My dad shouted up that the
Space Lab was passing overhead in
The next few minutes

I put on my adidas and a hoodie
And stood in the snow and mud
Of the front yard trying to find the
Passing station as it traveled past
Hundreds of miles up

It was more excited than I had seen
My father in a long time
And I was glad to be out there with him

We almost missed it
But I caught it in the chalky
Luminescence of the moon
It glided past easily
And my father shouted excitedly
I stared straight up and took all the air
Into my lungs between the passing station
And my body on the ground

Until it was lost
In the sanguine of the night sky
Like my father's excitement
It passed too quickly

And we ventured back inside
To watch TV in separate rooms

Under harsh street lights
And a rusted skeletal overpass
We walked in the syrupy
Silence of a Sunnyside Saturday
Night

A man asked me in accented
English
"Want that burrito spicy?"
"Yes"
His eyebrows go up
"Spicy?"
"Yes, ******* spicy!"

He smiles to himself
Reaches back into the food truck
And pours sauces and
Liquids of varying color
And viscosity into the
Tortilla

Wraps it up for me
Gives me my change
And waves me off with a smile

When we get back to the apartment
She is mad
Because I choose to make love to the
Burrito instead of her
I can't help it
Drunk eating is one of the
Forbidden joys of life

She slams the door and
Shuffles around yelling
By the time I'm done the burrito
She is telling me to sleep on the couch
Which is fine because I can't
Feel my mouth anyway
The burrito is so **** spicy

I tell her this and that her
Kisses would be wasted
If she wants to waste her time
With me, I want to feel it

We sleep together for
The night

I was at an art museum and
I saw these girls snickering around a
Collection of black and white photographs
In a corner of the gallery

As I approached they moved on
But not before I heard one of them say
"Who wants to look at pictures of an old guy's ****"

The photographs in question did have a rather large picture
Of an old man's *****, but there we’re others
Pictures of his hands, feet, face
All zoomed in enough that you could see his skin
In detail

In the wrinkles, freckles, and weathered lines
Of this old man you could see an entire
Lifetime on display
The time etching into his surface
Like the needle into a warm wax cylinder
The song of his years played as lines and furrows

A venerable road map of a life lived

As for the ****
I'm sure that thing had some miles put
On it too.

Who knew that the cure
For a mind stricken with grey
Was leaves on the breeze?

When you make a
Chili dog you never
Forget to slice the onion
Into translucent white
Slices and make sure
Your mustard is dotted
With brown flecks

Make sure you have a tall
Frosty beer the color of
October sunsets
Lay back in a chair
And kick your feet up
For me

When your song comes
On your headphones
Dance like a chimpanzee
Amongst Ikea furniture for me

Don't think of me
When the sky is stained
Pink orange and aqua
Think of something better
Something that is real
Something whole
That doesn't want what
Everyone else wants it
To want

When you stand next to
My coffin
Throw an orchid for me
Or whatever flower is
Cheapest because honestly
I don't know what you're
Throwing

Make sure the soil is
Heavy and wet
Make it clump over the
Cross I didn't want
On the top of my
Pine box

Make sure you think about
How roots and grass
Will grow through me
Eat me and grow
Without a thought

If nature ceased to
Persevere
Humanity would be
Absurd in its
Reckless building
Destroying and poisoning

When you look at my
Pine box think about
Repetition and death
Think about moments
Of brilliance and the years
That beat them back
Remember that hollowness
Is its own form of substance

Most importantly
Remember that a chili dog
Needs onions
And that one day
Your corpse
No matter where it lays
Will fertilize future life

And the circle eats its own tail
Its own tail
Its own tale

Surrender your meager twitching
To the echoing riff of the complete
Watch yourself dissolve
Into the void's cast shadow
Let your panic be snuffed
By the beating of bees wings
And the sorrowful violin
Of crickets legs
At dusk

There was a particularly nasty looking garden spider
Crawling up the cracked molding of my window
Not that he looked particularly nasty compared to other spiders
In fact, up close, spiders are one of the wisest looking creatures that exist

But I don't have eight eyes like the garden spider
So I can't see that without the help of a camera lens
So to me, he just looked
Nasty

Buzzing from behind my curtain
A particularly nasty looking yellow jacket
Landed next to the spider
I didn't need a camera lens
Close up or far away
Some things are just
Evil

The spider must have sensed this too
With a leap
He grappled the wasp
And they tumbled
Buzzing
To my uneven hardwood floor
Landing with a small
Distinct plink

