a prayer for times of desperation

let me sink into the arms of the Mother

and clutch my way back to her hidden and sometimes barren womb

that once claimed me and held me infinitely

and balanced my embryo between space and time.

spared from the range of human emotion

only an egg and a sack of skin and flesh and bone

tightly wound in a sequence of repeating letters

of primordial stew.

let me be seated in the arms of The Virgin Mother,

wounded and bleeding and wearing a crown of thorns

that I have fashioned out of my own desperation,

the thorny and wild crown that seeps into my skull

and where milk flows from my mouth and eyes

let there be honey instead.

and let there be the sweet lilies adorning my crown

while Saint Peter paces at the gate waiting for my return.

oh, my prodigal son!

let me crawl into the mouth of God like a moth

with wings and all,

gently seated on the back of her tongue

where I will devour the soot of anger

and swallow last Sunday’s cigarette butt without any qualms for I will

be the gift that keeps on giving.

The dark side of car karaoke

Gene Kelly can get drenched

in the summer rain if he wants,

singing and hoofing

from lamp post to lamp post

as a change in weather

intensifies the drops

of a passing drizzle

to a muggy monsoon.

I’d much rather turn

the volume knob in the dry

cabin of my true blue

Accord as high as can go ,

caterwauling to whatever

classic rock tune comes on

for the millionth time

on a steamy August day.

I bypass Boston to attempt

a Bohemian Rhapsody solo,

multitasking Freddie Mercury

lines like a fucking Vienna

Choirboy strung out on speed

hyperventilating vowels

as the wipers tango

across the windshield

till at the only light in town

some guy in a copper

colored pick up truck ahead

of me rolls down his window

in the pouring rain and waves

a burly arm tattooed

with swastikas and flags

of a southern confederacy.

I figure with the rain and all

maybe the big malcontent

needs directions or something

but then he’s screaming out

faggot this and faggot that,

stomping towards my car

and I knew his GPS was looking

for a face to land a right cross.

Bully pulpits make wild dogs

mad enough to unleash

a hurting of biblical proportions

so the foam drooling out

his toothless mouth and an NRA

bumper sticker gave common

sense a pregnant pause

to consider flight or fight.

I unholstered my only line

of defense of a recording

smart phone to combat

the stupidity of hate as drivers

leaned on their horns ,not

to protect my ninety eight

pound weakling ass, but to get

to wherever the hell they had to go.

A cop came around with sirens

blaring and Anytown’s finest

ushered the heathen back

to the truck and sent him

on his way before pointing

at my cell phone and saying,

“I’m going to have to give you

 a ticket for using that while driving.”

FAIRY TALES

my dearest daughter 

how absurd is it that we

should not know each other

after all these many years

part of it is my fault

my parental responsibility

overshadowed by my hatred

for that woman

you call a mother

in another universe

maybe things would be different

but I never read you 

fairy tales as a little girl

and I’m sure as hell 

not going to start now 

Who The Hell Do You Think You Are

I’m a recovering Catholic 

drug fiend and addict,  

a drunk, a thief and an ex-con, 

musician, writer,  half assed poet, and fighter, 

a grifter , failed husband and father, 

horrible dancer, an excellent cook, jokester and scholar, 

a liar, a crack shot, and a great driver. 

dog person, sports fan, trilingual, and a smuggler

too old to do any more time,

so I’ve retired.

In A Far Yet Near Land

–

They come to tear us down

For we have suddenly been outlawed

–

No longer appropriate to salute and stand for

They enter our sanctuary of graves

–

Our tombstones tens-of-thousands

That fought and died for them

–

We cannot stop them from where we are

As they spit and kick

–

Knocking over our crosses

Our cemetery being bulldozed flat and forgotten

–

And you ask could this happen

In a far yet near land as here?

too much dysfunction

i have never

been a big fan

of the holidays

grew up with

too much

dysfunction

i suppose

and as much

as i try to put

on a good face

for my mother’s

sake

everyone involved

knows i’m fucking

miserable

happiness anymore

comes in a bottle

a lonely saxophone

wailing in the

background

The Elements of a Crime

One night I sleepwalked into my parents’ room while they were lying in bed watching TV. “Here,” I squeaked in my 9-year-old voice, “take the knife. I killed him.” Then I sleepwalked back across the hall to my own bed. The next morning my mother was laughing and smiling when she told me during breakfast what I had done, but I felt – I don’t know – discredited. I had never sleepwalked before. The fact that I could act without being aware of it badly spooked me. It still does. Every night the sky is seething with headless birds in zigzag flight.

