what on earth is this thing in my chest beating for?

this fist full
of blood in
my chest
has beaten
well over a
billion times
already

i've done
the
calculations

& today
i wonder
what they'd
sound
like
simultaneously

40 years
of beating

over a
billion
beats
at
once

but a better
question might be:
what on earth
would those
billion beats
be pounding upon?

love's door?

or
meaninglessly beating
upon an
exit?

that mute place
beyond numbers
& calculations
& love, yes
beyond love...

6 feet 8 inches & still lost

thomas wolfe
dead at 38

smoked 60
cigarettes
& drank 20 cups
of coffee
per day

so tall
he wrote
while
standing

using
the top
of his
refrigerator
as a
writing
surface

he was
8 inches taller
than the depth
of a grave

& that towering
lonely frame
told us
about being
lost

about not being
able to go
home anymore

& i think of him
whenever the
fridge door
squeaks open

& i eat
cold meat
off a bone
in bed
alone
at 2:15 am

cigarette smoke
rising but
w/nowhere to go

poetry doesn't begin w/a lump in the throat but rather w/a hand grenade...

that old softy robert frost said that
on his stone he wanted written:
"i had a lover's quarrel with the world"

i don't desire a stone but if i did i'd want:
"he had pistol whipping fist fights
w/this godless son-of-a-bitchin' world"

why's everyone living like they're driving in the slow lane w/their hazard lights on

yesterday i got a blow out
going 80 mph

after the car quit swerving
i pulled onto the shoulder

the rubber was shredded
the lugs nuts were stuck

big rigs thundered by
as i crouched struggling
w/the tire iron

i got the tire off
the old compact car shifting
on the rusty jack
& finally tightened the 'donut'
the tiny spare that comes
w/the car

it warns not to go over
30 mph w/it on

i got back in
& punched the gas
& hit 70

then i noticed in the rearview
that a hearse, of all things
was behind me

its headlights shining on a sunny
warm day in mid-october

not a funeral procession
just a death car following

but i felt no alarm
b/c that shit is always tailing you
whether you spot it or not

so i sped up
laughing at this
cosmic coincidence

75 mph
80 mph
etc...

the needle pinned
finally

while balanced upon
three bald tires
& one sketchy spare

cold egg rolls & lukewarm black coffee

i eat a cold egg roll
& sip lukewarm black coffee

staring out the window
at the leaves

i prefer it when
trees stand dying
& flowers wither

when nature quits
being ambitious

how does one fail
to become modest
in october?

but still i see them
greedy as ever
as the leaves fall

i wish money'd turn
brown & crumble too

if only for a short while

NICOTINE SCRIBBLINGS FROM A HAMMOCK IN THE VOID

This is my eighth book of poems. This time it's published by Good Japan Press:

Volume 4 comes from one of our favorite pessimists and all-around swell guy, Rob Plath.

His chapbook, Nicotine Scribblings from a Hammock in the Void, is now available for purchase.

Price - $ 7.00 (includes shipping within continental US) - If you buy 2 copies the cost is $12.00 - Buy 5 and it's a $27.00.

Make payments to agboerum@yahoo.com via PayPal. If you do not have PayPal access, please write us at GoodJapanPress@gmail.com for more information.

All orders will ship September 15th and arrive within 3 business days.

****I will have some copies as well. If you want a signed one. Let me know. As you know I am selling these. That's how it works. So if you're interested please email me here about payment method. I have Paypal or you can send a check or concealed cash. $7 includes shipping (add $1 more for outside USA). I will sign each book and draw my trademark skull & crossbones for you .


Thanks,

Rob

Cuffed To Your Own Muscle

In a way, the blood pressure cuff
is worse than handcuffs.

To know that you are prisoner
to a part within.

One with empty chambers
but that can explode anytime,

or send the blood so forcefully
through ribbon thin corridors

that they finally rupture,

leaving you like a fucking
dying geranium in a planter.

7 characters in non-pursuit of an entrance

i saw my birth
it had war-paint beneath
its leery eyes
& was sucking on the pin
of a grenade
at the lip of the womb

i saw my angel
its cigarette fallen from
its sleepy fingers
napping in a hammock
heavy lids facing up
at sweet cloudland

i saw my love
it was heroin-thin
its ribs visible
like the frets
on the warped neck
of some abandoned
pawn shop guitar

i saw my loneliness
it was grinning
ear to goddamn ear
sipping bum wine
& toasting itself
against an alley wall

i saw my faith
it was collapsed
in a shallow ditch
w/a rotten fruit skull
wearing a halo
of flies

i saw my ambition
it was in a morgue drawer
punching the keys
of the poetry machine
w/stiff bloodless digits

i saw my future
it was wearing a duster
made from a body bag
a toe tag
piercing its septum
like a bull
sipping whiskey on
a bar stool

To Hell With All Of The So-Called Cities Of Love

To hell with all of the so-called cities of love...

Give me a tiny room inhabited by two bodies, seated femur to femur, ribcage to ribcage,
on an old thrift store couch, two bodies smoking cigarettes, sipping beer from bottles,
their bare heel-meat pressing down against a burned, ripped strip of carpet, and finding
in this small, smoky space what the rest of the world wouldn't ever find in their next thousand lives:
that the natural magnetism of the marrow always defeats the weak draw of the shallow chambers
of the heart...

Give me this instead and I'll happily go into the Void without so much as a sigh.

As If It Wasn't Crowded Enough

sometimes it feels like loss
plants another skeleton
inside of you

as if it wasn't crowded
enough
with one set of bones

some nights you can
feel them slowly turning
in a tight embrace

this melancholy couple
dancing within

and it's almost kind of sweet
on those nights i drink away
and whistle a solemn tune
to this strange moving union

Unshaven In Thinned Out Black T-shirt and Greasy Jeans

The other day while reluctantly shaving,
after a few downward strokes,
I noticed a spot of blood.

Diverting my attention from surfaces,
was this bead of the interior.

Then I looked over,
in my false foam beard,
at the mesh laundry bag
hanging from the hook.

A week's worth of clothes
shoved in there like the innards
of a torso.

And I must say
I know nothing
of this existence
except the blood
ticking in my wrist,

and my yards of guts smirk
at History,
at Exteriors--

these things
the masses
kill for,
die for.

year after year

a soldier riddled with enough lead
drops forever right there on the spot

but some of us are not that lucky

we carry slugs in our guts
we harbor the heat
year after year

inoperable wounds
we walk around with
while frying eggs or tying
our shoes