This goes for me--

I know I can't be famous poet
I'm descending; I'm balding,
Shakespeare was bald
in portraits--why him, huh?
Shouldn't he set a precedent?
Damn Shelley & his lovers locks
Kerouac & his perfect curls
Walt Whitman wore a hat
so who the fuck knows,
Ginsberg went bald you know?
I know he was gay
is there a categorical anomaly
how can I make the grade?
     They want me perfect aesthetically
stack of boxes piled blockxblock for glowing
eyes piercing eyes (ignore my words)
they read bitterly

I'm not pretty
     I've no pretty words
No quotable phrases--I'd
          scowl like and old Italian
on the back
                    jacket of whichever
                    novel you choose
I'd rather burn the book store
                                     down
     than submit to
                           ISBN ||||||||||||||||||||
                                   5 923230 223307
                                     Slavery
I'll edit my own shit
I'll let my hair fall out
I'll fuck around anonymously

words'll square my debts.

& where do we go?

He turns his head
expectantly
expecting her not to reach the
door--for the door--of
other voices & lines
all mashed and troubled
and fed eggs bacon
sausage bread pancakes
toast Easter post-church,
warped through concrete &
glass lenses to the outside--blockade--
          who's thinking?--where
does all this death go?--
into that ground he knows--&
gone to dream-fields & memory lanes,
but no worries,
time to pay the damn check &
bury the bodies.

Last Man

I write poems to inanimate objects
they ignore we sweetly (with lights out)
start time is quickly marred
getting uneasy (getting up)
asking for the watch
     to call it quits (or countdown)
walking away is much easier
who else is involved?
We'll never know (thankfully)
   
     My dreams are more real
each night I lie awake
     I have less control
so the coffee taints my breath
     the world my lips
So?
     I am champion of death.

A poem in 5ths

Scenes and Whispers

I
It's simple really
I'll write every poem
about myself

II
Don't sit on park benches alone
they'd rather rot by themselves

III
a pee only becomes a piss
when you're mad and gotta let it go
dick out a shaking pants down,
I can't take credit for that one

just promise not to rest on the metro

IV
Revelations of today
look ridiculous in my notebooks
of yesterday, I pour milk
for the young in my sleep,
aged and warmed my bones for them

V
The sick leave the elevators unharmed
turn the swastikas into boxes
wrap my heart on their fingers
drag me into the next thought

Happy Endings

Good-byes on wheels

So strange that you're gone
and that I thought so little of you
in these past years when i relied on you
and loved you (I did truly love you
I promise) that I didn't even stop to think
how you were aging, hurting, rusting,
going away,
or we could have taken a picture together I guess--
I only thought of that now, some evidence--
something so that your memory would
be more than leaking anti-freeze and stalling,
iced up windows, flat tires, and miles
                                                         miles
                                                    miles
                                                         miles
miles 
        but thinking again--those things
are so concrete
so heavy and burned into my memory,
your smells and sounds
                                     the way I knew
how to drive you just right (most of the time
when you weren't angry or tired),
riding down macdade hanging out the windows
singing come sail away into the night,
those times I thought it was over
but you kept on going
so much so
that I believe it was on will alone, (your
emerald ring being in the universal mail
rerouted to heaven) and me wasting all
that gas--!
      and the girls--the girls!--we can't forget the girls
we've both known right--?
and who've hated you in different ways
wrongly

over the years--all those years--
seems like too many to count
on your blue-green shell--and
we've grown old my old friend
too old to carry on together in all
but dreams and reveries--dont't worry,
you'll be there and here and when and
gone for the next 200,000 miles
and the 200,000 infinite miles after that--
unmistakably--
a love I'll never forget.

one thousand lives in passing

Enough with the crosses
She's barely old enough to
drive, skip, take the exit ramp
before street lights, broken curbs,
parked cars, meter maids, bike chains,
trolley tracks, flat tires, toll booths,
cracked roads, painted lines,
the story of the wide wide closed
up world comes calling taking
the babies and sinners for a
walk to the peak of jutting rocks
falling rolling rocks pyramid mankind
or the blue faced flowers that coat our graves
comes wandering wondering left behind,

what's this all of a sudden
what's changing so quickly
what's gotten into her head and why do
we throw our trash up into the sky?

to burn

She's got an answer but it's on
the median strip, it's unpopular,
it's all over the pavement
curl--it's all bloody and fucked up
and she's too young to tell.

