“I Just Want To Be Hugged so I Can Fall Asleep Feeling Warm”

I’m crying and I feel a tear fall down my cheek and roll under my chin but it does not stop I feel this lone tear drip slowly, reverently down my throat and I hold my breath so as not to disturb it as it begins its descent between my breasts I want nothing more than to quell my urge to push the fabric of my shirt against my skin to make it stop but I can’t and it tickles but it hurts and I am so lost in trying not to stop it that I don’t notice when I can no longer feel it at all

“See Through, Tasteless and Wet”

I am as agreeable as water
pouring into a cup
and willing to let someone else decide
if it's half full or empty,
but the problem is that that means I'm see through,
tasteless, and wet in the most obvious sense,
while yearning to be more like whisky,
burning throats who think they know
more than the spit in their mouths
and are afraid of being blackout drunk
because they might get mean,
get closer to their truer selves,
only for me to accept my clarity
clouds who I want to be, and even worse,
I'm unable to tell if the drain
loves me or wishes I never existed.

Every day you pretend you’re not going to die


you make plans
for the week, 
next year, 
for retirement 
you’re going to take that trip 
to Maui
Italy
NYC
you’re going to drive
with the top down
in January
going to tell that girl 
I love you
quit this nowhere job
confess your sins 
stop being who you are, 
rock and roll 
over a new leaf . 
you plan and imagine, 
that your bones won’t turn to ash 
your muscles atrophy, 
never believing you won’t hear 
the rush of rivers 
or the sigh of a lover
you wish to swim the ocean 
shore to shore, hear 
the tides shift into voices;
to wake dreamless 
and wet, your grief measured 
in the crest of waves.



Conversation with Death 


All these years you’ve never recognized me
until now. Remember the car crash, not the first 
one but the one that left you unconscious, bleeding 
from a head wound; the rumors of being locked up.
We’re alike, you know. There are many versions of me; 
you didn’t see me watching when you played chicken 
with cars, intent, crouched and bouncing from leg to leg 
like a soccer goalie during a penalty shot. 
You thought I was too busy with the business of war,
pestilence, and plague when you drove blackout drunk 
across three state lines, benzedrine-fueled and lustful
for the redhead who took you apart. 
We grew up together; the mother-father-drunken brawls; 
the mental cave-ins that sucked the air out of the room; 
looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, the bitter tang
of metal on your tongue you can never forget.
I travel light. No need to schlep around guilt, grief, fear, 
false love or cling to evaporating time. I don’t have to read 
your mail to know you’ll try to lose me, fade to invisibility 
in a crowd, but you’re not going anywhere without me. 



Only the redacted version of this poem will be published


I miss your breasts, your nipples,
dream of your skin against mine,
 
your smooth pussy, the way you are
sopping wet just before I enter you.
 
I miss your touch, your hand stroking 
my hair as we fuck, fingers wrapped
 
around my cock guiding me into you. 
Every time is the first time, never able
 
to get close enough; breath catching
together, hands entwined with every

thrust, rocking and rolling into a new
universe that expands with each exhale.

-The Outlaw- 

See the big tall man with raggedy knee torn jeans and
holes in his shoes, searching 
for a place to sleep? See him,
know that he is a criminal of the highest degree,
nefarious villain and lawbreaker. His crime is
not the knife he keeps
(for peeling fruit mostly, or self-defense in worst case scenarios) 
nor is this a crime of disturbance, 
he is not experiencing a high, a delusion, or an episode. 
No, instead our outlaw, vagabond and tramp has
committed the most serious offense of carrying with him,
a pillow. 
Certain state governments call this man 
‘lawbreaker’ or perhaps, more fantastically,
a scourge on society, for the dastardly 
deed of wanting peaceful sleep. 
Well not on America’s watch, partner. 
It’s perfectly fine for you to lack four walls and a roof, 
but if you think for a second you’ll
peacefully lay your head down in public
then I guess we’re squarin’ off,
a high noon saloon showdown, 
the leather boot of justice poised, drawn at the ready 
to positively stamp down this voracious evil. 
‘Pillows and blankets are for homeowners,’
American Justice says snobbishly. 
‘Or renters,’ chimes in Capitalism. 
‘Never mind school shooters!’
cry police and judges, ‘There are PEOPLE 
SLEEPING
OUTSIDE!’ 
And just for once, I would like to hear
the same exact sentence with a different tone. 
People are sleeping outside, wept the congressmen. 
People are sleeping outside, said an embarrassed and befuddled mayor. 
People are sleeping outside, said the legal eagles, refusing to prosecute anyone
except those who perpetuated the current unsustainable system. 
Instead the people repeating this phrase the most
are caretakers and community leaders, 
the so called ‘woke’ and aware and the houseless themselves. 
There are people. People. And they are sleeping outside. 
But the coppers, silver hairs, 
and A+ platinum gold standard Nimby’s 
say it with a chuckle and a
typically quippy line about trying harder or boot straps. 
They shake their heads and their one collective brain cell
and they almost smile. 
See the big tall man with the raggedy knee torn jeans and 
holes in his shoes searching for a place to sleep?
See him and know you are one calamity away from being criminalized
for wanting sleep. 
Peace. 
For carrying a pillow. 

