Hitchhiker Circa 1969

He shivers by the side of the road,
thumb stuck out from a gloveless hand,
windbreaker collar pulled up to his ears.
No hood, duffle bag thrown over his shoulder.
 
Mr. Stevens looks at his wife of fifty-six years,
her nod imperceptible to anyone but him.
He pulls the Chevy Impala to the shoulder.
As his wife rolls down the window,
he leans across the seat. Hop in, son.
I’m Mr. Stevens. This here’s my wife.
 
The hitchhiker nods, opens a rear door, positions
himself behind Mrs. Stevens. She turns, asks
his name. John Doe. She glances at her husband.
One hand on the wheel, he reaches for hers with the other.
 
They drive in silence, stop at Betty’s Diner,
pay for his meal, request another plate lunch
to go, hand it to him on the way out.
Mr. Stevens pulls a jacket from his suitcase
in the trunk, hands it to the hitchhiker,
offers bills from his wallet. Take care now.
 
The hitchhiker nods, watches them
get into the car. Knocks on the window.
Mrs. Stevens rolls it down.
I had other plans when you picked me up,
but you were too kind.
He smacks the top of the car once, grins
then turns to go, thumb again
slicing air.

The Fish Thing

Give a man a fish
And he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish
And he’s pissed off
‘Cause he’s gotta
Go to work.

My Apocalypse


The sun passes like a flaming sword overhead, and I feel it as a wound in my chest. Shingle roofs catch fire. Leaves on trees wither. Cars are soon covered in ash. In the days that follow, the sky when I dare to look is a dull orange, the ocean an unpropitious black. The smell of smoke spreads around the world and seeps into people’s food and sleep. “No gods, no masters / The revolution will be kingless,” someone has spray-painted on the bricks. Children on their hands and knees peck at the ground for seeds and insects and adults sniff around like dogs

here come the angels


 
and here come the angels

choking on their vomit

 
only the good shit gets

served around here

 
it separates the men

from boys

 
pretty soon you'll have

a few fuckers out at the

bar

 
wait until they see what

was charged to their credit

cards

 
it will usually be myself,

the bartender and a woman

well past her prime still

going at the end of the

night

 
the woman will look down

at me and i'll have that sure,

why not look on my face

 
she'll want to go to her

apartment but settle for

the parking lot

 
the kind of woman that

keeps society moving
along
----------------------------------------------------------
fire up the imagination

 

and here are the old

women showing

a little leg

 
and my lack of morals

starts to fire up the

imagination

 
the first love of my life

just had her birthday

 
doesn't look any different

than she did twenty fucking

years ago

 
and here i am
 

a fresh slice of hell

 
cheated death a few times

 
more scars than brain cells

most days

 
soon to be just another genius

stuck living in a trailer park


making the best of whatever

the fuck this happens to be

My Sex is Homeless
So dirt-ridden
it’s caked with mud 
from rainy nights 
when it was whirlwinding through
jungle after jungle 
a bitch-hot amalgamation
Now a war veteran 
holed up in this trailer 
listening to Oprah 
clenched jaws of life
wrapped around a beer bottle 
day after sluggish day
it’s the under-voice 
of the have-nots 
and do nothing about it
naysaying shit-talkers 
that believe aliens walk among us
in Dunkin Donuts 
where I’ll stroll
in the hopes to snag me one  
My sex is dying from starvation 
moved itself closer to other 
organs in my body
just for comfort 
it’s aging exponentially well
along with my liver 
I tried to leave it on the bus
the other day 
the bus driver came after me
with a stricken panic 
because it reeked of decay 
it’s a pre-dead
borderline extinct 
relic

Making a living

 
this is what I want to do
for a living
sit on a bench
near the river
near the train tracks
near the highway
and listen

took half a sick day
to get some skin cancer
cut off my back
it took 6 mins
and I have hours to waste
so I found a bench
ate a BK burrito
drank an iced coffee
and watched the reflections
of cars off the Ohio
as they traveled on rt 51
across the river from me
splotches of white and red
zooming down the small ripples
starts and stops where trees grow
on the riverbank

