Amethyst / Doomsday Clock


Without knowing 
Exactly what living is

these days of quiet abundance 
Are spent with
Frugal abandon 
In 
Sparkling Amethyst daydreams

Keeping true to the visions
Of 
Rolling in the grass
With
Our toddler and dog

In kaleidoscope wonder
Of 
A new age utopia 
Of our own making

The fading glory
A rapture of declining return 
Like
Fluttering digits
On the doomsday clock





Forever Young


Cadillac smokes
And
Old timey chimney sweeps

Singing “Sweet Jane”
In raspy crackling harmony 

In bed 
As soft morning light leaks through 

vivacious breath
Explores the rhythm of your hips
In languishing daylight  as time approaches infinity 

Between the synapses
The image of your breasts
Takes hold
Of
Giddy plans

Reveling in
new traditions 

handing out pamphlets on Election Day 

staying up the rest of the night
in candle lit revelation 
Of the meaning of trust
And best practices 

Laying out a protocol 
For 
Bad mental health days

Romantically insured
For
Mornings I have to throw you in the shower 

After a week of sleep

Opening the pores with sultry steam
As the eyes dilate
Focusing on the new day

Timetable


dropping 
by the depot 
on Saturday afternoon

few games 
of pool, pitchers of beer
a girl

it’s cold in the back 
room & the baggy wool cardigan 
banking her neck

is as familiar 
as the bar’s wood stove—  
a half-empty flickering, unattended

passengers ticketed through here 
for almost a century, weekend trips
to Kingston Point 

they’d sing all the way back,
the Catskills echoing 
with music & laughter

as the U&D railroad
linked the last 
terminal 

bad luck 
to look 
back 

just a spot 
for nine ball 
on Saturday afternoon 

& pitchers of beer 
with a girl whose cold breath flutters 
like pompoms on game night

Black Hole of Bombay Bomber

"The Devil Follows Me Night and Day
Because He Hates to Be Alone"

After hours he could be found
hunkered down in a back
booth, far away from picture
window prying eyes, house
lights turned almost all the way
down, a hard pack of butts
flipped open on the scarred
Formica table top, a pile of dead
and dying stubs amid the ashes
and spent matches of a new day's
morning as the man caresses
his beloved: the queen of midnights,
running his fingers down the cool
sides of her body, fondling the neck,
tasting the sweet juices of her essence,
her liquid dreams of oblivion, 90%
fool's proof, so much more than a
semi-precious gem, as valuable as
Sapphire, Bombay's Best, the queen
of dark continents, new world's explored
on the other side of delirium/ dreams,
a black sink hole closing around him
as all the beasts of the jungle converge
in his mind.

I Don’t Own a Gun

I don’t own a gun.
With the ups and downs
Of life,
I might just blow
My brains out.
Then again,
Maybe not.
There’s always
The chance that
I’d screw it up
And just blow out
An important
Chunk of my brain.
Yeah, like the part
That controls
When to stop
Sassing the cop
When ya get
Pulled over.

Second-hand Smoke

 
It’s a chilly night;
I’m sitting at my desk
by the window.
The poetry is flowing
like booze from a tap.
My neighbor is smoking
on the patio out back
and smoke wraps around a corner
and drifts in.
My senses are pleased.
It’s been a while
since I’ve had a smoke
and second-hand
is never unwelcome.
Sometimes I prefer it.
I lift my head
from my page
and let the smoke coast
beneath my nostrils
like a snake.
Sirens cry far away
in the lonely night.
I get up to check the commotion,
press my flared nostrils
against the screen
and beg for more.
But when I peek through
the curtain of the window
that my desk faces
she is gone. 

I Don’t Like Gin

 
I don’t like gin.  It tastes like pine needles.
But, when that’s all ya got, that’s all ya got.
Mix that with a little of that cheap ass wine
The boys drink down behind the railroad depot
Where they hang out late at night being barred
From any club.  Savages, some say.  Deadly,
Booze soaked naked apes missing teeth,
Talkin’ shit like it’s stone God fact.
Maybe it is.  Who the fuck really knows for sure?
Cousin Jimmy might know.  He’s gone now.
He was well known by all the regulars at the
Green Door.  Day shift, night shift, everybody.
Hadn’t seen him for years.  I miss his humor.
I miss him.  A lot of us do.

And it came to pass on the morrow


Look around your lonely America,
        the merry-go-round carnival deaths
        in the wasteland desolate rows—God bless!
Look, I was in that angel city sky silence—
	that vulgar cold—Monterey—
	the alleyways—the melting hills—
	& I was with the plowmen & reapers—
visions I saw of California: the Inquisition—
	the golden gates—Solomon’s pool—
	divided lines—wings to fly—
	I’ll die in polluted lands—
Adam’s children clung to pennies
	yet, the Lord smote us equal
                in all his common glory.
Visions! visions! look to me through 
	with a wilderness heart
	in desolate California visions—
look further! I was chasing the blues
	in Athenian groves—in room 109
	swallowed up on a moondust shore
	sniffing inhaling & drunk &
	impaling my heart rhythms
	feeling alone—cold & testifying—
look around your lonely America
	& I’ll find your eyes golden
	with candle flames in them—
with castles in them—ashes buried in them—
	with crimson sweaters & your laughing
	silent courageous—laughing gracefully—
I was with you in your lonely America,
	in the dancing voices of California,
	in the mountains burned with fire—
	with darkness—clouds—thick darkness.

how to lose your job


the party was dull; they all nipped on 
weak cocktails and danced to 
awful noise. I drank top-shelf overproof bourbon 
just to make the party livelier. 
a woman approached me, we talked over 
some beers and shots; she held her 
liquor like a heavyweight. 
I liked her. we chatted the night away, ended up
at my place. in the morning, she sneaked 
away like a thief. it took me  
a week to realize I’d slept with 
my boss’s young wife and crawled 
back to the job market. 

Il Duce at the Dog Park


although we agree on the Sox game my son 
takes the remote and yells Paw Patrol 
into the voice activator 
as if he’s Ryder ruff 
roughing tv commands to his team of obedient pups. 
I’ll tell you something, pups 
Ryder doesn’t need you. Never has. His go-getter American exceptionalism 
is just a smokescreen for an Adderall problem. 
Ryder is one bender away from a stint at Promises
but I don’t tell my son any of this. Let him be a kid, right. 
As it is he’ll never understand the emotional design of a cassette mixtape
the highs & lows of handwritten liner notes, how to use pause 
to soundmix the thump click oomph of the record button 
or play video games 
at places that double as names for metal albums 
like dragon’s den & dream machine & the electric carousel 
& I don’t have the heart to him tell Paw Patrol is Authoritarian Propaganda &
Ryder isn’t a Robin Hood vigilante 
but just another il duce at the dog park

ALL THE OLD POETS

 
All the old poets are dead
All the new poets are dead
Look at them stripped of their skin
And looking like piles
Of bloody firewood
 
All the words that can be written or spoken
Have been written and spoken already
And they fall to the ground in flames
Spiraling in mad disintegration

Time is up
It’s all gone
Falling overboard
And drowning in the endless nothing at all
That truly surrounds us
 
We drew the shit cards
And the dealer dealt from the bottom of the deck
But no one will believe us
We’ve already bluffed too long anyway

Can’t unring a bell
Can’t roll over and find love and understanding
Waiting for you on the other side of the bed
Can’t turn on the lights
With the flick of a switch
Can’t can’t can’t

In a darkness
This deep