LONGHAIR


I was an aggro teenage skinhead from NYC. Cro-Mags sounded great live at CBGB. I was used
to risking life and limb on the subway at 4 a.m. Never got mugged. People were afraid I’d mug
them! Puerto Rican kids pounded on train door glass. Cop just laughed. I used to act crazy and
curse on the subway, until it wasn’t pretend.

Relocated to too mellow San Diego in my junior year. I embraced thrash metal and grew my hair
long. (Nazi skins pissed me off.) Discovered high school football to vent anger. I shoved my left
hand under an opponent’s shoulder pads, jammed them into his neck, right fist punched the
exposed solar plexus, did the swim. . . made defensive All-League.

Smurf had a parrot. We blew pot smoke into its cage until it fell over. I drove to Santa Monica
Civic Center with some long-haired buddies at 110 mph in my huge Buick LeSabre. Saw
Megadeth and Motorhead. Later, John jumped off the La Jolla Clam with his arm cast. We heard
him yell from the water below. He ran away to Seattle and worked on a garbage truck. I threw a
half-full keg through a window. We made homemade sangria in new plastic trashcans by beach
bonfires. Pals traveled to TJ to see Masters of Reality, but the Ramones were in town. Nobody
else showed up. “Play! Play!” We got to hear their soundcheck.

And that nice, plain girl asked me to the prom. I said no and went with artsy Sophie who grew up
on a Tahitian island near Marlon Brando. She planned to commit suicide at 50. After the prom,
I got a fifth of Jack Daniels. We went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Allegedly, I tried
to strangle my best friend. Now, years past, after heavy medication, sobriety and bits and pieces
of Eastern philosophy, I wonder if my prom date actually killed herself. She was there when I
painted an inflated brown paper lunch bag in red, white, and blue, and popped it behind the art
teacher. “Pop art!” I yelled. He gave me an A.



HEAVEN OR HELL?


Illegible black and blue scrawls fade
in your high school yearbook. If only
you’d caught the screen pass on 3rd
down. You wouldn’t have grown
that resentful rectal tumor following
years of depressive self-hatred.

Trade up relationships and get traded.
AIDS is more treatable, though sport
fucking remains unsatisfactory. Use
others like commodities. Sell high.  

Middle-aged respectability gives
way to silver-haired playing the field;
widows, widowers and divorcees
swipe dating apps along with Gen-Z.

Try and remember why you tied
a string around your big toe. Clip
coupons for products you can’t
comprehend. Take a nap as ceiling
fan slices daily memory debris.

Pour a mix of experiential dregs
through time’s funnel. Inhale fumes
after you lick life’s last drops. Slide
under your grave while Betty Boop
cartoon headstones laugh and sway.

Afterlife involves watching unscripted
reality TV reruns on a sagging couch
and scarfing processed junk food.
Smart remote becomes eternally stuck
within a cushion crack. Pizza delivery
stays forever 15 minutes distant.