I pulled my phone out
only to take pictures
orange flowers
a grinny in a drain pipe
the way the light shined
through the tunnel
that got me here

I listen to the way
cars echo
when under a bridge
animals scurrying
on the hill beside me
birdsong
the sudden train behind me

I’ll be heading to work soon
answering emails
and questions
interaction imminent
but I know
I could sit here
8 hours a day
5 days a week
and never once get bored
if only
someone would pay me

Something


There
I was
on the brink
of summer,
nothing
happening.
Teaching
a Zoom class
in my apt.,
the dead
weight
of a summer
afternoon
crushing me.
My neighbor
lit his grill
then fired up
his loud speaker
and played
a song –
religious,
southern,
& country.
It swallowed me
like plastic
swallows
the ocean.
The smell
of barbeque
drifted in
through
my window.
I muted
my class,
turned off
the camera
and reclined.
Something
had begun. 

The Sting Comes Later

All he sees is a ‘bee.’ Not its species: apis mellifera (or European honey bee). Not its wondrous anatomical makeup: mandibles; antennae, compound eyes; thorax; abdomen; fore, middle, hind legs with pollen baskets; fore and hind wings. Not its stinger. Nor does he recognize its importance to biodiversity on which we all rely to survive. It buzzes by—not in attack but as if pleading. He swats his hand in reaction. Here, he notices the bee is slow, sluggish. It tugs itself away in a struggling up and down trajectory. He follows. In the back, left corner of the yard, he sees a whole colony of bees dead at the base of a disintegrating honeycomb. He doesn’t think twice; blindly he pulls out his pocketknife—and scrapes enough of the disappearing golden gelatin for his morning toast.

REMOTE


So, we are to be uploaded to some sort of
unfathomable A.I. machine, bodies shed,
minds and spirits preserved in protective

cyborg shells? Then sent to explore, colonize,
and populate the known and unknown planets
that exist between the stars. But what if future

A.I.s are homebodies and prefer to sit on digital
couches, and watch Happy Days reruns after all the
meat puppets are discarded? What if you have seen

one wormhole, you have seen them all, and each
part of the multiverse is just as dull as the rest?
And I want the right to get lost and not always 

know all the answers, and struggle to learn a dead
language just for fun, and have happy accidents
which lead to life-changing revelations. Surely, I

do not want to stock up on vitamins or fast Silicon
Valley style in a vain effort to live forever;
this one moment is already more than enough.


 

VOX POPULI


A naked, male statue, knee deep in sand, stands in
the desert while a vulture perches where the bronze

head had been, giving the figure the appearance
of an Egyptian hybrid god. No tourists file

past to take selfies with the lone statue, which
cools beneath the moonlight, just as our amour

turned tepid after a season, and you removed my
images from photos both digital and physical.

But I will get my head together, so to speak, and
stake out my place at the corner of the bar, where

I will wax eloquent on behalf of the desert
statue waiting for his voice to make its way home. 

 

Our Grandchildren’s Other Grandfather


His scuffed Stetsons
sit by his stirrups
and saddle in the shop.

His cowboy hat hangs
with his fringed jacket
on the rack in the hall.

Shriveled to a sliver
of himself, he lies
in the hospice bed

in the same room
in the farmhouse
where he was born.

The dead - his wife
and two sons- watch
from photographs

as friends and family
file in. He opens milky
eyes and smiles as he stares

into the wide blue pupils –
identical to his as a boy -.
of his and our infant great

granddaughter as her mother,
his and our granddaughter,
kisses his leathery cheek

and our daughter, who sees
him as a second father,
pats his gnarly hand.

Our and his other grandchildren
sponge his parched lips while
the nurse administers morphine.

When he takes his last breath
three months from his 80th birthday
the wind howls through the pasture.