How the Words Come 

 
Sometimes they parade like naked children perched on ponies. 
Sometimes they ooze from a golden cup in a godly hand. 
Sometimes they bust in with guns gripped high. 
Sometimes they dart from the sky like blind birds. 
Sometimes they are revealed by reverent servants. 
Sometimes they are hammered out hot on a workbench. 
Sometimes they are gifted by grinning demons. 
Sometimes they just bud and bloom in our eyes. 
Sometimes we must come to them, the smug bastards. 

A Deep Dive


As robots with only one thing in mind pursue women up and down the street, the police watch from a safe distance or scroll through the photos on their phones. The I Ching says, “Free yourself of your big toe.” Ah, I think, interesting, and then feel a tingling in my feet. It's probably just a matter of days before someone in the family is diagnosed with cancer and the Internet recommends the healing power of dog saliva. We’re like sailors trapped in a disabled submarine, furiously eating pancakes on the finest porcelain in our dwindling moments.

After graduating from

high school, the Kiwanis
invited the seniors to
a yacht club dinner as
a reward for years of Key
Club service. The food
was passable, conversation
with the red neck suits,
surreal, and would have
been unbearable if most
of us weren’t stoned.
After dinner, showing us
around, I stood before
life-sized oil portraits
of the founders: my grand-
father and great uncle,
who never had a real job
in his life. I debated sharing
family lore of how they
were bootlegging rum
from Cuba and Canadian
whiskey from up north.
Business must have been
good given Uncle Manny’s
resume and our relative
affluence during the depression.
I thought: we were men now,
in a smoke-filled room,
sharing man talk, after a couple
of three underage cocktails
but decided some things are
better left unsaid.

In a few years, two of us
would be busted for on campus
drug sales, another would be
a Green Beret and one guy
dead. The rest of us would be
draft dodging and heavily involved
in perusing our college majors
in substance abuse. It was the 60’s
and we were hell-bent and crazy
like everyone else.



By the time Doug

was 16 he was more
junkyard dog than
anything else. Spent
half his time working
the motor shop and
the other half as lord
of the landfill. Knew
where all the stumble
bums hid the good
stuff like Mexican
cigarettes you could get
high from, naked women
with men, white lightning
tequila with the worm
in the bottle. Said, “You
weren’t a man if you
didn’t eat the worm.”
not that anyone had actually
seen him do it. Still,
he always had the goods
people wanted. Those real
fuck books, not the air-
brushed commercial American
bunny ears crap, the hard core
stuff he’d sell you for
a price. No one knew
where in the hell he got
them but I had a good idea.
The musty odor was a dead
give away, not that anyone
cared about that, it was
the pictures they wanted.
Doug always sold out
faster than he could steal them.

civilization

 

I went to Starbucks one morning
during the week of Christmas
to write for a change.
A lit tree beamed
through the window
as I was walking in.
A small part of me
felt hopeful,
which is the best feeling
you can hope for
during Christmas time.
I hadn’t been acquainted
with civilization
for some yrs. –
the mountains are my home
now.
But an obligation lured me
into town.
The drive-thru line
was a freight train.
I thought about making a joke 
to the barista,
but as I opened the door
and our eyes met,
the jolly warmth in my soul
shivered.
She was a big, dark woman
and the color in her eyes
was sour.
“What would you like,”
she demanded
like she was Santa Clause
at the end of his shift
and I was a screaming,
nagging toddler
behind a long line of other
screaming, nagging toddlers
who already sat and pissed
on his lap.
“A small, hot coffee,”
I said, spitefully.
“You mean tall?”
“I mean small.”
Our eyes locked
until she rolled hers
and scoffed.
“Whatever.”
She spun the machine
at me
and fetched my coffee.
I inserted my card
but nothing happened.
She returned with the coffee.
“Can I have a packet of raw sugar?”
“Inside or out?”
“Just the packet.”
She scoffed again and fetched it.
“The machine isn’t reading my card.”
“Just give it a minute.”
I gave it 2.
An option to tip the barista
appeared.
For doing her job, rudely?
I declined.
She scoffed again.
“Next!”
“Oh, and can I get a stirring stick, please?”
Her eyes really came after me
this time.
She marched away
and lifted 2 sticks
over the window
of the pickup counter.
“Down here!”
I am a short man.
She had a few inches
on me.
She held the sticks
just high enough
so that I had to
humiliate myself
on my tippy toes.
It was
a brilliant move.
I gave her this round.
In fact, I gave
all of civilization
this round.
I was rusty now
that I was a mountain man.
I found a table
and wrote this poem.
Then I got in my jeep
and said,
“Take me the hell home.” 