And I stood over them
While they tussled

As I have stood over a million things

Watching with glazed indifference
While creatures purer in their existence than I
Fought for their lives

I could see that the spider was doing poorly
The yellow jacket was giving it to him in the abdomen
Jamming his stinger in and pulling it out and jamming it in again
Until the spider started leaking white and green
And started fighting less and less

The yellow jacket
Smugly victorious
Save one crippled wing
Started to putter away
But I brought a rolled up newspaper down on the both of them
Like a pillar falling from the front of some great Roman temple
When the Gauls sacked it

Retracting the paper
They had both been reduced to wet smudges
I felt bad for killing the spider
I wish I could have trapped him in cup with a card over the top
And placed him outside on a leaf in the garden
So he could rule where he was meant to

But I considered it an act of mercy
I couldn't stand to see a noble being end like that
And you should always ***** out evil
If you have an opening

I sat back on my bed
Considering it a wash
A bit of beauty for a bit of order
As it has always been

Randy was a roach
Of the american cockroach variety
He was a deep brown and had a sickly shine
To his wings and antennae
And he studied both of us
From a perch in our suitcase
In my girlfriend's East Harlem apartment
In the early hours of a sunday morning

"**** it! Get it out of the suitcase!"
My girlfriend yelled
Flailing her arms
As Randy reclined on our valuables
His antennae twitching

As in most crisis
I hesitated
And Randy burrowed into the suitcase
Past the underwear, collard shirts, and sunscreen

I dug in a frenzy
Rending my girlfriend's meticulous packing plan
And scattering clothes about
All in the name of meaningless destruction

But I couldn't find Randy
"He's probably in the collar of one of your shirts, or in a pair of my shoes"
My girlfriend speculated
And I started shaking the clothes wildly about the room
Wanting more than anything to extinguish Randy's life
To sterilize our newfound stowaways presence
But I never found him
And Randy boarded the plane with us to ***** Cana

While our plane painted dizzying contrails over the ocean
We speculated about Randy's
Most likely devious activities
"I bet he's eating the granola bars under my bikinis"
"I bet there is more than one in there"
"Maybe he's dead?"
"I bet he's laying eggs"
We both pondered over the fact that Randy could be Rhonda
And that we would open the suitcase to a scattering of near microscopic progeny
And we clutched each other in the cold, recycled air of the cabin

When we got to the room
Past all the tin shacks and open air bars
Where the locals sat in plastic lawn chairs
Staring at the tourist shuttles
That carted pale skin behind tinted windows
To decadently decorated rooms where the towels were folded into swans
We opened the bag to see if Randy
Had surfaced, died, or multiplied

But Randy was no where to be seen , a phantom
We unpacked everything under the utmost scrutiny
Not trusting any of the items we had packed so lovingly and repacked
Shaking cover ups and tee shirts like the wind shakes the leaves in autumn
But he never presented himself
And we saw none of his foul brood
We even unzipped the lining
But Randy had simply vanished
Evaporating into the humid, tropical air

I like to think that Randy is somewhere on the island still
That he has impregnated or has been impregnated
That he spends his days under the intense sun
And cottony wisps of clouds
Sipping Presidente
Sitting under an umbrella made of dried palm fronds
Happy to be away from the honking horns and crowded subways
Just like we were

Two fat young
Robins sit on a
Power line
Reaching off my
House

They don't make
Talk under pink
Clouds and a
Tangerine sunrise

They are serene
Perched in silence
They sense my
Envy and fly
To a neighboring
Tree

As I head out
To my car  
I can hear them
Talking
Probably laughing
At me

There is no torture
As great as being a man
At a dress fitting

A most deceiving mask
A coiled contemplation
A look of despair and woe

The grimace of pain
The coming of rain
The stubbing of a toe

My sweet love
I am ready to confess to every sin
The rumbling of the gut
The raising of the ****
The flatulence's raucous din

But lo!

This is not a measly prairie wind
That passes lazily through the tall grass
This is a grinning of the devil
A demon's carefully constructed bevel
A hell fire that rips from your ***!

From what I thought was my own fault
To cause you such a look
Twas' a stalk of broccoli
A sprout of Brussels
A miscalculation by the cook

So white knuckle my dear
Hold tight for life
As your intestines come trembling out
Whatever you ate
My succulent date
Is making your **** shout

But bless the heavens
And all that is eternal
That this has come to pass
What I thought was the end
The loss of my friend
Was just a spot of gas.

