fish of pain

the human brain
is 80%
water

therefore
my skull
is a
bone aquarium

overcrowded
w/fish
of pain

i sprinkle
flakes of poetry
on the surface

they chomp
the words

which only
turn to thread
shaped turds

further polluting
the already
murky bowl

BAH!AMERICA!

a japanese saying
goes: "you should
see the AH! in
things..."

i see "the AH!
in things"
sometimes

but most of
the time i see
"the BAH! in
things"

how could you
not
in america?

can one see
the AH! in
the smog over
new york city?

can one see
the AH! in
a police cruiser
waiting to
ambush a driver?

can one see
the AH! in
all the pavement
that smothers
the earth?

in consumerism
in alarm clocks
in cell phone towers
in skyscrapers
in traffic
in banks
in bogus holidays
in billboards
in mickey mouse

etc...

BAH!AMERICA!

a case of death

there are
twenty-four ribs
just beneath
yr torso meat

a 12-pack on
each side

a case of death
surrounding
yr heart

can you swallow
this,
so to speak

or will you
sip the fruity umbrella drinks
of denial

drunken dissection

my
palms
are
full
of
blood

my
skull
is
full
of
mud

my
heart
is
full
of
snot

my
gut
is
full
of
dust

my
marrow
is
full
of
midnight

my
soul
is
full
of
skid-marks

my
tongue
is
full
of
absence

locked out for good

in a drunken psychotic episode
i got locked out of my life
& never found the keys
since then i stare up into my own windows
too high to climb through...
sometimes i shout up at the panes
fuck you! fuck you!
the windows are silent
my life remains sealed off from me

the length of three cigarettes

thought it was a kiss but it was a yawn

thought it was a heart but it was a grenade

thought it was a magic carpet but it was multiple land mines

thought it was a womb but it was a full bathtub w/a plugged in toaster

thought it was forever but it was the length of three cigarettes

thought it was milky kindness but it was napalm

thought it was solid but it was a ghost w/in a ghost w/in a ghost

thought it was peace but it was a constant siren

thought it was fate but it was a stray branch of summer lightning

thought it was a nest but it was a grave beneath a grave

thought it was the sunrise but it was a three-day blood sucking hangover

thought it was a friend but it was a pack of wolves

thought it was god but it was a closet of fire

thought it was mercy but it was sabotage

thought it was poem but it was a delayed nervous breakdown

love poem

i chain-smoked
your wrists
& didn't hack

i put your
eyeballs out
on my palms
& didn't
blister

i swung
from a
noose
of your
thick hair
& my neck
stayed intact

i wore
a bag of
your skin
around my
whole head
& i didn't
turn blue

i dropped
shots of
your bile
into pint
glasses
of your blood
& didn't get
the spins

my heart is an overflowing ashtray

my heart
is an
overflowing
ashtray

beneath
buckled
half-smoked
butts
&
a mound
of
soot

an
un-extinguishable
ember
enough
to start
a
five alarm
fire

the mysterious bard that made suburbia disappear for a few moments

once i was driving
& a song came
on the radio

& i had to
pull into a lot

& throw the
car in park
& just listen

it was just
a scraped
voice & an
acoustic guitar

but the words
along w/the
backdrop of
strumming
had sent me
off the road

my hands on
steering wheel,
shaking

the landscape
around me
in ruins

beneath winter stars drinking jack daniels w/apple strudel chaser

when i was fifteen we used
to hang out in the parking lot
behind a movie theater
that showed 'rocky horror picture show'
at midnight every saturday

some of us never went in
never had the money to

i was in the band of underprivileged kids
waiting for our friends
to get out of the show at 2 am

one of us always stole liquor
from our parent's cabinet
& we always stole donuts
or cake from 7-eleven

once i remember it was 10 degrees
& we were drinking jack daniel's
straight from the bottle
& chasing it with handfuls
of stolen apple strudel

& our fifteen year-old bodies shook
& we rubbed our wind bitten ears
our teeth chattering in our jaws
until our tongues burned w/liquor
& then were momentarily relieved
by big bites of sweet apples
wrapped in the thin phyllo
as delicate as our young skin

a touch of the warden

i live next to a middle school field
i hear the coach ordering kids around
reprimanding them mostly
it's sad that their young thin
legs run over green spring grass
in such a regimented fashion
the coach barks more directions
his whistle is annoying and obnoxious
there is something so different in the way
a child blows a whistle and the way
an adult does
one sounds erratic and chain-less
and the other ordered and tethered
there's more than a touch of warden
in the chambers of the adult heart

2:38 a.m.

sirens cut the air
more often where i live now
the train tracks just beyond the yard
the airport 1 mile away
the industrial park 1/4 away
this is the last house on a dead end
a chain-link fence between us
& a middle school
where weeknights at 2 a.m.
teenagers do 360's
in the parking lot
the squealing of rubber
on empty blacktop
ripping through the mesh
on fully open windowed summer nights
careless kids shaving hundreds
of miles off tires
while mine will be bald
by winter
& i wake from one nightmare
into the next
stumble into the shower
at 2:38 a.m.
the cool water hitting the salty
film on my skin
afterward i stand in towel
in front of box fan that is
propped on an old chair
my arms above my head like at gunpoint
the whirling blades
finally doing their job right