Grand Design



I wiped my ass this morning and while staring at the brown smear on the toilet paper I couldn’t help but ponder on how it all has to be an accident. I can’t look at the aftermath of my creation and believe this is all part of some Grand Design. I’m not talking on an all-of-it-has-already-been-decided scale – I’m just talking about the walking, talking, shitting meat sack and all of its oddities and intricacies. You want me to believe that some omnipotent presence, twiddling his thumbs, gets the grand idea to make us piss and shit and fart and sneeze out mucus? I know, I know, we are made in his/her likeness. Can you imagine the monster shits God must be taking? All the organs and all their functions; spleens and appendixes and gall bladders, all this thought out and planned – bullshit! None of it makes sense. Trees don’t make sense. They’re alive but don’t do anything but also necessary for all survival while a platypus lives yet serves no purpose, you can’t even eat it. Or maybe you can, I honestly have no idea and do not care to fact check my points at this moment. The Grand Design exists because we, human beings, cannot accept the fact that we may not be all that special. Exceptional. That all of this, life and death, serves no purpose whatsoever. That all of this complexity could possible just be a series of truly random events that lead us to this point. Seems like bullshit too. The Grand Designer must be having a laugh, watching some moron sit on the shitter, staring at his own poo, trying to figure it all out, make sense of any of it. Truth is, no one’s watching. It’s just shit. Maybe. 

save a thought ...


I remember all the homeless

my mother and I saw in New York everyday

we always gave them a dollar

and they would always say

Thank you, sir

I sometimes think about all the mentally ill

who sit in small rooms and scream

or laugh all day at nothing at all

or write poetry—

maybe one had something to do with the other

all the ugliness of New York

is enough to kill your soul, drive you insane

and sometimes when a person

loses their mind

sad to say

it never comes back

so think about all these people

every now and then

with a tear in your eye

and a yellow rose.

Prognosis


I walk the winter-gray beach

on doctor’s orders,
 

blustery crows

on the sand up ahead,  
 

like seven muttered maledictions

scattered across my path.

 Yams 

 

“Dear Elaine,” she writes on a postcard to herself. “You’ll never guess what I did yesterday. Went to the grocery store to buy four cans of yams. Came home with four cans of carrots. Didn’t even realize it. Got home. Looked in the bag. No yams. Just carrots. What? What? Still don’t know how that happened. My brain. Where was it? Geez. And this. While I’m writing this. This postcard. There’s a spot on the window. And it’s moving. No. Wait. Not a spot. A lady bug. That’s what it is. Must be November. That’s when the lady bugs hatch. The eaves of this apartment building are full of them. And centipedes. They’re up there too. They hatch in the spring. I think. But don’t quote me on that. And this. What’s the deal with winter? Stingy, stingy with the sun. It is. So gray. Someone should teach it to share. The sun. Sunshine. I miss it. I do. But those carrots. Can you believe it? Where was my brain? Where? Oh, well. Carrots. I’ll eat them. Every can. You know I will. As for my brain. I know, I know. Should be kinder to myself. I should. I mean. We all have our moments. Right? I guess. But then. I really did want those yams.”     

Wild Wild West

 
The way she dangles her Pall Mall
from her poppy red lips knowing
the cowboys at the coral will whip
out lighters from back pockets
faster than a firearm, then takes
a long drag as their eyes slide

from her platinum wedge
haircut, Siamese blue eyes,
to her button-down blouse
and designer jeans
showing more curves
than a country road,

nobody can tell her daddy -
a big shot lawyer in LA -
has just dropped dead
of a heart attack and her mother
has dragged her out of UCLA
summer school and driven

her and her brother to a Wyoming
dude ranch in the early sixties
where Julia, her mother and I
serve salad, steak and Stout
to cowboys and dudes. The way
she wrestles with the wrangler

on the bed of his Chevy pickup
stinking of collie and Coors
no one ever suspects she is engaged
to an LA student with the scent
of Brut and marijuana. I don’t
tell anybody. So I probably am

the only one who isn’t surprised
when she goes back to LA
at the end of the summer
and her cowboy gets hitched
to another waitress named Julia
the next summer on top of the Tetons.

 

I’m the Wife, She Says


Her voice is as smoky
as the saloon where she
sits on a stool downing
a Bacardi Daiquiri

sucking on a lime
and licking salt
off the rim while
I sip a Singapore Sling,

my voice as sweet
and syrupy as a sunset
sinking behind
the Superstitions.

She is trim as Tammy
with a short shag
while I wear Dolly’s
blonde wig and breasts,

which is why he slow
dances with me
to George Jones
on the jukebox

and she shares
her sob story
with the bald
bartender

until the kids run
in and grab him
by the pantleg
and her by the hand,

and they squabble
over who is taking
the night shift before
driving off in the SUV

leaving me to hitch
a ride in a pickup
truck with a cowboy
who smells like a skunk.

here and there these days
 
my mother is slowly
falling apart
 
the hip, the back,
the shoulder
 
she swears her brain
is fading and mentions
suicide here and there
these days
 
i check on her every
morning
 
i figure one of these
mornings she'll be
finally at peace
 
all i hope is i won't be
considered a suspect
-------------------------------------------------------------
just a fading soul
 
here comes the anger
 
the rage from deep inside
 
they told me when i was younger
to write out the pain
 
let others know they aren't alone
 
others?
 
do i look in the mirror and see others
 
no, just a fading soul grown older
than he ever wanted
 
remember every scar
 
every woman that said i love you
and then walked away in the arms
of another
 
these are the nights where the knives
used to get hid in the bushes
 
and all those better angels found some
other sucker to steal from
 
loneliness, the only friend that dared
to say i understand
 
we'll drink the bar dry tonight
 
wake up the in the morning with
no regrets
 
rinse and repeat
 
put the coffee on
the war is just beginning