Fur

between my eyes and sewer grate

from one life to another the time debt of years apart

the sphere of birth and death;

I am

willed along

through these

spaces

with no say

leaving many hands behind

like

typing fingers in the dark

one key off; 

some sense of unrequited something

some sense of
bitterness;

loss

Jesus Christ, what am I supposed to be Jesus Christ?

An antimicrobial antiseptic golgotha,

three faults on the coastline of california,

melted cities wait to sink into the sea,

factories pour breathable chemicals into the air,

spring water runs into plastic bottle labels,

the great mass of the earth sleeps in landfills,

festering in its scar the great mammalian apocalypse,

metal veins mark the droning path of history,

weird drawn out wards starve out the next ice age, etc.

Post-A/C

It was the last
night
on earth
and the a/c was
broken,

there were
sex shops on every
corner
selling any kind
of fruit you could
imagine,

the children had
strawberry blood in
their hair
on their hands,

radios in the
houses that lined
the last street
cycled through
the top 100
playlists,

each decade started
1900 2000 30-

it was impossible
to forget what
you were doing
when it happened,

it was impossible
to continue to
do it,

the sun was
shaped like a
mushroom cloud
like a bomb
from heaven,

like an egg
the moon broke
yellow milky yolk
fried on dark teflon
canvas overhead,

everyone was there
to watch and
when it was over
they smiled toothless grins
and left with empty
sockets where the
eyes had been,

this was the last
night
on earth
written with
its last
pen

crosswinds

caught a glimpse of an
old man crying, having lived
anonymously 98 wasted years
unrecognized, seized his
aged heart in helpless wrinkled hand,
going with nothing to prove
his existence but frayed
stack of journals, unread,
unappreciated, piles of emotions
unrequited, ignored,
asked why me? with blind eyes
used to seeing so much, begged
for the probationary clause of god's whim,
wondering why not me?
what did I do wrong? was I not good enough?
what didn't I say?
and
I didn't have the time to
pick his lifeless body from the street
or say a meaningless word,
what with all the poems
blowing away--

Sorry

How does it go?
140 miles from my haloed
head, my ignorant
pearly bones hunched down
in familiar seats, future
   
     a billion star systems
     burning into the inconsequential
     veins of the subway fabrication
     drawing the late straw
     by minutes unfortunate
 
          I'm left as always, sorry &
          on the outside, a familiar
          stanza, ah, metered apology

remember my cadence,
I'll surely be here again.

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.

Remember that time I pissed in the soda machine?

All the pretty failures
laid to rest--
it's thanksgiving in
the war night for the turkey
in the desert-- horizon seeker--
mining the fields day and
night "if only some rain would come"--
wipes sweat from brow--
in the projection farmland,
a singular shape of overalls
and old slouch hat--"then
we could eat and eat good"
--or they'd grow--the stalks--
long and tall and frighteningly
beautiful--like we're told to
imagine war is--the crooked righteous
cause for saints and martyrs
and kissing booth fools--
all the pretty failures
rising up to meet us--
toothless eyeless howling
grinning starving scratching
mass grave digging hysteria--
all the pretty failures
stretching back infinitum out
to entropy--engulfing the history of earth space
pure godly intimate loving barbaric bucolic civilized
smelling of death's hands--

all the pretty failures buried underfoot
waiting to grow.

of every no-thing

And so I return to the machine
of every no-thing and golden
oblivion--I step forward
watching past and future recede--
a chilling wind on my perception
mind--I am a battered hopeless
shell losing more of myself
everyday--decayed--
but is that right or wrong?
sometime--often times--
the wrong pieces tear at me,
I'm forgetting where they
begin or how much they know,
if it is they know at all--
without memory or peace,
there is no goal but to
forget in sublime failure
the reason--the cause--
the foundation of all things
being one thing but now many
sad individualized separate things--

And so I return to the machine
of every no-thing and golden
oblivion each night to confess
my sins

Untitled by Choice

I passed the salt to
my dental brain,
thoughts out/fluoride in,
the street is a string of
lights and I walk on tip-toe
to the entrance of the thing--
what it is? No one can say
but it sparked the beginning
and it will bring the end (what
I heard on nobody street
from the nameless man) a ghastly
thunderbolt and the sky
is rent by burning barrels
and stories without theme
or meaning or are they meaningless
to the plot just rambling truths,
I am at the entrance
I have already entered
I'll be standing outside forever
for all time and without end,
I passed the razor over my eyes
nothing left of our sanity
but to wait blindly,
but to wait obediently.

