My friend

Bobby used
to cut himself
when we
were kids
now he
sells life
and auto
insurance

wondering daily
which is worse

my friend
Abbie teaches
college intro
to fiction
and poetry
classes she
says she
fails anyone

who wants
her to read
their work
says it’s better
they learn early

my friend
Andy spent
20 years
in the Army
reserve he
deployed
to both
Iraq and
Afghanistan

and now
carries a
handgun
even in church

my friend
Jose is
an orphan
who lost
both parents
to drug overdose

he celebrates
the Mexican
day of the dead
by throwing
stones at
their tombstones

and my
friend Michael
was the youngest
of thirteen
children who
became a
Catholic priest

he says
he can
help save
any of us
if we
would only
listen.

Enlightenment


After making fun of Tony's
Tears and his whimpering in
Pain upon each urination,
It was decided that penicillin,
Rather than laughter, may
Actually be a better medicine
To cure his clap.

One At A Time

 
Melvin will soon lose both feet to diabetes.
The surgeons have already started on the left:
one toe at a time. He’s seventy years old.
Can still walk with the aid of a cane.
Can’t drive anymore because of his eyes.
His son Batman takes him where he needs to go.

Melvin heads straight to the candy dish
whenever he comes to visit.
You know what, Andy?
What? I ask.
I don’t care what they say about you,
you’re alright with me.
He laughs a toothless grin.

Melvin beat drugs and alcohol
years ago, he claims.
Now the sugar’s got him.
He chaninsmokes because they don’t allow it
in the hospital. Only pleasure I got left.
Less you count memories.

Next week they amputate his right little toe.
He thinks he’ll still be able to get around with a walker.
Otherwise Batman got to carry me to the wheelchair.
VA’s gonna gimme one of them electric jobs
cost 20 grand. I’ma be one of them guys you see
on the side of the road, flying the American flag,
drinking a Pepsi, smoking a cigarette.
Anywhere I wanna go, he says. He twists
his lips up in a knot. Rubs his eyes.
Getting old is hell, Andy.

“The house I grew up in”
 
belongs to someone else now,
and I don’t know
what colour the walls are
anymore, or if the basement
still leaks when the rain rambles
about its great grandfather
nearly drowning Noah,
or how I can’t forget getting drunk
in the kitchen with my mother
when we drank all the Christmas Eve beers
we bought to offer guests,
but I am quite certain
that the beers taste different enough today
to admit that the past
is all we ever truly own.

I squashed this bug
I squashed this bug
out of existence today
and I felt like an asshole
because who am I to
complain about my life when
I'm at the top of the food chain
and not just crawling around
waiting to be squashed

Cracks in the Clouds 


I do not celebrate the cracks
in the clouds where blue skies
hide from view. If we could
carve those skies up whenever
we could, we would expose 
the blue skies forever. They
need their privacy from our 
prying eyes. The clouds bring
us the gloom we have given
the skies from our disrespect 
of nature with our man-made 
contraptions. In darkness blue
skies cry themselves to sleep.

Captain Blood in Vietnam
           for Sean Flynn

Maybe he thought
he was some kind of
existential cowboy,
indestructible as a hero
in his father's feature
films, a man with a camera,
brass balls & a partner in
crime, getting right in
Charlie's face on the edge
of all the frontiers, so far
past known perimeters,
point men on patrol
used to see their jeep
disappearing around a
dead man's curve in
demilitarized zones,
blowing weed and taking
candid shots of the dead &
the soon-to-be, the ultimate free-
lance war pornographers,
one step ahead of Uncle
Sam & half a step behind
Sir Charles, Dennis Hopper's
role model for Kurtz's
magician with a lens &
a stoner's complete lexicon
of "Hey Man's… you
should see what he does best,
man, the Man is a genius…"
long before the movie or
the character was conceived,
until he was caught
over the line, where press
credentials & a long line
of bullshit did you no good,
got you captured & locked in
a cage to be pissed on, beaten,
reviled and finally killed, so
far behind the lines his capture
was just a rumor & his body
would never be found.

Nostalgia Hurts


Sometimes it feels like time stopped
and the only thing still changing is me.

My family is turning into phantoms,
yet I’m the only one who disappeared.

I wonder if this life I chose is selfish,
I’m afraid I changed too much this time.

Seasons became years and soon those years
will be decades of ghosts locked in time.

Nostalgia hurts and the home I miss
is filled with graves. The long-distance

daughter cherished for the space she keeps.
I guess my boundaries became sacred,

but everything has a cost and I traded
the home I came from to live my dreams.

My mom has always been selfless
and that’s the one thing I’ll never be.

I’ve got one life to live and I’m living it for me.

Hindenburging

 
I’ve dripped and mad-ripped 
out the other end of this affair, 
grey-haggard and high as a sprocket. 

In the Bible there’s a woman 
named Hagar, the concubine 
of Abraham and mother of Ishmael 
who’s kind of a write-off 
right off the bat ­– illegit and all that.

What does this say 
about infidelity? 
Fealty? Fiddlesticks?

God fuck the ego 
of affairs, unfairness, 
the fare extracted 
from my worth, net worth,
self-worth and worthless, ripped
open and stripped, unpacked, 
unwracked, all wrecked 
and reeking like leeks 
and wires. 

I met that man (my lover) 
as Chief of Security at the mall 
where we both worked – huh. 
He caught me unguarded. I sucked 
and fucked and finished 
him off, and that started 

everything. Don’t come again. 
I’m going 
down graceless, grab-handling,
hindering everyone and heliotroping 
down in hydrogen.

The Hindenburg, that German airship 
claimed 35 souls.
I’m 35 years old and oldering 
daily, while the sky 
brings the clouds to a boil.

The ICE Man Cometh

I wanna be an ICE man.
Kick in doors and make 
Children scream.  Root
Out heathen immigrants
Eyeing my cat for stew.
Break car windows in
The street just because
I can.  Local police and
National Guard both be
Pussys.  The Russians
Have Siberia for their
Dissidents.  If the Boss
Has his way, soon we'll
Have Camp Greenland
For ours.  Love and big
Kisses to Satan's ass.