An update to today

Nothing seems more right
then reading Bukowski while taking
a shit; and why do all the little
girls in Chinatown wear purple
winter coats? Yesterday I slept,
woke up, got a bus, slept, found you
sleepy and sick in your bed, slept,
dreamt I was Apocalypse coming to usher
in the end of the world, I reveled in that
thought, the end, the beginning, death and
life and all that, I was in a theatre, someone
had written a musical about my godlike feats,
I watched it from the balcony VIP, but I couldn't remember
her name, I called her Ashley and was wrong,
woke up had dinner, a cold turkey sandwich
from 7-11 (Joe would be proud) then turned in
for the night with you coughing and wheezing, and
me feeling you up,
I am sorry
I left for the night
into my running head
to nothing
and now I'll leave Bukowski
in the bathroom for you to find and ask
why?
So I can laugh and we
can go to
bed together
because it makes sense

Merry Christmas Ma

Hey me and mike set the decorations up,
we set them on the tree, weighed the branches
found the empty space, Renee took a picture
from the couch, hey we set the lights,
two series and the gold garland,
my mom watched wishing she could help,
she loves Christmas, loves the magic,
I act like a child for her (even though
I want to be a child for myself) she needs this,
she needs her family and the lights and the cheer
to make make up for all her years growing up
with nothing, that's what's up the chimney, you
see, not the dark, hey that's what I understand after all
these years and I'd give them all, I do, We want to, and
I'll act like this forever because she deserves it, I'll be a child
under the tree, watching it glitter with ornaments nearly
30 years old, the accumulation of a selfless life
is worth anything I can give

We look at you

I saw your craigslist ad,
I nearly cried, 39 years
old and no one left to watch tv,
looking for someone 30-40
to hang out with at their home,
or someone elses home, a home
you don't know, haven't known,
they've lived all their lives without you,
you starting over at 40, on the internet
looking like this, typing this and leaving
it for us to find, and we look at you
unable to understand what makes
someone do this, on white screens
with black type, and it's like
every lie we tell ourselves about
life before bed were washed away,
leaving nothing but the truth we pretend
isn't there

The Corsica

The window above
seems open, tho I can't
feel the winter winds burying
my old car in ice across the street,
so tomorrow, with wool hat pulled
down tight and jacket zipped
up to my chin, I'll be out there like
an ice fisherman chopping away at the outside and,
Christ, the inside of the damned thing
all frozen, and when it melts it'll short
out my radio, drip by drip
causing the digital clock to read
1:Ho or 1:68 and Joe says it like,
"Oh, it's one-H-zero!" outside the diner
where Den had to get Spaghetti and garlic bread
with no meatballs, and we drank coffee together
into the night thinking, what are we gonna do now?

Dreams in December

You, I saw you in my dreams
clawing at me again, it was like
the reality I feared, that you had been
planning for me, and tho in the dream
we had never left, in the world I'd
forgotten you came for me, in the subway
a chance meeting, someone tried to help
me, to get between us, but you're always
so angry, so pained, are you like that
still? If so, I won't believe you;

I ran and found a car, maybe in this
hard yellow light I could escape
but somewhere in my dreams
I end up losing control of the car,
the wires are crossed or...another
thing...I forget about you, and what
you want, if it's anything at all,

I gasp in the seat of the car
curled up and freezing in the cold
metal of the cold outside, I gasp and
come to terms with this shaking reality,
it's the morning, it's December, you're
out there in the blackness of black hole
space maybe dreaming of me too, I let that sink into
the frozen blanket that's my memory

My Plastic Sunlight Room

The sunlight's got a look
like plastic out my picture
framed window, but inside against
the white paint chipped sill everything
looks old and dusty and oil painted,

I can see every layer of the third
dimensional space getting older
and even myself, my cells bursting,
dying, aging, bursting, dying, the slow
process of death washing over me,
inevitable,

I watch the plastic sun smiling,
giving off no heat, only shadow light,
but still beautiful and somehow new,
new even though it is
untold billions of years across time
and running the same old route everyday
unfathomable,
and I am here forgetfully insignificant
hung up mourning the irony of the number 27

Gray

I thought about publishing a blank page
but then I started typing
and it all seemed foolish, like the sun
coming out at 4 o' clock
when it looked like rain all day
even when I walked you back to work
though I forgot what I did coming
back, I do that sometimes
think back and wonder if maybe I crossed
the street into traffic or fell
down a manhole, maybe I'm not here typing
in some serotonin nightmare final
gasp, maybe the sewer doesn't smell
as sweet as your room, maybe I'm
just suffering down here with
a broken leg; I don't know,
it all makes sense for a few seconds when
I gather up those memories and place
them one by one beside your
cold bed

