Serious Help

My animals, my cat and dog
have both been playing up
today.
My dog took a shit on the
kitchen floor, even though
I'd put her lead on.
So she knew I was taking
her out.
She should know better
than that, it's not like she's
a puppy.
She's 11 years bloody old.

My cat hasn't eaten a thing
all day, no matter what I have
tried to tempt her with.

Then I noticed the date.
It's 4 months exactly since
their ' mother ', my Missus 
died.

I'm not suggesting that they
can tell what date it is, but
it's strange that they don't
usually act this way.

Looking back, reading this
poem again, I realise that I
am the one who is really
suffering, and I am acting
completely insane trying to
involve our animals in this.

I think I might need serious
help,
maybe I should try the vet.  

One of those what does it all mean things 
 
The only dreams I ever remember 
are about women I have known 
nothing sexy 
just a lingering 
as though visited upon 
by spectres 
of younger selves 
 
Hours spent dazed 
spaced out conjuring old faces 
inserting lives into imagined spaces 
subconscious 
a cunning trickster 
my mind 
a willing victim 
 
Bizarre to think 
any of them 
would ever read 
this shit 
A budget Rob Gordon 
A Championship wanker 
A what does it all mean thing. 

#4 
 
Living in pulp 
Means less holding up the mirror 
the few times I look 
see past my chin fat 
the blood thickens 
in my veins 
everything hollowed 
weighed down 
with impeding pain 
squinting at the reflected light 
auras and blurred sight 
vivid dreams 
of things once been 
new fad anxiety 
at walking through doors 
I no longer comprehend 
what I am looking for 
no longer understand 
the end. 

THE INSANE GUY BELOW THE DECK


the insane guy
made a lot of sense
standing below my deck

but it won’t keep him
from being picked up
by the cops
before nightfall

he’d didn’t seem like a threat
so he’ll probably end up
in the mental hospital

which I hope doesn’t make him go
completely nuts



Talking to my mom when she isn't there

a strong gust of wind mom
like your spirit
and I'm so tired
seems like the gold on my cross has gone pale
and I wish you were here mom
the world needs turning
and laughter isn't making a sound
I guess I'll talk to the nite lite
as if it were a lullaby 
and I could sleep
I remember swimming with Cally at White Clay
her paw underwater stretched out to paddle
just like she was made for
and I feel like I was made for nothing
just these words 
fuzzy in the poor lighting of my eyes
and the traffic won't stop
I can feel the noise in the bottom of my legs
remember how they would run mom?
seems like I'm just all out of breath
I need to get some air though it's sickly and coughing
what stars are you wishing on
what ray of sunshine set you free
why am I in this fermented jar
I should save these questions for God
I guess you just remind me of Him
I'll say goodbye now mom
Goodbye!!
my knees need the chapel floor
and my lips need the sacrament 
like no thirst they've ever had before

The Fly

 

I’m half shot at the bar.

A tiny visitor lands on the rim

Of my glass and makes me think.

If you pull the wings of a fly,

Then hold it to your ear,

Can you hear it screaming?

If it slips outta your hand,

It could get stuck in your head

And might make some changes

In your brain.   Then you might

Get fly-ish and suddenly develop

A taste for garbage and dog crap.

Freak out the neighbors stickin’

Your head in the trash can and

Lickin’ their schnauzer’s ass.

You’d be jumpin’ off bar stools

Thinkin’ you could fly, end up

With a deathly fear of spiders,

Tremble at the frog’s croak.

It would just be a matter of time

‘Fore the big flyswatter gets ya

And you go splat.

 

a sad song on the fourth of july
 
the fireworks aren't 
as bright this year
 
escaping death at the
sight of every sniffle
gets old after a few
weeks, let alone 
months
 
but it's a sad song
on the fourth of july
 
on the back porch 
with something strong 
on the rocks
 
just you, a tomato 
plant gone wild and 
the fucking mosquitos
 
these are the nights 
you used to sit in a
cemetery and read
shitty poems to the
dead and seek advice
 
you swear to this day
you saw a shooting star
in a beautiful woman's eye
 
she left you for dead
a few weeks later
 
just poor communication
that is all
 
deep down you know
death licked your lips
that night and you were
ready to give in
 
another bite on the leg
 
hindsight wins yet again
---------------------------------------------------------------
enjoy your youth
 
i always laugh when
a younger woman
calls me handsome
 
i tell them to enjoy
their youth
 
this face is what 
happens when you 
are never given the 
chance
 
eventually the 
conversation
turns to money
 
as all conversations 
seem to do
 
we are nothing 
but prostitutes
to whatever this 
earth has decided 
for us
 
not everyone is 
ready to be called
a whore

Hypnotized

I go through
every day as
if I am a zombie,
one of the living
dead.
In fact, that sums
up exactly how I
feel. Hypnotized,
going through the
motions.
I have a big photo
of Karen that I
keep by my bed.

Every few days
I will wake up
enough to start
screaming, and
crying, " How
could you do this
to me, babe ?
How could you
leave me to face
this awful world
alone ? "

Then, thank God
I go back into my
trance, and nobody
knows how I really
feel, they all think
that I'm doing well.

But I know, and
Karen's photo
knows. 

our indie goss
 
I’ve had it on cassette 
I’ve had it on CD
and now I’ve got an mp3 of it on my phone,
and I’m telling you:
whatever the format, it’s always the same:
 
two minutes and five seconds
into Ceremony by New Order,
the volume jumps. 
I can’t figure out if it’s just the bass 
being twanged especially heavily 
or an actual recording blunder,
but I swear,
in any format I listen to, the volume always seems to jump then,
even on the remaster. 
 