Trophy of Action 

My grandfather made a jackalope, 

A monstrosity, an abomination,

Out of meatless corpses and antlers shed. 

How is this any different from a poet 

Conjuring a fearsome critter from thin air?
I’ll tell you, she says, and then 

Old Jackie sings a raspy Lucinda Williams lilt, 

Turned up from whisky, she spills herself over the logs by the fire

And laughs when the bottle drips dry. 

Oh, a trophy of action! 

She lines her shelves with glass, takes one down,

Passes it around. 

Never Less than Harmful 
  
 Every night 
 the hand of god 
 is there 
 on my chest 
 threatening 
 to crush me. 
  
 Feeling every weight 
 of every challenge 
 every loss 
 that didn’t have to be. 
  
 Arms out stretched 
 I keep the world 
 just that far away. 
  
 The only safe place 
 is alone. 
 Even there 
 I’m haunted. 
   

For my mother 

When my mother was younger 
and got a bit tipsy 
at friends 
or family gatherings 
she’d paint a tooth or two
with a black marker 
and pretend she was this dumb hillbilly 
and clown with everybody
and I have faint memories of this 
and have seen photographs of this
with all of them laughing around a table—
having a good time.

A couple of months ago 
we talked for hours into the night
because we both have sleep issues
and I listened to her stories 
from back when we still used to be a family,
about her first dates with my father,
about my uncles playing chess 
and having ludicrous heated political debates,
about my grandparents and our neighbors 
and at some point we went over some
old photographs from back then,
their 80’s clothes and hilarious haircuts 
and in one photograph it was my mother 
in the military from back in the communist regime
surrounded by her female comrades—
this line of sweet and laughing teenagers 
looking at the photographer 
and holding submachine guns 
and I thought :
Damn, this bitch is cooler than I thought.

The next day she called me
asking for help,
she was in a sad predicament.

The rich couple for whom
she worked for for the last 
twenty years had now grown
terrifyingly old as time has it
and the husband’s skinny, wobbly legs
could not hold him most of the time
making the walk from bedroom to living room
and back a true odyssey
and so but then what had happened was
upon limping back to bed after day drinking 
because what else is there to do besides drink 
when you’re barely alive,
he had fallen beside the bed 
and upon impact had also lost control of his bladder
and pissed himself.

Upon hearing the thumb 
my mother had tried lifting him up
and Marina, the wife, the much older 
from the two had also tried to help
much against the advice of my mother 
and had also ended up on her ass
next to him
with my mother almost throwing out her 
middle aged back trying to lift either of them
but succeeding with neither of them.

So she had called me 
to go and lift them up
because her back was about
to give.

I made my way to their
rich people neighborhood 
contemplating of having all the money in the world
but being trapped inside the prison of your aging body
like a much more horrific and helpless  
Count of Monte Cristo 
because this is one prison you can’t escape from.

And when I stepped in that bedroom
I tried to hide my sadness looking at
these two souls just laying there helpless
like mummified relics,
one of them in a puddle of piss
and I said jokingly 
“ Old age is a bitch isn’t it”
and then said
“Ladies first”
as I put my hands below the armpits 
of Marina and held her up as softly as I could 
while Vasili from below trying to help me
by pushing her up
and then I did the same with him
not caring about the piss that doused my jeans
while my mother, mop in hand got into the room.

I slowly led Marina to the living room
while she narrated what she did with her days
and when she sat in the couch I handed her the 
TV remote, her best friend for the last couple of years
and she tried slipping me 50 dollars
because I guess that’s how rich people
show gratitude 
but I refused kindly and almost burst out crying 
right then and there.

On the drive home
we were both silent 
my mother and me.
And I thought about her impending 
old age nearing in like dark clouds
in the horizon,
the things I owed her 
that I’d need several life times 
to pay the debt of
and I wanted to say thank you 
but sometimes a verbal display 
of gratitude ruins the moment.

I’m away from home now 
like I usually am
and I guess what I want to say to you
is that to simply say I love you
does not do it justice
and as long as I draw breath 
you won’t be alone 
and that no matter how many times you fall
I’ll put my hands below your armpits 
and it’ll be your own son lifting you up
instead of someone else’s 
and if that cursed day comes
I’ll be coming in your room—

mop in hand.