When I had a job I felt
Like I was always grasping
For time, any time that I
Could pull towards me
Like air bubbles drifting away
From deflating lungs deep
Under thrashing waves
I don't know what I wanted to
Do with it I just know that I
Had to pull it towards me

Now all I have is time
It is a comforting and alarming
Concept

Now, what is the excuse?
Where is your novel?
Why aren't you in shape?
Why haven't you gotten your flu shot?
Why isn't the house clean?
What's your purpose?

Meditating on these points
In the syrupy folds of the clocks
Hollow ticking
I find that life is
Boxes to be checked to keep
Everyone else off your back
While you try to figure
Where to even start

They put her in a
Curtained cubicle
Surrounded by
Beeping machines
And all types of
Wires and terminals
A trashcan and
A dripping faucet

When they rolled her in
They gave her
Morphine
Sodium chloride
And a pat on the head

"She's lucky"
The nurse said
As he lowered the gurney
"A lot of people have
No one show up"

And he left the room
Pulled the curtain closed
We were left with the
Tranquil beeping of
Faceless terminals
And the dripping faucet

Another nurse came in
With a clipboard
And started asking us
Questions
Apologizing for
The beeping
"It's like Chinese
Water torture"

Then she left
Pulled the curtain closed
And when the
Heart monitor
Started beeping
We pushed the
Silence button like
They showed us

We were left with
The sterile squeaking
Of the soles of sneakers
And hollow whispers
In the hallway
And the dripping faucet

A buddy of mine
Hes gotten into some real bad ways
You'd never know it by looking at him
He seems nice
Put together
Smells like Irish Spring
Packs his own lunch
Keeps a girlfriend around enough to call her a girlfriend

We grew up together
He taught me about a lot of things
In my innocence and subsequently
My stupidity
His views were always skewed
But they were pure
He just said what he thought
We consummated our friendship by ramming our bikes into each others shins
Until someone bled

Eventually, like most people
He took on a nasty habit
Of regurgitating other peoples opinions

The girlfriend that he keeps around
He got drunk on new years
And passed out on the couch
And woke up in such a rage
That he smashed most of the furniture in his apartment
And bit her on the hand

He never told anyone what he was so mad about
He just pleaded with the cops not to take him to jail again
Last time he was there he was so hammered
That he masturbated in the corner of the holding cell
While screaming about fascist pigs
I think the cops were relieved when she didn't press charges

He also thought that she was ******* her brother at one point
He was completely convinced by a few misinterpreted words
And cried so much at work that they had to send him home
Turns out it was completely fabricated  

Like his mother
He feeds into baseless paranoia
It's eating away at his brain like a fungus
Branching out into sticky webs and toadstools
Choking off the few emerald vines of sanity he has left
Until the ends turn brittle and snap like matchsticks

I feel bad that I ignore most of his texts and calls
But I don't think that friends should try to use you
The way that a panicked airline crash survivor attempts to use their seat cushion
When they're navigating flaming wreckage
In the middle of the ocean

That said
Sometimes I still see the person I used to know
His doll eyes soften and the cataracts of self conviction clear
And it's like watching someone crawl out of a bomb shelter
And see the sun for the first time in years

But then
Half a fifth of liquor is missing
And he's ranting nonsensically
Peeling the paint with his breath
And I do my best to laugh along until I can slip out the door

On my way home
With the windows down and the sunroof open
With the cool air rushing around me
I usually realize how I could have been dealt the same hand he was
And I stare up at the hole punched stars
Until the car drifts onto the gravel covered shoulder
And the rumble strip makes my tires groan

It's the same every time
Waking up in a panic
The hangover's dull
Gradual throbbing
The amplification of existence's malaise
Reducing my feet
To a slow shuffle

My girlfriend has been calling it the same way
For six years
"You'll get up and check your wallet and make sure you have your keys"
And I do
She's beautiful because she's right
She's also gorgeous
But continually right

I get up and slip my fingers into the
Many compartments of my wallet
Making sure I feel the greasy
Cold plastic of the credit cards

The three IDs
One to drive a car
One to carry a gun
One to count as a person

And the flood of relief I feel
When I finger these plastic cards
Is alarming
How my mind jumps from jovial
Drunken thoughts
To hard
Plastic ones
In the midst of sleep
At ungodly hours of the morning

My identity personified
In polyurethane rectangles

I get back into bed
And again
After confirming that all
The clasps that keep the mask
Snug to my face
Are still there

I embrace her warmth
Under the thin comforter
She drapes her leg across me
While I kiss her forehead
"You smell like liquor"
Before browning out again

