and

I’m taking a shit and I’m listening to Rancid and I’m screaming

"Fuck you all!" in my mind and I’m dying inside and I’m

skipping my classes and I’m learning firsthand from

prizewinning poets and I’m on my way to a basketball

game to see my girlfriend cheer but she hates it

and I told her to quit and she says obligations and

I say fuck that and she says responsibility and I say

if you only knew and I miss my band and I need to

play and scream and sing and dance and howl and

drink coffee and smoke and annoy girls in parking

lots and get chased off by the cops and smile and nod

and proclaim my rights under my breath somewhere else

after the police have left and I’m wiping my ass now

and I’m off to the game and I’ll probably write

more and I’ll get hassled by the administration

and stared at by parents but I said I’d go and

I will.

Sitting On Toilet

Sitting on toilet reading Rimbaud --

showerhead dropping dripping hammers into the silence --

there’s a pounding on the floor of self --

Will I wash away?

God Plays Bingo

If Bingo is the holy game,

then artists are the cover-alls.

Paints and pens the chips

which remember ev’ry uplifted fist --

each defiant digit

a step to

Heaven.

Blues

bent rent tear notes,

tales of misfortune --

I’ll never smile.

Evol

"A Love Supreme" bops the boombox.

Is there such a love? Or was

Coltrane a golden-horned scam-man

stamping out his beat in the Abyss?

The Prince of Air? A love-supremacist

injecting his myth into my ear?

The Glorious History Of Majestic Old Father Germany

sausages.

The Secret Of The Body

The old man told me the secret

of the body that he buried

behind the church, bloody and bruised,

the holy corpse.

He said: "Let me teach you the horrors of being mad --

every world waggles itself into a frenzy!

Every woman’s words wind themselves into ropes

in which you’ll be tied!

Let me show you the truths I found in her belly:

Love is fear, hate is bliss,

and trust does not exist.

I drained her juice to drink with dinner,

got drunk off of sacred blood.

Visions came and PUFF!

That’s how we find God -- by urging ourselves

and our machines onward, testing the rubber

bounds of physics, pushing the limits of exhaustion,

challenging the expansion of the west and of the night,

questioning immutable religions, and swallowing

soothsayers to receive visions.

We pray with inkpens, methods to secure our heaven."

Parrish Street

Stepping down Parrish St. in January rain,

all sidewalk-splashed by pickup trucks

filled with fucked-up men and

heartless cars with their artless women.

Ear imprisons drip-drippity drop of drizzle,

zup-zupping of corduroy pants,

and crackling splat of black boots in puddles.

Head crowned with floppyweathered old Bill Lee hat,

chin skinned of bardic beard,

left eye an egg of vision torn from

it’s nest in return for your wisdom.

Polluted lips and sinful fingertips

raped, rusted, and bleeding --

frenzy-stripped of the robe of your hands,

and their touch, and their healing.

I shit me hollow to be filled with your shine.

So now I aim my pointed pen

at your bullseye of lies and complacency,

your corkboard of hypocrisy and hollow words.

I could make you hate me, crave me, eat, or love me,

tight-thighed clasp your hands in prayer,

or spread-legged writhe above me.

I never set my steel-trap could’ves though.

Instead, I plucked my feathers and stuck them

to your shoulders so that you could fly.

You, who holds thump-thumping drum-heart in hand --

You, with clenched fist,

with painted nails stuck in the palm --

You, who imprisons my rhythm in her fingery cage,

who could never find her keys or keep a beat.

Wildflowers

raise blooming ends

to the anxious sky --

humble teardrops.

The Wasp

Wasp lands in pine tree,

sipping in it’s sweetest sap.

Do the pines get stung?

My Enigma

I’m a florescent shade

of invisible, you can’t

see me in my glow.

Climbing The Sky

Think about nothing -- think without words,

charge the gates of language --

try to silence your mind --

the answers will come if you shut up and listen.

Life operates with clockwork precision,

it’s when we tinker with the gears

that it doesn’t chime on time.

Practice not-doing -- live life and love all shapes

of ecstasy and suffering until you

BURST

out of your seed-skin like

a sprouting spruce sapling,

enduring December wind

yet keeping your green,

c

l

i

m

b

i

n

g the sky to and through

the burningbright eye of heaven.

Cigarette

I snuff my spent cigarette --

fireworks burst in ashtray’s

stratosphere.

Herpes Lasts Forever

I worshipped you for your tragedy.

shivering stars cried in chorus

on hearing of our

defeat.

Years were burned in vicious minutes --

disgruntled teardrops unionized

and went on strike, they formed

picket lines on the rude mystique

of my face,

they dragged their jagged heels

to scrape the scars under their feet.

You brushed them all aside and held me closer still.

Will you ever believe in the good ‘ol days?

I tried my hand at hating you,

but can’t forget Liverpool, London,

and Dublin nights,

miracle moments that we kissed and were one.

I’m coming to save you in western Eden;

I’m coming to save you in the Irish night; I’m coming to save you in the woods of desire;

I’m coming to feel you and to pluck out my eye.

you’ll be there waiting,

tearing your hair out

and counting the thorns,

listening close to the sounds

of the city,

sucking softly on raspberry

wine coolers, Natalie Merchant piercing the calm --

the night laughing down on you ‘cause you

and your junkies pissed the poor

old poet away.

I’ve given you a million words -- I’ve built immortalities in your honor --

I’ve sent the atom bomb away --

I’ve cleaned the great machinery of soul --

but I’m nothing in the process of

the world and

neither are you.

We spent 730 days locked in bonds

of "you and me" ---

what is that in the eyes of God?

Sometimes we send ourselves to slaughter.

I’d make a dainty sandwich,

but you would know,

you’ve eaten me before.

If you’re going to try to crucify me

use nails, not thumbtacks Jezebel.

I’ve learned many a proverb

from our endless nights and twisted limbs --

Q: What’s the difference between

your love and herpes?

A: Herpes lasts forever.

I’ll track you down though.

I won’t let you fly until you count your feathers.

I’m coming to find you on the edge of the world --

I’m coming to find you in your glass balloon --

I’m coming to find you on the outskirts of heaven --

I’m coming to find you at your father’s tomb.