The flesh made word:
The only press fit to publish in
prints love poems on
used toilet paper
filthy socks
the back of drowsy eyelids.

And hey look
you're reading this.

ON PAGE TWENTY SEVEN, ROBERT DOWNEY JR

In the doctor’s waiting room,
I thumb through a magazine
that I would never spend
a cent of my own to purchase.

It’s all romantic antics,
or fashion frolics
of Hollywood actors,
the royal family, pop stars, 
sports figures with legal issues
and z-list celebrities
from reality TV.

There are headlines
to draw in the undiscerning.
And articles
that are just an excuse
for more pictures..
And something called an unveiling
of “The Sexiest Man Alive.”

I can’t wait to be rescued
by those magic words
from the nurse -
“The proctologist
will see you now.”

P.S. –
I admit I’m not up
on the laws of libel.
I wonder if “People” can
sue a poem.

At The Social Security Meditation Center 

bingo parlor waiting room game 
on the 6th floor of the 1st National Bank Building 
in downtown St. Paul on April 30th, 2024

everyone was waiting for their number to come up

there was no escaping the lengthy meditation

the underlying human hum

the om mani padme hum 

the low grade headache

the anxious social droning
the helplessly hoping 
devotees 
sitting for hours 
pondering unacceptable koans 
that brought them here 
from different circumstances
to practice citizenship

they were meditating 
in wheelchairs
on crutches
with one leg
with no legs
in sweatshirts
in tennis shoes
in ballcaps and burkas

they were praying for mercy
they were privately weeping
they were silently screaming
they were clutching shreds of dignity

some smelled like work
some smelled like weed
some smelled tired of living

bored senseless 
on metal benches 
standing, pacing 
climbing the walls
staring at phones
sitting crosslegged on concrete 
zazenning without pillows
chewing gum
and waiting for deliverance
from a good social servant
who could help them suffer 
less

all colors, creeds, and specimens
of zoned out citizens
confronting bureaucratic forces
and clerical reckonings
while security guard bodhisattva 
gatekeeper with a gun
monitored intractable sufferings
of 
the disaffected
the disabled
the sick, the poor, the elderly
the downtrodden
the broken 
the agitated insane man talking to spirits
the frustrated mother at the end of her wits

the woman who waited all day yesterday 
and was told to come back today 
so she could meditate 4 more hours 

the unseen lost soul down a hallway
who went berserk yelling profanities 
at someone in a bulletproof glass cubicle

and everyone else whose patience was taxed
until a number freed us
to proceed with our appointments

we sons, daughters, and orphans 
of these United States

meditating on social insecurity 

while waiting in American purgatory 
for the system to love us.

a different kind of success

 
these are the nights you look in the
mirror and can't muster the strength
to lie and say everything is going
to be fine

these lines on your face

the scars on your hands

all for what

scribbling words at two in the morning
while the woman you madly love is
thousands of miles away sleeping
peacefully

do you think she dreams of you or
the guys she goes out with on the
dating site

all the years have raced by

friends come and go

mostly go and never swing back around

blood brothers

well, you have one of those left

the others found wives, successful careers

although one is a criminal that has
eluded capture

a different kind of success

graduated high school thirty damn
years ago

still trying to figure out how
to be relevant

Going back to Alcoholism 
has never felt so appealing


Strongly suggest against this
the psychiatrist tells me over
the phone—Dr. Singh

Her calmly composed voice
with a mild Indian accent—
first she ever called me
upon requesting psychiatric 
help from the obese receptionist
behind the counter of my local GP,
with a stamped bored look
on her wide face I have only 
ever seen on bulldogs—
for an instance as I walking 
through a windy street 
plugging my left ear hole 
with my index finger, I thought
Dr. Singh was a scammer

Now, living in an apartment 
two months behind rent and looking
outside my window to such dark clouds
that seem like exhaust fumes
of old power plants-possibly soviet made,
Dr. Singh wants to stop me 
from quitting my meds 
cold turkey as I have done in the past
and barely survived to tell the tale.