Unfinished

Aw Christ,
cast me off onto some road
along blue skies and
plains without fences
and it's just green flat
golden free land as far as
my eyes can see, which I pray is
too far to follow--great beautiful
America that I've been chasing
after for God knows how long
and which I fear I'll never
find or catch or run fast enough
to escape what's coming for me--
a concrete existence and bottom
of my soul unhappiness forever--
I see it before me and it stings my eyes,
the future, is it out there?--or here?--
and it's like I have no choice.

End the World

She's got a ringtone whistle
eating day-glo cake on the sidewalk
mistletoe street, the cats are all
backed up in the alley counting fish bone
soup tickets, skin stickin' to their little ribs,

nearby the greyhound bus is flying
pink flags for the pirates on I-95
who won't pull the colors over because
everyone on the bailout sheet is sure
they've got bigger rigs to fry,

catch that bum Bodhisattva crossin' the highway
facing on coming traffic both ways,
with the checkered bag and picnic memories
canned beans and anachronisms,
no money and homeless outside or within
city limits peppered limits limits of the void
ball machine chaotic glitter thunderstorm swelling,

a dimensional rift has opened out
toward Pennsylvania and 17th
on a grey old day like other old gray days
before, behold the godhead apocalypse in the
guise of falling lambs delicately painted by
fluorescent crayon wax descending,
listen up it's the nothingness abyss that'll suck us all in,
not the hooded pantry snakes and dreaded jungle gyms,

these are just the signs I've imagined from
my windowed seat.

Shooting

I'm a poet
wanting more, fuck--
a chance to be big failure and sell out,
cum on my book, books, novel, novella for highest bidder
on movie paramount pictures set and
say fuck it, I'm done with it
I've nothing left

Epilogue

This is the second piece
that makes no sense because
you
haven't
read
the first
which is vanished into the blistery corners
of my brain
and
was really
meaningless anyway
and probably would have left you
even more confused.

Yes
feel
lucky
you're only reading the end
always feel lucky
about that.

Baby it's a dream away from reality

fix up these stitches
on my eyes rolling forward
     into the past I made up
the part I thought up
while we was walking in the cold
     not so cold wintry VA
I need to wet them in the shower

the guns outside are clean
not yet fired, but the crowds
are thick and vacant,

the matrix atop the tower
the bodies in cages underground
dreaming of a constantly shifting reality
a school, three unwanted plotting,
tho we can't steal the...something,
then it all blows up killing each other,
there's no reason...

then a house in the mountains, changing
scenarios but my fevered mind catches on,
I leave and come back, the landscape, beautiful
too green and sparkles red, pink, yellow
to be real, folds up onto itself in the distance,
the house is brick, mortar,
wood, a cabin, Victorian

the lights aren't on, but I'm holding you anyways
why does this thing light up and burn?

they
      are
          coming
                     FOR
                             me
                                  FOR
                                           me

I've run so long
long
long
long

the crotch is torn out the bottom of my shorts
I'm not worried, worried about anything
I'll wake up, drink a glass of milk

it's so cold out I'll probably burn

I don't care anymore, this is my life

Who'd ever heard a'
gas station turnpike New
Jersey swamps? Driver AWOL and
no ones got the balls to step up and drive
this sonuvabitch double decker blue beauty
PA bound over quotable Ben Franklin
& his darling bridge (also blue)-- My
murky brown-green waters like jewelry
in the sun, crackle hiss miss
in golden summer rays rays, this
must be the road the gators take
to New York sewers circa 1888 on
weekend vacations from Florida
tired a' golfers lost their 80 dollar
Topflite balls and go divin' clear
everglade water hazard arms dun
been bit right off "Oh, holy shit Christ!"
the government'll reattach it, or watch ya
die, just mark off your sosh, three-two-four
it's what ties us to those great heroes
of American pasts, Oh, and the income tax, too

Now let's get this bus a' rollin' south mama so's
I can ice this knee Broadway tired
and Broad Street stoned;

We're alone on Bus little sailboat, sailing down
only you and me, we're floating home
or away from home or whatever home is
anyways, and where we're going?
I don't know...

Let's be quick about it

Once they drop the bomb
all will be fine,
its got flowers inside,
and water and honey and food,
green and lush
propelled into the
burning the air,
reshaping our dreams
and smelling of cheerful death

Engaged

I wanted to write a poem for you
because you're sad,
one you'll never read or know,
but one that will stay here and age,
an unremembered  reminder of ends
and beginnings, of
growing old, and
staying the same.