Acclimation

attack chihuahua! ankle high,
I spasm to the glee of the babushka

late afternoon, wan, unsubscribing
from life insurance scams

enough isn't enough, so I return to self
discontent as ritual privilege

eaten up like dog food
set out for raccoons.


*


I Could Die Right Now Knowing

I share a donut with a crow
at 7 a.m.
while most people asleep 
or hell-bent
on annoying each other 
could care less.

as traffic helicopters report:
exhaust fumes suffocate:
a shot of this or that
of rapid-fire deployment:

or submerged in bathwater,
checkin' out:

I don't stoop to envy the infant
unconscious of the inevitable.

I leave the crows
to hold council
even if they are
secretly in league 
with owls.

Wait and See



The rain falls like a returning memory

A grey-scale wash

For nostalgia’s faux-glimmering 

A revelation (that)

The streets were always this way

Only the shadows, the blackly-tattooed wounds

Of experience have changed

Grown deeper

It’s a long fall to the bottom now

Through a cavity run jagged

But the abyssal-depth remains the same

A street-watcher shivers in the dampness of their clothes

The same damp which accompanies each downpour

Another, their eyes sealed firmly shut 

Grits their teeth against their chattering

And claims things didn’t used to be this way

          My Old Mate Mick 

Tonight I'm thinking 
of my old mate Mick.
Fucking hell, we had some fun .
Until it stopped being fun 

He moved to the Highlands 
of Scotland
to get clean.
Did it, too.

I remember him calling me 
on my landline .

This was years before mobile 
phone technology.

Saying 

The nearest shop is 
over five miles away.
What am I going to do ?

He did it

Some men deserve death

Who among us wonders
what we really deserved?
A boot on the throat
a whore’s spit in the eye
a therapist’s maternal hand
squeezing your balls
Gacy’s oedipal laugh &
a tender kiss on the forehead 
the vicious hemorrhoids that bloody the bowl
the tent-life destitution
the septic glimmer of success
& the inevitability
of the colonoscopy microscope
that worm-fingers its way
to the fecal drenched 
heart of the matter
the exposé that rushes one back 
beneath the covers
a frightened child
cradled in the slick palms 
of inescapable authority
our luscious, brutal just deserts
a flagellant’s fantasy
an undercover nightmare
a faint hope of judicial lucidity
built on the sands of self-perception

Cold as Irish Green

March is cold
Irish cold and green.
Lace curtains, stank
cabbage; hard sunlight, bitter wind.
Skeleton trees sunk in grass
Grass like greenyellow crayons.
March is a cold month
Cold as Kelly green
White sweaters, warm beer; dirty
snow, heavy rain.
It remains in the grooves of your soles
Like sandy sidewalk grit.
March is cold
Cold and Irish green
Guiness Stout, Blarney Stone; muddy
pools, curbstone rubble.
In Ireland they throw rocks
In Boston they toss back stout
And piss in the streets on St. Paddy's.
March is a month of cold
Kelly cold and green
Celtic cross, gin blossoms; rusted
metal, gutter rivulets.
Even the graveyard seems cozy
On the most Irish of AllIrish Eve.
The month of March is cold
As cold as Irish green.

Repair the World

We lie down together
and drift through streets
I’ve never seen before,
shoes hanging from power lines,

and when we’re done,
and the bed is as rubbished
as a rowdy dive bar,
it’s still only the afternoon,

and a kind of prisoner swap
has secretly taken place,
our pale winter bodies returning
believing in rumors of spring.

Last Night on the Town

The one who was
going to die was
propped against the bar
by an artificial
limb. It was strange
watching that last
act, especially since
he was buying all
the losers drinks,
leading a show which
would end up a black
suit affair; not that
any of these guys
knew what a suit was.
Most bar guys would be
bummed when he went
but I wasn't: I'd
been called Dr. Death
before. These things
always seem to happen
on my shift; after
awhile you almost
get used to it.
I thought I was nice
person once upon
a time, but looking
into the eyes of dead
people does things to
you, I’m warped now,
broken, and nothing is
going to change that.

No longer that girl

Contrasting the verse that I now pen on smiley
face topics, like leaves birds and butterflies,
slipped in a notebook, stuffed in a drawer along
with the jeans that got tight now, are dozens of
them, of decades thematic of times when I'd
"loved" with a slice of my spleen, poetry musings
on "dirtbags" I'd known, when wayward and dirty
and destined for therapy.

And once in the while I take a peek back at
that younger girl, the one in contorted
positions with "jerks" at a rest stop, overlooking
the Grand Central Parkway and wonder..

**
to where go these poems
when I'm miles past that lifetime,

to where go these poems
when I'm no longer that girl.

Any Sort of Fun Flash Becomes the Past  

 
Turn it all off.  
Shut it down.  
This world will huff 
And it’s full of clowns.  

Keep that vision  
In your eye.  
Leaves decay.  
Toe prints  
Get eaten by the tide.  
Time deteriorates;  
You're gonna die.