Acting School

It was that time I was a famous actor

I entered the hotel room--tho to me
it was a waiting room--circle of other actors
sitting around smoking in silence--AA meeting
where have ya been, how are ya--
I meant to say hello but forgot
the room was maroon shades
two of the actors had
no arms
no legs

Pepper Spray

Halloween
we all carried pepper spray can
--in the store (like old west brook
park market convenience store) some
ladies complained, this one girl
without form shot hers into the air
constantly,
She turned to me and
concretely blonde and maybe 17
said, "It's really hot in here don't ya think?"

I realized it was and took my shirt off--

The Mouse

A hungry mouse scampered up to
me, he seemed docile, trained,
he waited in static until
I reached down and let him
crawl up onto my hand, I felt
his calloused hands and weakness--in his
face I saw obedience--he asked
for bread--
but I had none

The questions I asked became concepts, became visions

A vision of falling from clouds at first
he tells this girl that the water carried him under,
it was the same water falls from the sky--in
reality he blacks out & hits the shallow end
as he falls he sees a man reaching out, watching him--
(It's his exact self)--Then I take his place thrashing
(unharmed) in the shallows (have slight pulsing time
distortions like I'm forcing trip effects)

"What is time!" tears run down
my face--I am so--desperate--
"is time a construct?"

rubbing my wet dreamers forehead,
I'm trying to pull something great out--
I say--"I've nothing great in me."

Awoke on a beach

Wake up to beach under the stars
million million stars and feels like the
ocean is black and crashing in over us
like into a sand wall (from earlier lifetime
dreams) and I'm wondering how I slept so
long and know right then that Mike isn't there,
that he fought off the sleep, I curse him
for not wasting the day--in my mind
and eye the scene is inside-and-out-endless,

"He must be back at the room"--I assure
the masses of people still sleeping beside me.

The chip that screamed

The chips all screamed in
the mouths that chewed and
chewed without compassion--
I had a sinister feeling running
outside the tunnel of my view-scope
understood the meaning of genetic testing but
the rest were not listening, the rest went on eating
the chips that could only feel when eaten.

Loop

I was traveling in a car on

a street that was an endless loop

like Flintstones background of

the same few windows

same few doors, I was supposed 

to do something that I couldn't 

--I couldn't--figure--I stopped and gave 

a ride to a girl with no face and no memory,

when she got in we were walking

different streets.

there was no car. 

We're really far away

It's in a title somewhen
I had it all wrapped up
on tape this idea for fired machine
gun eggs on the roof of thanksgiving
where Michael Jackson was singing the
national anthem before dinner?

the thing was crystal diamond mind
set the actions rolling
WWII firearms the aircraft balling in
Christ I would have wasted them all
but I could only hold onto the belt
as the rounds blasted the hull
ringing in the new order
new year stuffed turkey, stuffing, cranberries

shit in death maw hell-fire
a dream misunderstanding, a dreary
appetite--

Learn the word choices
construction site--
reptilian monochrome fantasy apparatus

oh God lets just accept
oblivion why not? Fuck
sticking keys on fuck
oh hell oh hell this is beyond dimensional bop
i'm a jam janitor eating away
at the fabric pounding
ink into the barrier

BREAK IT DOWN--it's only about sitting still--

it it's the first/last/only/fucking/thing
we never do--22:21--time out
reconstitute at the dinner table couch
throw out the useful trash
DO NOT ACCEPT SUBJECTIVE TRUTH REALITY

COUNT THE CIRCLES. They're multiplying .