I woke up late this morning
It took me awhile to get out of bed
And when I did
I contortioned my body at odd angles
To squeeze all the sleep out of my bones

I looked out on the backyard as I peed
And saw two cardinals hopping around
Bright splotches of red in the overgrown grass
They stood facing each other chirping loudly
I couldn't tell for what until I saw
The female, brown and plain, standing by
On the banister of the deck
Watching the standoff

One of the red males fluttered up next to her
And she took off, not satisfied
The one still in the grass took off madly after her
The one on the banister galloped its length before taking off
Like a rolling lit firecracker
Its fuse too long

They both flew towards the house
Out of view
I scurried down stairs
Mildly overweight, hair sticking up at odd angles
Like a ball of broken glass
Thundering down the steps
The most ungraceful of all creation
Lumbering and over excited

When I got the back window
All three of the cardinals were in a wet clump
Of purple flowers that had opened themselves
To the scant sunlight of an overcast day
The female jumping and chirping excitedly
The two males weaving and bobbing in and out
Of the flowering bush, a pair of dueling sowing needles
Trying to knit the song of success

And then they saw me
My shirt an unnaturally bright electric blue
My face pressed stupidly to the glass
My grin unnatural and dreamy
As I watched this common display
That is still dazzling to me as I think about it
And they all flew off at once
To settle their matters elsewhere

We're there early to set up
As they tow the cars
Parked along the street
Adorned with bright red
Tickets under their windshield
Whipers

A man appears from a
Windowed apartment building
Door yelling in spanish
He gets in one of the cars
Gets out and takes the ticket
Off the windshield
Gets back in cursing
In spanish
And peels out of sight
Around the corner

I carry this pit
With me everyday

Sometimes it's in my
Stomach
My back
My neck
The bottoms of
My feet
The back of my
Mind

It never goes
Away
It just moves

It seems to grow
Barbs when my
Thoughts shift
To it
As they usually
Do seemingly
Out of nowhere

Sometimes early
In the morning
Or late at night
Depending on how
You look at things
I can feel the pit
In mid transit

Looking for the
Discarded trash and
Snapped twigs of
A new nest
A new perch to
Take up residence

There is no point
To the pit
It is absurd
Because it exists
It is the
Materialization
Of all the

Rejected submissions
Sideways glances
Passing snickers
Passive aggressive emails
Shelves of unread books
Dust bunnies in the corner
Creaking of floor boards
Board meetings

Clenching of teeth behind
Closed lips

The fading din of a
Conversation as you
Enter the room

Obelisks of junk mail
That choke the
Arteries of the earth

Lies that canoe through
Your teeth into
The sea of
Pointless small talk

Time

A peach rotting
In a ceramic bowl
In a watercolor kitchen
Until the only thing left
Is the pit

You and I
Temporary

This house we sit in
Temporary

The love we share
(As strong as it is)
Temporary

All the skyscrapers in the world
Temporary

The streets and the sidewalks
Temporary

Every law, speech, and right
Temporary

Every person you pass on the street
Temporary

The piles of bills and gold hidden away behind massive vault doors
Temporary

The pain of a particularly bad day
Temporary

Every mistake and every triumph
Temporary

Your inclinations, opinions, and habits
Temporary

The ghost and the shell
Temporary

The printed words of men long since dead
And long since correct
Temporary

Every thick, coppery, snaking trail of blood
Every minuscule globule of spittle
Every boiling, salty tear
Temporary

The hatred of every person in every place in the entire world
Combined into one stinking stream
(As strong as it is)
Temporary

The soil that has run through your hands
The sand through the hourglass before it is flipped again
The rain that falls on humid August days
The whistling of the wind through broken windows panes
The sneaking of weeds tendrils through cracks in asphalt
Temporary

All
Forever
Temporary

My dad asks me if I have ever considered
Going back to school
To teach
"You'd be a great teacher" he confides
This after telling him that
I'd be working a second job

All the teachers I know
Are broke, unhappy, or quit
Or are bouncing around in substitute purgatory

Any bit of progress I seem to make
He treats like a step back
After graduating I guess he felt
That he was ripped off
When I didn't pull the next
Game of Thrones out of my ***
And buy him a Porsche 911

Those who don't create
Usually belittle the process
Acting like the muses
Are constantly rubbing your back
When in fact
They are stopping by
To take a piece of you with them