Visions of Chinatown

"Mommy, are we in China?"
says the cute little girl in
purple flannel patterned winter
jacket,
as her mother buttons up her hood,
"No baby, we in Philly," and
they're looking for something to eat
that isn't this rundown dirty tiled
bus station, while they await the two
hour trip to New York where their
cousin will pick them up, I overheard
when she was using some guys
phone (he had two for some reason, took one
out of his pocket for her to call, he must carry on
in case strangers ask for his phone;
he thinks ahead)
wearing a button down and a sweater
over top, it was purple too,
I thought that was kind of a funny
coincidence, while I waited and then a
green vested guy called, "New York bus,
New York bus, outside!" and everybody
ambled out to fight for a spot in line,
except me and a loving couple sharing
their lunch, until I realized it was too small
containers not one, so they weren't sharing,
They were huddled together tho,
and that's something,
I guessed they were headed to DC
too, or maybe they didn't care about getting
to New York on time,
either way we'd sit across from each other
saying nothing

Memories

Remember when I sat on that
couch in Hyattesville, MD, I all
but owned the first floor and the
shower in the corner past the kitchen
with its black ants crawling up the
wall and getting wet by the hanging
shower head--crawling on my clothes,
sliding into the sink--those fucking ants,
I couldn't save them and they
followed me into that small green
tiled foggy cell;
Remember how I'd watch them
uneasily while undressing, like the slugs
slithering across my kitchen floor in
dead-winter, thinking, "What the fuck am
I doing here?"

What Dreams May Come

Opaque sky splitting heaven
and I sat on my back looking up
at the ceiling and imagining the time
we had left, that I can't count because
only you know the date, I left my hoodie
on and my shoes and I just watched the
darkness growing old, thinking is life
ever going to stop and why is the earth
cursed with the passage of time? I hated it.
I fell asleep and felt I was falling somewhere
too soon, do you think maybe after we lose here
we could meet again? I was hoping so when it
all seemed so unreal, but now it's heavy and my eyes
reflect the sun, my shoulders are sagging toward the
page, I cried that night and ignored the feel of the
tears running down my face, it was 5:37am

I dunno

There's pulsing lights
that work to numb my brain and whit
watches me slowly drowsing, he's
slowly drowsing, into the night
only a touch in front of the morning
like all nights growing darker then suddenly
empty and bitterly engulfed by the sun;

I saw you hail a taxi
somewhere beyond my memory

I crashed, I'm disgusting, a sleeping wasted
soul on these hardwood floors
my mattress barely holds it's shape
tonight

tonight is never brightening night
Whit takes a long breath reflected
in the mirrored glare, re-situates himself
waits for my hand, often he's meowing our
heads off, but now he's in another space,

what am I thinking? eh--
I jump up, my chair squeaks
my chair is thinking these things
by itself, a glass is cleared
and the morning yellow fast approaches;

I don't want a lot for Christmas

The radio is already like "Hey,
you piece of shit it's Christmas
get to buying those presents!" and Mariah
Carey is trying to tell me that there is
something more beyond what we see,
I don't know who to believe sometimes
but I do know that ABC family is not yet ready
to countdown those Debbie Macomber 25
days of Christmas programming when my mom will be
baking baking baking until we're all so tired of
cookies and she's crying watching an angel
save a father/son/mother/daughter relationship,
I mean, it ain't even Thanksgiving and I'm supposed to
imagine Rankin Bass claymation in the streets? I'll play
your music anyway, and my little statue of Jesus
is probably gonna cry because my uncle prays all
night but hates the Christmas tree, I guess he's
read Ezekial...shhhh that's a secret too; my secret,
and last night someone vandalized? vandalized the History
Channel Ancient Aliens Wiki...with a long grammatically
incorrect cryptic message about angels and extra-dimensional
beings and B101 was playing and I said to mike, "Jesus Christ,
I hope that mother fucker is right."

with a glass

Gray skies on a Thursday look
exactly like they did when that storm
wouldn't leave us alone over Indiana,
and we traveled at the same speed east until
the mountains stopped one of us, but not
our car which was going 90 without traffic lights
or shitty Pennsylvania drivers, who shit on you
and hate to be passed and hate to let someone
in their lane because you may get to someplace
before them and they just couldn't take it,
casting hateful suspicious faces out their windows
scowling at the driving world they race against, and
I drink my orange juice
silently in the morning gloom,
scratching my head and
thinking about these things

cute little love poem

Sometimes sitting by your side
I become enamored with the world
but lose my sense of it, I walk away
without a thought or memory of
what I saw, what color were the trees,
what did you say to me as we tripped
over uneven sidewalks, how bright was
the afternoon sky, were there clouds to shade
our eyes? Sometimes leaving you
numbs me until I stare out moving windows
for 3 hours without a word, sometimes I wonder
if you feel it too, sometimes I pretend these
wheels are traveling back to you

Evening

It's time to write something pretty
about artificial light shining in my face,
unplug it like god will the sun on some
Mayan afternoon. It's a prophesy I am
sure I came up with and am about to
implement in my mind in the world
I'm still not sure is real on the eve
of leaving and returning--

I'll pack a picture of you
maybe in your bathing suit to remind
me what I've left behind on the road, remind
what's in front of me on the road, but
what do I need that's alright? alright,
what do I need that's real? Real, I'm
not sure yet...I'm not empty yet,
to be ready to fail and laugh and love--
I've got wheels under my feet
and that's just the way I hope it
always stays. Ignition.