeding frenzy
with images of floating fuselage
and mention of children
who could've grown
to cure cancer
had they been given
that imaginary chance--
news anchors spewing sea coordinates
and Boeing models with lots of 7s
that degenerate gamblers
like the ones I've grown to love
would later play
in the lottery.
I'm not saying
we're overdue
but they must've fixed
the plane problems
because we haven't fixed
the people.
Being a Pisces
ain't all
it's cracked up to be:
a glider
adrift
with no landing strip
in sight.
Currently reading:
"Insomnia" by Stephen King.
I shaved my head
after bald spots developed
stress induced again
and my father asked
if I wear a wool hat to work
when he saw me
but I don't
since I like the brisk feeling
of air on bare skin
though I wore a black
watchman's cap
the next time
that I visited him
for his sake
not mine.
Walking by portraits
of men
in my home
and mannequins
on the job
I can attest
to the fact
that we all wear
smiles differently.
Some of them hurt
like a trap expertly set
italicized
parts per million
but I see them
and cherish them all:
Dead languages
other than Latin.
Currently reading:
"The Bear Speaks" by Eric Tomlins.
A charity organization
for cancer, but not for bald kids
line mine
finally sends
her complimentary address labels
though she's no longer
here to receive
those invalid stickers
from invalids.
I save them
just in case
again.
"It's not my business,"
an old friend concedes.
"Hell, I never met her."
Maybe I didn't
either.
Unwilling to verify whether or not
the experiment's been performed
since science has been bastardized
and the Internet's been hijacked
I'd wager what's left
of a poorly squandered soul
that if most indoor houseplants
were only watered when it rains
the majority would survive.
The laws of mortality
transcend manmade labels
of flora and fauna:
We get what we need
on a schedule outside
our control.
I bet Bukowski was better in bed
and Hemingway was more fun at the bar.
I'd kill to converse like Vonnegut
and speak of the dead like McCarthy
all while laughing in the face
of Satan a la King.
Here's to having heroes
in a jaded age of frauds.
I, [state your name],
was nothing
short of mortified
by the wasteful void
at the bottom
right corner
of p. 62
in November's
tidal issue.
I clipped the poems
apart with scissors
that cut me once
and rearranged
them in five ways
that preserved space
for an even longer
spilling of one's guts
than the one-ninth
of a page
which your design team
deemed unfit
for local souls
to purge.
I'm keeping this plea
short and unsweet
for the sake of brevity
in the hopes
that it takes up less space
in your Trash email folder
since it won't adorn
your publication
but please
for the sake of those
who need this catharsis
and validation
in order to survive
keep this in mind
when laying out
what's more than words.
Sincerely,
Everyone Who's Bled on Your Pages
This is the first time
I'm saying this
but I know
that I'm dying.
My hair's falling out
in clumps
fistfuls in the shower;
the blame I used to shift.
My time here's fleeting
like a pre-coffee glance
at gas station boner pills
glistening in dusty plastic
on the foreign clerk's counter
between his calls to home.
Several times a day
I reach to place items
on a table that's no longer there;
a precursor to a tasty oblivion
obnoxious in the present.
The box fan in the window's
not blowing the smoke out
fast enough
against a whipping wind
that's left from this hurricane.
Even the smell
of my father's basement:
smoke and must
and wood from the '30s
can't comfort me any more;
a lease signed
away from me
that won't be broken.
How could you?
A sailor to some
a cowboy to few
recalcitrant misfit to most;
here is the lie
I told:
We're all dying
some slower
and more blessed
than others.
We count our days left
on calendars
fingers and toes.
Currently reading:
"Bagombo Snuff Box" by Kurt Vonnegut.
Teach me to poach an egg.
I'll teach you to poach a heart.
We'll teach each other many things
we've failed to learn so far.
I haven't gotten cleaner
from scrubbing with your soap
but it's one less sad reminder
as I struggle here to cope.
I had to buy new sheets
to replace the ones you took.
I wish you'd taken more things.
I'd rather sleep than look.
You wrote me one that rhymes.
I need the ones that don't.
It's another reason why
you're right. We shouldn't; won't.
"I see that you didn't
shave today
to fit into
your character."
When I was a kid
my old man was asked
to play the Penitent Thief
hanging on one
of three makeshift crosses
in the Crucifixion Christmas play
put on by our church
in downtown Newburgh.