I’ll prescribe a lower dose, she says 
and you’re going to taper off it gradually.
Dr. Singh wants to protect
my brain’s addled chemistry
or maybe she wants to protect her job
because one time in the past
while on mirtazapine I told her 
that I had violent thoughts
that could potentially become actions.

Okay, alright I tell her
but my insomnia is at an all times worst
I don’t remember the last time I slept—
I think it was Wednesday.

She agrees to prescribe zopiclone.
Months of effort this,
to persuade a prescription of sedatives
so that I smile over the phone.

That’ll work, I tell her.

I light a cigarette and half smoking it
I try to half assedly clean some of the 
debris that became my apartment 
after a whole month of crippling depression

I line up all the beers cans 
and grab a black bin bag
and I drag a chair close to them
and I sit on it and start to crash 
each can before chucking it into the bag

all the while reminiscing of teenage years
and my clear predisposition to melancholy 
wondering how did nobody see the signs
wondering how did I not see them either—
me who back then was the most conceited
brat of all.

I notice all the wine bottles gathered 
at a corner of my living room and all
the dirty laundry left and right 
and I just stop doing anything at all
and I just lean back on my chair
with my arms hanging next to either
side of my torso and my neck back
on the chair looking at my ceiling
seeing through the burning ambers
in my skull,memories of a blonde kid
who was once me— fading in form,
disappearing into the scorched earth
of the past.

My father always telling me
back then, be happy, why can’t 
you just be fucking happy?
Open your eyes, life’s beautiful!

Life’s all the adjectives but fair
you old fool, I tell my ceiling 
and stand up and after quite possibly
a decade, I start to iron my pants.

My father really liked women I think
ironing slowly, maybe that’s what he meant
with open your eyes. Life’s beautiful.

Maybe it was all for the human pussy,
a suspicion I’ve had since I was twelve,
so I book an hour with a local prostitute
and after shaving and bathing myself 
like a proper gentleman—
a strong rain comes down 
and a strong wind starts blowing—
the nemesis of my patience.

Forty minutes of walking in the rain
and the wind with a small umbrella
that snapped backwards with each gust
that I had to fix again and again
as I contemplated suicide 
or murder suicide.

At the prostitute’s place 
she of course looks nothing
like her photos, closely to a decade
older and out of pity for this catfish
I agree to stay for half an hour.

The sex as terrible as predicted.
Don’t do this, don’t do that.
Hurts my throat to go that far.
I wanna tell her I’m slowly dying 
just by being here with her.
A vagina sizeably vertical—
a vagina that’s birthed at least four.

Outside her apartment I book 
another prostitute, definite in my attempt
to test my father’s notion that life’s
beautiful. That I should open my eyes.

My eyes did open wide 
as the second prostitute’s
tits were big enough to stifle one,
to snatch the soul right out his body.

I spend all my money on that damn 
lustful grip of those tits— a grip
that loosened three hours later 
and going home at dawn
holding my broken umbrella in my hand
I wondered if it was truly a kids toy 
there in the corner of her bedroom
and possibly a child or two sleeping 
in the next room.

I’ve seen so many group of homeless
men laughing with each other
that I have felt jealousy in the realest sense.

I drop Dr. Sigh’s tablets down the toilet
one by one deciding that in a few hours 
I’ll go the chemist to get some tablets
that them too I’ll drop, one by one,
in the toilet, thinking that my old man
was full of shit about a lot of thing

but not for pussy.

Chorus

We could all be old white men someday
Me, you, the hot dog vendor playing disco in sacramento heat
ABBA, father, holy spirit
white beards and all
crinkly vapor skin
milk on the precipice of custard
beat poetry the grass patch where ants munched on whitman
I am not a beat poet
beat is just the wind
and I am made of fire
on the sidewalk 
I inhaled two hot dogs 
as the wind pulled on the sleeves of my cardigan
I rejected it
I wanted to curse
tell it to stop breathing on me
tell it to fight the sun instead
so beat kept moving
past me
searching for another passerby to sing its chorus to