DEMOLITION, 3:17 P.M.
Once the excavator takes the front wall,
the house becomes honest about its rooms.

Second floor:
pink wallpaper,
a brass bed frame,
one sock behind the radiator.

First floor:
green tile,
a sink still holding
the shape of its faucet in rust.

The stairs run upward
and end in weather.

People stop on the sidewalk.

We are suddenly allowed
to see where strangers slept.

A bedroom wall has pencil marks
beside the doorway:

MAYA 6
MAYA 7
MAYA 8 1/2

The half is underlined twice.

The machine bites the kitchen.

A cabinet opens
without anyone touching it.
Three blue plates fall forward
and break where the stove was.

Dust crosses the street
and settles on our cars.

For twenty minutes,
a square of bathroom wallpaper
hangs by itself—

small yellow herons
standing in blue reeds—

while everything around it
is sorted into wood,
metal,
plaster,
trash.

The excavator turns.

The wallpaper lifts once
in the bucket’s wind,

showing the white wall
that had been behind it
for however many years,

then tears clean
from the top.

Death Comes Knocking

loaded handguns
and loaded syringes
when you’ve stared both of them in the eye
the nights become different
the heart dies
the mind races
nothing makes sense
yet everything becomes important
death knocks
I don’t mind answering the door
tequila and bourbon shots
drags from glass pipes
loaded handguns and loaded syringes
they make most problems seem insignificant
they make most days seem quiet
death comes with a deck of cards
another night of betting my soul
as always, I end up with the winning hand

THE GREAT NORTHERN

“It’s so meaningless to eat!” ~ Frank O’Hara, Music (Lunch Poems)

It’s so meaningless to eat!
When I have £5 in my account
When this train is so dirty
With fingerprints of sausagy sauce
Smudged on the window and the
Squeaky metal table
(Not the most plant-based of surroundings)
The station we’re pulling into is
Dirty too
And even Bill Evans on my earbuds
Can’t dissolve the deep disgust
Of eating this WHSmith vegan sushi
With my fingers
     I’m afraid his plunking piano
     Might have to be assisted by a
     Glorious Boots wet wipe
          Who’ll sting my nostrils
          With alcohol
          sharp like a syringe

Avarice:


It was enough that she loved the part of him she knew[.]
—Leonard Gardner, Fat City

If only that were true.
If there’s one beer I want two.

If there’s two beers I want three.
If there’s three beers why not be beastly.

A dragon sleeps on its hills of gold
until its mass has grown too old.

Then it plunders ten banks per town
until a blithe smile replaces its frown.

Possession diminishes possessions
which in turn breeds fecund obsession.

Want and lust and greed have no end
except for one treasure: a friend.

The Old Man

Bukowski knew how it was.
He understood what you
are going through,
and why you keep at it.

He understood. He knew.
He also knew he got lucky,
and later, even luckier.

Good old Bukowski.
Buk. The dirty old man.
He could have told you.
Maybe he did
in his poems and stories.

There is no road map.
No business plan.
You do the hard work.
Keep doing it.

It is what you must do.
You know you have to.
Even if nothing comes out of it.

After the First Beer

After the first beer
I looked around the bar.
A long-haired middle-aged lady
complained about the music.

She said the song Creep
triggered her. I looked around
and spotted a golden-haired lady
complaining about a dirty glass.

There was a cacophony of voices
at the bar. A lean, red-head lady
with her man, laughed in unison,
drinking what looked like blood.
Every man and lady appeared to
be of the vampire persuasion.

There was a woman standing at
the jukebox swaying back and forth.
She told the bartender, Aphrodite

was her name. It was getting late.
The beer was getting warm
and bitter. I felt like I was being
bitten all over my body.

*

Remember the Rain

Did you remember the rain?
Wasn’t it beautiful?
Waiting under that awning
with all the other patrons
waiting to partake of red
or green chilaquiles or
enchiladas, or the fried folded
tacos with shredded beef
and cotija? The rain that
came down sideways
drenched our pants and shoes.
It was a summer morning.
We met up early and battled
the traffic and the rain
for about 10 miles, while
marveling at the needed rain.
It was only a day or two
when we complained about
the heat, the worst in many
summers past. We found
a new spot where the line
suggested this was the place
to be in Bellflower. We waited
over 30 minutes, maybe more.
We disposed of breakfast
quicker than the wait. On
the way home the rain
blessed us all along the way.

The Poet’s Pick-Up Lines

I must apologize well in advance
For the sticky sweet romance of valentines
That shall come your way this February.
It will take you a while to read them all:
For everyone knows, I have a lover’s lush vocabulary.
The truth is I woke up today to discover
That my heart had become a porcupine:
Bristling with the well-aimed arrows of eros—
And glistening like an unstained medieval shrine.
Did you know that porcupines are mostly nocturnal?
Unlike my love for you, which is totally eternal.
Day or night, my desire blazes beyond the verbal
And this loquacious inferno of combustible confessing.
Please, let’s move past these mere externals—
And commence with the Great Undressing.

Wide Open Decadence


It’s not common knowledge but a cult sort of thing –
the Nevada desert – where anything goes.
Decadence in the desert – Babylon reenacted.
In casino towns it’s a marketing ploy,
“What happens here stays here,”
so act as irreverent as you want.
Money flows freely with no holds barred.
Don’t dare criticize the prime
economic driver for the state.

But it’s not just the urban cities
that boast unbridled debauchery.
In an ephemeral city out in the wilds,
it’s a rave of artistic experimentation
in a place so remote you can hide in open sight.
A skating rink of Black Rock,
the playa hosts modern day beatniks,
all of man’s inhibitions shed in one place.
First-time visitors’ guide warns
of possible culture shock –
make up your mind ahead of time
to be participant or voyeur.

Hanging in the air the malodorous
smell of naked unwashed, bodies –
sunburned, dust-covered and ungroomed,
many covered in body paint –
appearance and identity ceded.

Building three-story effigies of
pop icons in the name of art,
rickety towers like golden calves –
ecstatic climax when lit up with fire,
like a fever devouring the fabricated effigy
til nothing is left but piles of sticks and ashes.
Festival-goers wonder if these constructs
of imagination really existed at all
or were they just a psychedelic dream?
Brushing off the dust, bathing, and packing up,
they attempt to shake themselves back
into reality as they leave.

What’s left is a dirty playa, filth and debris.
False claims of keeping it clean
prod the land managers’ Cheshire grin,
while the festival fees poured in
to fund more razing somewhere else.
What is there in the desert to ruin after all?

Days Long Gone

Have you ever dreamed of
Living in childhood again
What would you do, or not do
If a second chance began
Wow, too many to name them all

Would you want to run away from home
Escaping your parents’ gaze
Or rather have them decide
What you can or cannot eat

Would you wish for a free day
Skipping school and doing anything you like
Or simply lie in bed
Staring at the ceiling or the sky

Have you ever thought of
Inventing a game, inviting your friends
To play at your house without parents
Wouldn’t you feel like the boss
Making every rule in a world where everything arrives
On time and kindly, where nothing goes wrong

Perhaps you’d want none of these
Only to relive and feel again
All you’ve enjoyed, endured, and envied
Just to taste the sweet and bitter, one more time
To hold the love that you once received
And never want to let it go

O, those days are forever gone
You’re no longer the child you were
Your parents, alive or not
You may or may not have children yet
Suddenly you just wish
To be a child again

AFTER THAT BREAKUP TEXT

                                    You will never know

                                    How much it hurt

                                    In the heat of summer

                                    To be left out in the cold.