I was out the back door
On my way to work

I spotted a deflated balloon
Tumble-weeding across the
Back walk

I watched it topple
Lazily
Too crumpled and
Twisted in itself to
Move much

A strong breath of
Wind moved the
Shining, gaudy
Bladder up and
Off the back walk

As it blew past I
Read the words
"Happy Birthday"
Adorned with exploding
Multicolored confetti

I got in my car
And thought about
How much that balloon
And I have in common

Lurching over
A river that flows
So slowly that it
Becomes the sky's
Mirror

A bridge is stretched
Easily over it
Staring at itself
In its entirety
It's meticulously
Constructed arches
Become hollow mouths
In the rivers silvery
Surface

I want to visit
The river one day
As opposed to
Just passing over it
So I can watch
The belly of the day
Skip across the river
Like so many flat stones

I'm sure that
When the world ends
The sky will be beautiful

One of those days
That looks like a
Dollar store
Painted  landscape
In a chipped and dusty
Golden frame

I'm sure that
Everyone will probably
Have gone to work or
To the pool or
Out to eat or
Just sat like some
Seem to do

I'm sure that fog
Will settle on leaves
And bark in
A forest
Where deer and
Birds will graze
Unseen
Undisturbed

I'm sure that
The people
Will think about
All the stuff that
Sits in their houses
The cornucopia of
Usesless **** that they
Spent all of their lives
Trying to amass

I'm sure thoughts will
Wander to the
Dusty knickknacks
On bookshelves
Filled with those
Books that they
Meant to read

About the
Pots and pans
And cans of spam
The gourmet
Frozen meals
The fridge
The stove
The whole house

Melting into goo
They will think
About watching their
Ambitions
Hard work
Time
Money
Love
All going up
In flames

Subsequently,
It will

I'm not so sure
That you will be
With me when the
World ends

If that's true
The world has
Already ended
And I may as
Well be a pile of goo
In some wall street
**** birds mind
As the skyscraper
Crumbles from
Beneath his feet

Blame is such a
Contagious malady
It doesn't surprise me
That in our time
We both contracted
Terminal cases

I stopped being
Your son when I
Passed out at the reception
Spilling the pulpy remains
Of my 18th Mimosa
All over the table
While people were tapping
Glasses to makes speeches

You stopped being my
Mother when you
Told me you weren't
Making my birthday dinner
That you had made me for
26 years every August
Because it was more
Of a winter dish

You were my
Best friend when Dad
Was off banging his blonde
On business trips
When your daughter
Was off at college
Smoking *** and
Playing soccer on
A scholarship  

Inevitably
All things that make
Sense must be
Adulterated by something
That doesn't

It's a shame that
You had to seek that
Something out

I heard a girl
With her leg drapped
Over her boyfriend
On the train

"And like
I don't know why
I'm responsible for
The rent, chase
He should pay
All my rent and---"

Her boyfriend nodded
His head like an
Obedient boyfriend should
Many
"Yes babe"
"Chase should pay"
"You're the best"

I looked out the window
We had been stalled in
The sanguine of the
Penn station tunnel for
Fifteen minutes

Lots of trash
On those tracks
The smashed husks of
Super sized sodas
And the yellowed
Flayed remains of
Plastic bags

The materialization of
An entire species
Concentrated apathy
Decorating the lowest
Circle of its
Most desirable city

We pass an empty
Adjacent train
My eyes dart from
Window to window
The vacant seats
Face their respective
Directions and
The windows
Are still stained with
The fog of human heat

I think about
Islands made of plastic
In the middle of the
Ocean
And
How chase should
Pay the rent

A woman at my work
Resigned
Amid many tears
And bouquets of
Flowers

She'd been with
The same company
For twenty years

She made an announcement
To my coworkers and I
"Tomorrow everyone is
getting together at the
Tap house, you guys are
Welcome to come"

My one coworker
A bean pole with
A ***** blonde
Ponytail and goatee
Agreed to go
Before she had even
Finished speaking
He's 37 and
Still lives with his
Parents and has
No desire to do
Anything
He once told me
That he didn't get
Why people went to
The beach

"Why go to the beach
When I can sit by
My pool? There's nothing
The beach offers that
My pool doesn't"

Anyone that can't tell
The difference between
A chemically shocked
Puddle in a backyard
And
The vast living
Expanses
Of the ocean
Should be considered
A danger to public
Health

Plus
Like people with two
First names
I don't trust men
With ponytails

I figured I'd go
I don't mind most of
The people I work with
Except for the
Ponytailed ***** boy