The role of Christ
had been reserved
predictably
for the pastor
but I sometimes ask
its writer, Luke
what if it hadn't?
Messiahs run
in our blood.
"Lady, this beard
took a week."
Currently reading:
"Dreams of the Astronaut" by Boom Boom Shapiro.
You really haven’t lived
until you’ve watched a rainstorm
from an open garage door
on a farm in western Vermont
with a mason jar of Argentinian wine
in your dry hand, post-peak foliage.
Currently reading:
“Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes.
Going to market
or gallows
the same:
This facelessness endures/
Dehumanization.
(They beg for more.)
Don't ask him
to break stride
while appeasing a Pisces
with a lust for the sea.
Be part of the process
but not the Machine.
In the bowels
of a storage unit
I puked into during a move
eleven years back
I find a pristine tackle box
that he made for me
decades ago:
brand new lures
a stainless steel filet knife (made in China)
pliers without rust
sinkers not attached to my ankles.
If only he'd helped
prepare me
for more
than the fish I'd never chase.
Currently reading:
"The Dark Half" by Stephen King.
The artist tried to warn me
on the gripe with purple ink.
I look now at my shoulder
where my skin has faded: pink.
Currently reading:
"Rattle: Summer 2020."
The shot rings out
as desired.
If they can't spare one
they can't have any.
"Armorer!" his intended customer
three stories below his abode
yells from the ground after firing into the air.
Crouched in a corner of the room
he turns his head toward a mirror
that's aimed at a second one
which delivers the image
of a man standing
in the designated parking spot.
Long ago he outlined it in orange paint
for the use of his patrons.
"Two boxes of of .243 here.
Forty rounds.
I'm seeking .223
or 9," his voice carries
plaintively through the window.
"You know that ran dry months ago,"
he replies as politely as an ammo dealer can.
"How about some .22?"
He envisions this man in tattered clothing
with a rabbit skewed on a poorly whittled spit
above his campfire later on that evening
a tiny hole in the flat skull
courtesy of his offer.
"It's a deal in your favor."
"It'll feed you for the night."
The vagabond presents no argument
approaches the building
waits for the brass man to lower his basket
by a rope that he'd never expected to use this way
and deposits his half of the trade.
The recipient counts the cartridges
checking primers and projectiles
then scoops a handful of .22 rimfire rounds
from one of a dozen buckets
wraps them in a rag that was once a shirt
and lowers them to the hungry man
awaiting the basket's return.
This is how it's been for longer
than he's marked on his improvised calendar.
Some of them bring canned food
bottled water, or chocolate that's gone pale
but the payment for these is less.
An armed survivor can use his wares
to obtain any other item if he's got a gut
strong enough to do what many
thought they never could
prior to the collapse.
It pays to get comfortable
with violence.
No one's tried to overtake him.
The only obvious method
would destroy the stockpile they seek.
Fire and gunpowder don't play well together;
or too well, perhaps, depending on perspective.
He used to hate the added elevation
of his brick-and-mortar residence
on laundry, shopping, and garbage days
but in these un-Presidented times
it's served him well.
Even patriots and prostitutes
know better
than to play cards
with a man named after a city.
Fiddling through his Winchester shells
he hears another holler
but sees no figure standing
in the specified space.
"Hoarder," his guest implores.
"Where are you?"
He contemplates the question
unsure of true response.
"I've got a box of books,"
declares his unknwon company.
"Which of them do you want?"
Collections of fiction and facts
were burned in the streets
during the collapse.
Only poetry remained.
They deemed it inconsequential.
"How many? What titles?"
He can't get the words out fast enough
to convey his excitement.
"Take a look," his salesman says
from the lot below his window.
He rises from his corner
and tilts his head over the sill
to read the covers
he's been previously denied.
There's a flash in the woodline
that he'll never see.
He was partly right:
It wasn't only fire.
The shot rings out
as desired.
If they can't spare one
they can't have any.
While bushwhacking this morning
my mentor took a tumble
after gaining much momentum
down grade too steep for his knees.
I watched him land his dive
tossing his cane to the side
as he plowed into the dirt.
Starting but soon stopping
a woodland jog
I helped him
in the kindest way
by showing the teacher
what the pupil has learned:
I let him rise
on his own
and brush the leaves
from his beard.