KEEP WATCH!--

Bitter Ruins

It ain't so bad when you get down to it
or it couldn't be worse
maybe. Fuck it, I'm out of words
for hell and gray clouds cross
the Potomac unseen
just faded like the windows
that glare at me from across
paved courtyards of crystal city,
without the crystal-like-non-emerald city

it's possible I wasn't given the recommended
dose at birth

they might come back looking for me
glasses in hand to right the wrong

it'll be on the black train of black sky I bet
when we're rolling into camp/home/life
somewheres out past Camp Hill, Pa

it'll be a reunion for all humanity
the truth serum brigade
looking up the madness, the crimes
against society, the spreading plague,
who has time for a trial when--

IT's FOR OUR OWN GOOD?

My coffee tastes even better cold.

The Typed Walls (typing)

typed walls
are taped up around
this room with
blood & shit to hold it,
they paint without me
why?
when I leave them, when I ignore
their falling pathetic deaths
each minute drifting out
toward the past a
screen windowsilled memory
descending on abandoned cars
that rumble north
hopeful of crumbling watch word
building promises and facades
these cars with no driver
this blood with no body

typed walls decay about
this room
in the moonlight-sunlight-
incandescent light
of what could be done
what won't ever be done

these typed walls
are invisible
never to be read
just discarded
like all poets should hope to be
withering and dying aimlessly
saying nothing in the end
a life taken to discover death
now accepting silence

one final grasp
at failure--

No one will remember me.

roof tops, stove tops

let this fade
on the wall
like a smell
from the kitchen stoves of my youth
a phantom memory
i can recall as falsely
as i've lived
under the scorn of skyscraper smiles
downtown
my highway maid
dances on open rooftops
old transparent friends
i
wore a dinner jacket
years ago, a year ago/?
maybe at a table, plated a lamb
a family a house
desperately searching (everyone seems
to be desperately searching somehow) for one
it was all new tho
before even whit
we sat down and ate
in strange silence all in
one room in laughter on
rooftops, and stove tops
gettin' ready to move on.

Tomorrow is another day to forget

Time is my absolute
a god image of my master
a fleeting blur of beyond
foretelling inevitable futures
all death all gone all dust all forgotten
on any calender and all this
mess
is wasted in us
we can't even envision the painting
as everything at once
as a forecast
showing immortal skies
seen at dawn and dusk of beginning
                                       and end of times
we've lived through apocalypse
birth
rebirth
resurrection
the shells contain information
bags of flesh carrying us through the soup
prescient inter-dimensional soup
coddling us and we allow that shit
afraid of imaginary a concept
as death, ordinary
                            I kiss the mask
over our eyes at night
make sure it's snug
tomorrow is another day to forget.

Stirring

The first sip of Guinness and
a toast to the empty
bowels of this tipping universe,
I wipe the drip from
my chin with the back of my
hand like a ritual of earthliness,
of the ugliness of stark American
realities, at my table alone,
set in the back, masked by laughter
and drunken cheer,
it's a triumphantly sad gasp
calling out to those who'd found their way
across this land that's always been,
singing boozing passing by,
living breathing loving
humbly truly every moment

Punch in

There's a faint waxy sensation
on the tip of her fingers
running down over her
pearly soft knuckles, feels
like melting crayons
as she hits the doorbell-
machine-gun-call-box,
swings her head to the
rhythm of creaking wind chimes
waning beyond the walls,
the open closet cell--she's unsure
of the next step, what's come
and what's to go--"we aren't supposed
to know what to decide on, how to
proceed"--which she didn't at once
say to the metal men exiting with
dull eyes grayed over with the
program silver needle spikes--
it's a kick, a cause, a bore, it's whatever--
was more like it, she thought
that's more what I would think, yes,
me exactly how could I forget,

she's in line for the full coat
packaged with every luxury
at no extra cost--
There's a whole factory
at work and the labor
never dries up.

