white striped

you can
tell by
my complexion
that i
understand
all 206
of my
bones

prison
within

my skeleton
colored
skin
moves
beneath
the sun

soulless

stripped
down

some
expose
their
hearts

me

i wear
my
ribcage
on
my
sleeve

sifting for stanzas

banging on the keyboard all day
now taking a break
eating straight out of the tuna can
w/a bent fork

i have neglected the litter box
seems like the cats don't shit some days
& then others seems like they shit
all day long

same for writing i guess
some days the words won't come out of the bowels
& others they come like a storm of turds

the cats sit on my desk now
while i am on the couch
two gargoyles staring at me
they want my tuna
& i want more stanzas
i have a feeling none of us will get
what we want tonight

fuck it
guess i'll go have a smoke
& they can lick the starkist can

you can't hang a horizontal man

i prefer
my skull
level
w/my feet

eyeballs
facing the
ceiling

no book
on my chest

blankets
tacked over
the windows

lights out

the cherry
of the cigarette
brightening
in between
no thoughts
at all

the ghostly
smoke lost
in the dark

the glass
empty

just

me

free
from
the
noose
of the
vertical
race

blood from tear ducts

i
think
of
drunk
jackson
pollock
w/dripping
brushes
& him
conducting
w/them
through
the
air
& the
paint
slanting
down
like
colored
rain
onto
the
canvas

i
think
of
van gogh
slapping
it on
thick
like
panicky
pastel
mortar

& i
wail
the
abc's
at
the
blank
page
&
watch
them
roll down
like
blood
from
tear
ducts

you don't need a .38 when you're turning 38

it's pouring today in january
that means the car won't start
good thing i have wine here
i'll stay home w/the cats, sip wine
& mess around w/the abc's
shit, man, two more weeks & i turn 38
yes, like the caliber of the gun
i can't stand the world but i wanna live
people are so fucking dumb tho
history wouldn't repeat itself
if we all just basked in the NOW
if we did that there wouldn't even
be a history or a future to worry over
but i don't foresee this happening in my lifetime
maybe after we bomb each other to kingdom shit
& some new kind of human evolves
a horizontal man, one that reclines all of his days
one that has the ambition of a common flower
there will be peace on earth but until then
i don't mind the engine not turning over
i don't mind the rain streaming down the windows
& the cats walking across my lap
& slowly pouring glasses of wine
i don't mind messing around w/the abc's
i don't mind not noticing how it turned
from morning to afternoon to dusk to dark

the anatomy of a poet

staples guns
or sutures
cannot stop
some people
from bleeding

a constant, internal
hemorrhaging

where even
the brain
& bones
get dyed red

an endless liquid fire
temporarily clotted
by the alphabet

six cigarettes

while my chafed hands
shook getting the key out
to enter the apartment
i noticed next to
the welcome mat
frozen beneath
water in a mop bucket
six cigarette butts
smoked a week ago
when we encountered
an evening of
mid-winter spring
& the wine flowed
& the smoke rose
beneath the thawing moon
but now they hang
suspended in ice
the glowing cherry embers
that moved through
the dark as we talked
& gesticulated
gone

jumper cables on the heart

i prefer the book of revelations
over genesis

i prefer the theory
of the extinction
of the dinosaurs
over the big bang

i prefer morgues
over maternity wards

i prefer midnight
over morning

yes, it's always been yin
all the fucking way

endings are like jumper cables
to my heart

thank god he broke the fucking mold when he made us

humans
aren't
treasures
in
clay

they
are
more
like
slime
in
clay

mud
pinatas
filled
w/phlegm