But then I started
To think about all
The times that this
Woman had:

Purposely stepped over
The morning
Paper so that I would
Have to bring it in

Threw her hands
Up in disgust when the
Copier was out of paper
And told me to fill it
Over her shoulder while
Walking to her office

Told me to fill
The coffee maker
With water while she
Clicked her tongue
And painted her nails

Threw work on my desk
Without a word
Wandering off to a
Higher floor to
Chortle behind a closed
Door with one of the
CFOs or CEOs or
Whoever the ****

But worst of all she
Thought ventriloquists
Were genuinely funny

I figured
That after two years
She was the one
That should buy me
A drink

Watching the train tracks
Kiss and retract and
Kiss and retract
They meet and depart
Like a pair of silver lips

In the distance there are
A huddle of crumbling buildings
That used to be factories
Or warehouses
They're now bleached bones
Under a dusting of February
Snow

There is a silhouette cut out
Of a dog that stands in front of
Them, closer to the tracks
So close I almost missed it
I wonder what purpose it could serve

I suppose
To remind someone of
What once was
Or what could still
Be
A solid shadow to stand out
Against so much bleached
Bone

My teeth getting cleaned
I choose to hold in a ****
Becoming a man

Coming home from the train station
A hare scurries through my headlights
Across the road and is gone

I think about all the hares
And all the other snippets of life
That we never consider
Let alone comprehend

Early on
My T.V. was controlled
By my mother and older sister
Because of this
I have an immunity
To awful television

Americas Next Top Whatever
Growing up Whatever
The Housewives of Wherever
All the spinoffs
All the three week
Episodic backstory
Specials

Everything

I have found this taste in T.V.
Is engrained in most girls and women
Not all of them mind you
But most

From all of the
Nonsensical story lines
Wooden and awkward acting
Scripted life tragedies
Artificially inseminated arguments
Pointless and pedantic drama
Lifetime movies stick out

They are their own special breed
Because of this
They are beautiful
And I enjoy them immensely

So many meaningless sub plots
Badly framed shots
Ridiculous morals
Awfully choreographed action sequences
That have nothing to do
With the movie at all

In this way
They are their  
Own type of pure

I have no shame
Besides
There is no where else
That I can watch an hour and a half
Of a police woman
Being hunted by her surrogate
Who was her best friend
(Before she psychotically fell in love with
The police woman's husband)
While the police woman is
Haunted by the ghost of her
Dead mother who
Gives her advice
From beyond the grave

Finally
With the help of the ghost mother
The police woman
And her misogynistic male partner
(Who is no longer a misogynist
Because she is such a **** fine cop)
Corner the surrogate
Who now has an assault rifle
And they end up having to blow her
Away
Emptying their guns
As she yells out and spins
Too many times into some faceless
Mansion's swimming pool
Ending with a slow motion splash
And no charges pressed anywhere
On anyone

All of this
Played by the up and coming
Talent of yesteryear
And the same six
Recycled actors
Who butcher their lines and roles
So artistically
That tense and awful moments
Make me convulse with laughter

It is surreal
And totally worth the guilt
I feel for enjoying such
Rancidly composed filth

The mariachi band
Is playing dizzyingly
Next to our table
The guitarists
Hair wetly slicked
Back

"We live off of
Tips sir,
Anything
Will help.
Now, something
Romantic for
Your woman"

When they are
Finished their frantic
Strumming
I had him a
Folded 5

They dash off
To the next
Table

I slug a pounder
The beer inside is
Warm and the water
That runs through
The city is the
Same color as the
Water in Disney
World
Dyed that sickly
Turquoise grey

Tour boats cut
Small waves that
Lap the sidewalks
And the fat tourists
Feed tortilla chips to
Swarming clouds
Of small brown
Birds

Another warm
Swallow of beer
And the sunglasses
Perched in my
Greasy hair

Who needs a
******* job
Give me warm
Beer and sickly
Fake water and
A table with her

The floors are always too clean
So many feet and not a scuff anywhere
And it's too hot
From the crowds and the heat
Still cranked up in summer

All the store displays look the same
Ridiculously dressed mannequins and
A bunch of prepubecents
Cluttering around the entrance
Or worse
Pubescents spending their parent's money
To look like the mannequins

There is nothing of value on any
Of the three floors
Yet it's all marked up at a premium

I am no different
My eyes jump from window to window
Face to face
My mind working over time to take it all in
In my confusion maybe I'll start
Handing out my credit card
"Give me three of those"
"Six of these"
"As much of this as I can afford and then some"
"Thank you, thank you, thank you"