Old Man

I about to end up like
Old Man Molineaux--

pants at my ankles with the coming
dusk, stained long-johns
swishing what's left of the last beer,
shouting on sundays in
the main street of some
street-less dusty town, sucked dry
of life and withered,
I'm about to give into the old man's
ghost, and the ghosts came before him,
watch the torn and bleeding feet of the
leather man as he migrates
through the great northeast
a lonely french-canadian mystery soul,
my wind is catching up, pulling
at the upraised blinds--

I'm in my underwear
before a room length window
to the concrete cold world,
cracking open the first beer
of the night.

Jack, Go Home!

Listen son I never had
a child make it this far into the
diamond rough of this quickening
world and never had one that thought
or wanted to anyways, you see
there's some...shit...there's some hellish
wonderful peaceful thing still out
there it's...God dammit, well it hasn't been
caught yet and it keeps on going
into the distance that's ever widening
a gash peering into the void,

a few have seen it
and suffering have tried to make others
see ending up bleary and ulcer-ed
in the cold water flats of long ago dreams
offering their lives to us asking nothing
in return but that we listen,
that we remember,

fuck maybe even Buddha knew nirvana was
unattainable but for a few, and maybe that's the
real karma curse of living and rebirth,
losing those loving souls
to the Tathagata nothingness of the wind,
like cruel creatures struggling blindly
through the haze of temporal time splat,
there's an end coming, there's a dedication somewhere
and the road we're on is
endless--

If I don't get out there soon I'll die

Close as many roads as you like
I imagine one straight golden line
leading out to the coast through
leaning wheat stacked plains and closed
snow covered mountain passes,
trees taller than the buildings
sent to suffocate and teach me
to keep my head down, teach ya to ignore
the sky, walk on walk on walk on
searching aging dying calling
out into the sweet dark American night
that still smells sometimes like that
greasy sweat we used to know
and weren't afraid enough to ignore, labor
sweat and poet's sweat and jazz-man sweat that'd seeped into
the life blood of the continent unnoticed--
before it was paved and potted with
new factory blend soil and re-branded
old, meaningless, bygone and tired,
meant to be looked at out the periphery
of embarrassed eyes and dry throats--

if ya let it, it'll spill its secrets,
its true self unadorned
I'll walk into the night for the rivers
and sounds unheard,
I'll get out there and find you--
god knows I'll try

Toast

one last can of beer
it's 1pm on the oval
marker slouch traffic
corridor--meaningless
barricade barrage of
cannon fodder--I'll finish it
up right quick boy--my
material fixation, my
preoccupation on completing
no work--on drowning in
my obscure reality

it's a day of getting warmer
watching the sun dry out
the molten core of the hearts
beating 12 storeys down there--

a toast and all that
and fuck'em but
my spit hits the balcony
instead
and I give up
decide to lay down

break my pencil with
one easy tilt toward the floor.

Take a Hike

on a perpendicular street
off the main highway drag
up about one block--no parking on
either side--
the waiters are crooning
to the scents of the classic
american breakfast-- two eggs-
two sausage-two bacon-two pancakes-
side of home fries and hot coffee served
steaming from the pot-butter popping on
the flat iron grill--and
scattered tables of one
sit patiently ingesting the newspaper
news and the tv news and
hushed conversational news, it
seems like it always was the same but
it isn't-- it's older and newer
in a way that isn't approachable
or recognizable--the past is a concrete
existence that's wholly untouchable
a destination that can't pointed out--

the ceiling is reflected pockmarked and
stained in the shiny metal trimmed
tables refracted underneath--we're all wearing
black but ya just can't see
the dripping white shadows,

the melancholy distances we've gone.