I don’t care if I’m wrong or mad. 
a part of me likes feeling like I own this observation,
like it’s a secret between me and the band,
and that’s ok:
after all, isn’t that what all music should sound like?
 
of course, 
if you
dear reader 
have heard it too, 
then I guess we’re both in on the secret 
and that’s ok too:
 
isn’t that what all writing should feel like? 
 
 
a cold pillow evening 
 
standing at the delivery doors out back.
smoking a roll-up 
made up of the fag ends 
of other roll-ups,
you whirl the stiff bastard of your left ankle 
until it finally cracks
whereupon, right, whereupon
some prick behind you 
feels the need to point out that 
“your shift only started about 10 minutes ago”. 
some prick that
may or may not be your manager – 
if she isn’t yet, she will be soon enough 
with that attitude –
and  
 
there’s a little ugly bird whose breed you’ll never wiki 
doing a sort of flat-footed tap dance 
on a low wall opposite. it looks like it should be smarter than
that. like it’s pretending it’s happy. 
 
“well?” you hear. 
evidently she’s still standing behind you. 
she’ll be manager any second now. 
 
a scab slides off your left knee 
only to fall into your sock 
like a cornflake, wet on one side
 
and no one asks the bird what it’s up to.  
 
 
the happier repressed 
 
they say
everybody 
is in their own hell
but really
it’s usually a hell
of someone else’s making:
 
it’s
a job 
or a boss
or a landlord 
:
a cage you were bequeathed.
 
but if you’re truly in 
your own hell,
like say 
from indulging a bad friend
or by choosing to be miserable 
with a miserable partner
 
then congratulations:
you’re about as free
as we can get.
 
just keep
your freedom 
the hell away 
from me.
 

Failed Haiku
 
1
Blank page on my laptop
A tree still waiting for leaves
 
2
A hazy childhood memory
The dense, swirling fog 
in which a killer might lurk
 
3
Passing clouds 
cast fugitive shadows 
over a hayfield
Lines for a poem
that vanish on waking
 
4
Bright red patches 
on the wings of blackbirds 
Christ’s wounds
 
5
Your inner child
A figure pursued across the ice

Panic Attack on a Tuesday Afternoon

I'm falling to ash again
Blinding myself to my blessings
Turning the spotlight to my troubles
and hating myself for being cognizant of it

I don't see the glass half empty
I see it shattered and pressed against my neck
I see a thousand paths to nowhere
Can't find a single one that goes anywhere

If you think 
that you think 
your thoughts 

I'd say you like 
having that thought
that you aren't thinking

It Could Be Worse It Could Be Raining

Up, out of bed 3 pm Saturday San Jose Costa Fucking Rica, I can smell the rain with a mixture of car exhaust and diesel fuel, gray skies gray world, just the Gods reminding me what a hangover looks like, the storm has already saturated the city, flooding streets and low lying areas, the smell triggers my olfactory memory machine to recall fond thoughts of Mexico City, resulting in a smile that occupies what feels like my entire face, replaced quickly with a grimace from the pain of this cancer eating away at me like alligators gnawing from the inside out.  
The Gods, hilarious bastards yuckin' it up at the joke they have perpetrated, I could have contracted Lung Cancer, I've smoked everything that can catch fire, Liver Cancer, the fish drink like me. Quote from a past love Christina. I drink like a fish I once stated, "No Santi the fish drink like you", Cancer of my blood, I've shot and tried to shoot everything that would dissolve in water, even cough syrup with codeine as well, Stomach Cancer no, never been a big eater, the thing I enjoy most Sex, so I get diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. 
Those of you thinking Karma, kiss my ass, you people piss me off more than christians, as though there is some cosmic cloud waiting to rain down retribution for malicious acts I may have performed during my present or past life, now I am really agitating myself, past lives what a myth, Karma was created to pacify the Egos of those who don't have the balls or aren't willing to fight back.
Bad luck the culprit maybe, luck doesn't exist good or bad, it's just the consequence to an unforeseen event, nothing more, but there are those that need to believe in some mystic force, an omnipotent deity controlling their destiny, you think I'm coming off a bit self righteous do you, demonstrating my best character flaw. 
Andrea calls often to check up on my condition and has accompanied me on a few IMRT sessions at the hospital, seeing me going through therapy made her uncomfortable, so she stopped coming, she seems to call shortly after I've injected a massive dose of morphine and I'm too high to carry on an intelligible conversation, when I do attempt to speak I drift back and forth from English to Spanish then French causing her to laugh, her voice brings me back into cognizance,
" Español Bigotes! Porfa Espanol"  
I once asked her to dedicate five years of her exclusive affection to me in return for a sizable inheritance, assuring her I wouldn't live that long, she declined graciously with a passionate kiss, her hands cradling my face.
" My love I think there is nothing that can kill you. Let's leave our relationship where it is, And I believe you will outlive me and I'm only thirty years old." I had just celebrated my fifty-sixth birthday and that was eleven years ago when I made my request,
She has never asked me for anything except during moments of passion, I've attempted to convince her she does love me only she doesn't know it, falling in love with a man like me is a risk she isn't willing to take. 
I'm out of coffee, cigarettes and morphine, exiting my place with no umbrella, off to the Pulperia and Farmacia, the prostitutes flash their twenty dollar smiles and Los Bichos de Calle (street insects, bugs) are out early searching for Rocka Tocka (crack), the deluge increases its intensity, the sky crackles with lightning, it could be worse, it could be raining.