We can all go home mannequins
Faceless and frozen
We won't scuff the floors
Or crowd the stores
Just remain on display
A cheap plastic statue

I never realized
How many birds
There really are

They seem to melt
Into the landscape
As they hop
To and fro
In the manicured
Suburban shrubs
And pepper the sky
Floating in place
Against some unfelt
Wind current

While walking
I locked gazes with
A slate colored dove
And we stared
I don't know how
He felt about me
Or what he felt
About me

I thought he was
Elegant
Even though he was
The color of fresh tar
While it bakes
In the Pennsylvania sun
In some hazy culdesac
In the corner of some
Replaceable
Reproducible
Childhood

He hopped off his perch
A rusty sign post
That had been bifurcated
By some unknown
Bolt or hand

And skittered behind some
Sickly looking ferns
In a dirt patch of an
Unknown neighbors yard

A gang of Robins
Flittered over my head
Landing down the street
Passing a pinecone
Between them
Pecking and tearing at it

I looked behind
The sickly ferns
And found the
Unknown neighbors cat
Doing the same thing
To my slate colored dove

I shooed it away
It dropped the dove
Hastily
In the loose dirt
And retreated

I looked down at the dove
And it laid there
Its breast heaving
Silent
One eye cast into the dirt
The other looking up
Watching the same Robins
Fly back to where
They had come from


And the slate slowly
Turned sanguine
As its down became
Saturated with the
Run off from the
Puncture wounds

The cat sat off
A few yards away
Flicking its tail
Calico and smug

And I stood by
The dove as
The heaving slowly
Stopped
Ground to a
Halt really
And then the eyes
Weren't looking
At the sky or the dirt

I finally felt
That unseen
Wind
And continued
On my way

I had a dream
Where I sat in a
Gloomy room
And ate candy
Every different
Kind of candy I
Had ever had and
Some I had never
Seen before

This dream seemed
To stretch for days
Like most do
That strange
Taffy like distortion
Of time in the brain

When I woke up
My tongue was
Sandpapery and
I had a long
Hair tied around
My uvula while
The other end
Hung over my
Bottom lip

The candy must
Have tasted so sweet
Because the hair was
One of hers

It's hard to focus
When the fan blows hot trash smell
Through the apartment

Every time I'm drunk
I get really excited
About being drunk

I have seen many non wild things
Sorry for themselves
A privileged middle aged man will scream and ***** about trivialities
Having felt nothing but sorry for himself.

I’ve been known to steal
The cashews out of nut mix
I’m quite the *******

Hungover in bed
Sharing last night's
General  Tso's
With one ***** fork

When you sit at the same desk every day
The walls tend to get a little closer.

When the walls get a little closer
The doorknob seems to stick a little more.

When the doorknob sticks a little more
The windows start disappearing.

When the windows start disappearing
The long fluorescent bulbs start to hum louder.

When the long fluorescent bulbs start to hum louder
The ceiling and floor start pressing in.

When they ceiling and floor start pressing in
You know it's time to get out.

When you get out
You may want to get back in.

When you think you want to get back in
Bury yourself in advance.

As a rule of thumb
I will never trust a man
With a ponytail

Koozies keep the beer cold
They keep your hand warm
And your beer cold
Which is nice
When most thing are more complicated
Or more intricately disappointing

I find little to do
Besides stare from one screen to the next
And back and back again
Rechecking the same websites
The same hiss of the tab being popped

Sitting in one room
While thinking of many rooms
None of it really makes any sense
This inherited feeling of unease
Wanting just to be close to you
To actually kiss you
Meaning it
Having some feeling behind something

Not wanting to rush from one thing to the next
Just wanting to be stuck in that one moment with you
Tasting your saliva
Feeling your tongue, probing
Like some rogue octopus tentacle

There is nothing that fills the hollowness
Like you  
You are the echoing clatter of pebbles
Thrown down a dark ravine
Replacing space with substance
One haphazard toss
After another

It’s a hulking tank of a car
Copper colored
The emblem on the steering wheel is dented
I punched it when I got cut off on 95
Trying to honk at the BMW that swerved into my lane
Without using a turn signal

The stereo too
The face is cracked
The glass is blemished
It ate one of my tapes
So I caught it with a solid right
And sent a spider web etching through it