Ticket is a one way gig

at the forefront of the
descending universe I wait for you
the same way I've always waited,
my body aging, my mind reaching like
bending light leans toward the ascension-
engine of the godhead in the
awakening that is near--oh, I am
spoiled by sleep that is nearer, easier
makes my lies sweeter
in syracuse the streets are white
in dc they are strewn with homeless dreaming
they don't make sense

I plan on waiting out the wind,
to watch the layers mesh
in contrail skies,
to suck the life from chemically laced water fountain
speed,

I plan to get a ticket on that greyhound
headed for the center of universal
truth.

as Dying

a single plane rising
into the wet night, storm clouds
veering off--why even give them
a name, ya--why waste the
time for headline-thought-line-
hook-line-and-sinker--for the
ratings game, no? for reality
shifting seduction--

please press enter
enter enter enter on the
start menu menu

one button finish finish
once you're in it doesn't matter
doesn't turn off for 70+ - 80+ years

it's why Keats lost it that's why Burroughs
just wouldn't die and why Kesey
disappeared into the ether of
northern Oregon,

I've got in sealed up in my brain too
those building blocks those sinister
ideas planted and watered like
bleak flowers without dreams of sun,

within the
prison system brain funnel fire-hydrant
plan--it's what's moving the storm--I'm
swelling up, allergic to the scene
get the mind-freeze cocktail
recipe out the trash
We'll all drink up under these
no-stars no-moon skies
c'mon there was never anything to lose
and no such thing--

Snow Day

They'll protect us from the
rain by locking each and every roof
exit protect the stars too
and the lonely sky while they're at it
cause we're dangerously dangerous
if we go on thinking what's that
above our shrinking heads
not on the mud and green
ground that sucks at our feet--like
let's go about blaming invisible things
for why we're stuck on this never
ending circle why don't we?-- we'll never be able to
prove it's a circle with our own
little blue teary 100-year-eyes and mist--
it's human like in the gray rain of rainy
forecasts that are so damned wrong but always
trusted--oh, hell I mean where else can
a guy go for this kinda insight and it's no-
where but a day off from work --
or wage slavery or sold into wage soulless
drudgery--or sleeping indoors,
or whatever--
yeah, I've said more than I care to understand
or prove but, well, I'd like to think
I rambled my way to another 24 hour
let down
and an unmade bed.

Plug in

Quickly to the live feed
stab your brain in and let
the truth in, it's delicious
candy flavored this time I saw the
Jujyfruit advertisement last night
during the sponsored news hour that runs from
12 to 12 on the DOT
just so you don't have to take
a break to think of
something that isn't bleeding
from this thought construct playground,
anyway, plug in, like I said
it's objective reality, only the
real here folks promise, only that which needs
to be said--for your informative
brains, for your information--
interrupting every broadcast
right before the climax
to find some other conflict
some other preconditioned memory lapse,
maybe it'll be better told by
a pretty face--a holographic smile--
a senile whimper, a considerate nod--
let these LCD cemeteries increase the speed of light
beamed down from the classical age,
apathy and entropy and colored
sprinkles on your after-dinner ice-
cream sundae--ordered before the
phone was conjured out of primordial
birth fields--NOW
Quickly to the live feed
it starts any minute on the minute
every minute
NOW

Afternoons

So when I start a
poem like this
in the dying embers of Saturday
afternoons among the
static powder clouds of
the skyline straight-line
concrete earth, I think
of the heart of the river
that flows and beats not so far away,
I think of its end for one
land and its prophesy for
the beginning of the new,
I think of dipping my hand in-
to its great immemorial current
that follows gods finger carved
to the sea, and before the lights go
out I am somehow content in
all my sadness and the moon shines
over eastern lands.

Doodles

I had a scribbled
scrawled scratch lifeless on some
paper that's lost its meaning
in the lines of nothing perpetually
undefined. It's a cause for madness
a breach into the eternal transference
of void to reality
a clock image for my brain--a frozen
static thought--staring into
the eyes that
gave it life--but no hope
in naming it--with no name
no function, no guard, nor power,
it's existence traveled  in an
after-belief sepulchre ignored,

I am as forgotten
as it will be,
I have played god and
failed, lacking truth,

I have left the hands ticking
ticking ticking ticking, weakness--
ruling eons ending life--I have
no reason to rejoice or cry,

This sad shred crumbled in
a thousand years out of loneliness,
I yearn to see it buried

I will raise a blank tombstone
over its grave
and burn a history of roses.