The passenger’s side floor is littered with garbage
Cans, wrappers, plastic bottles, receipts, pine needles, pens and pencils
It sounds like a junkyard wind chime
When I break too quickly
And the air doesn’t work anymore
I had a guy I know
Cross some wires and tubes
So that the heat worked
I figured back sweat
Is better than frostbite

The back seat is torn to ****
I had the back tire off my mountain bike when I was driving it somewhere
And some sharp protrusion
I couldn’t even tell you what it’s called
Caught the leather seat and gave it a nice ****
And a few peppered puncture marks

It had a six CD changer in the trunk until it broke
My dad
(it was originally his car)
Got it installed when he bought it
Because he thought people would try to steal the head unit
I have no idea why

He always said it was such a nice car while he drove it
Then he handed it down to me
Now he never says much about it
He just points out all the little dings and dents
Since the last time he spared a minute to look at it

Apparently,
These kinds of things never happen to him

The people I see driving ’03 Sables on the road
Have one of three hair colors
Blue, white, and mustard yellow
I assume the yellow is supposed to be blond
And they have liver spots on their hands
And they wear big wrap around sunglasses
Like Schwarzenegger in the original Terminator

Sometimes they wave to me
And I wave back
“That guys driving my car!” they must think
But they are driving my car
I just don’t have the chance to stop and tell them

I had some high school kid
Who was learning to drive with his dad
Take a corner too quick
He smacked into the back right door
And slowly pulled over to the side of the road with his hazards on
The dad jumped out of the passenger’s side
Pouring out apologies and nervously wringing his hands
The front of their car
Looked like it had been put through a sausage grinder
My back right door
Looked like it had that morning

I shrugged
And told the nervous dad that it was cool
No one was hurt
No reason to involve insurance
I’ve never had my hand shaken so hard
He jumped in and they sped off
I smiled to myself as the kid took another corner too fast
And careened into traffic

It pulls a little to the right when I drive it now
But it still takes me home
Wherever that may be

I self diagnosed
Turns out my bubonic plague
Was posion ivy

I went to the shooting range with my friend
We both grew up in families that valued guns
Hate it if you'd like
But it'll happen whether you want it to or not

After we punched holes through paper
We went to a local dive bar to have a beer

We call Yunegling "lager" in PA
You just ask for a lager
And out it comes
I've made this mistake of asking for "lager" in other states
The bartender looks at you like you just cut your tongue off
And put it next to your bill as a tip

My friend told me that he has a reoccurring dream
Where he's in a fox hole
And his rifle jams
And the enemy charges him and
Runs him through with a bayonet

"That's horrifying"
I tell him, putting my glass heavily on the bar top
"Nah, you get used to it"
He says, lightly lifting his glass to his lips
"It doesn't hurt, it just has that floaty feeling
Like 'this doesn't belong there' and then
I wake up clenching my fists"

I guess that one can get used to all things
Even being run through in the sacred
Space of dreams

Good morning
And there you are
Obtrusive
Well I'd rather
Have you and not need you
Than need you and not have you

Time to ***
But the house is buzzing
With activity
Coffee being made
Keyboards click-click-clicking
The dogs doing laps around
The living room furniture

We can do this
Out the door
And we are ambushed
I turn towards the bookshelf
Awkwardly perusing the collection
While drumming you
Against the spines of
Hemmingway
Bukowski
Lovecraft
Murakami
Like a stick on
A white picket fence

Then the threat has passed

We scramble down the hall
Is he in the computer room?
Oh god, he is
And you just stared him square
In the face
"Good morning"
The silent nod
Says it all

I craddle you in my hand
Through my boxers
And do my best to conceal you
Finally
We are behind
The relative safety
Of a locked door

Peeing proves difficult
Advanced calculations
Yields ***** on the seat

Back into bed
I'm sure I'll see you again
Very soon

"Metal Elitist"
A nasty title for sure
Slayer ******* rules

I imagine death
Is like snow blown from a branch
Upon hitting the earth
There is a rapid loss
Of color and form

There is nothing
Quite as purifying
As the frustration
Of knowing
What is coming next

And having
No power
To stop it

It is purifying
Because the blood
Boils at such heat
That nothing can
Survive

Sterility through anger
Disinfection through rage
Cleansing through fury

Fists balled into
Ivory white
Wrecking *****
Teeth clenched
Spine rigid

A barbed tongue
Spits silent curses
Into the syrupy haze
Of a July afternoon

They'll have no carcass
Not when our collective trash
Is up for picking

An empty playground
A multicolored hijab
Rainbow on asphalt
Rain drops wetting the sparse trees
Their leaves sounding like drum heads