AMATEUR NIGHT

so you're
feeling
pretty fucked
up feeling
pretty free like
a pretty
pair of panties
sliding
to the floor
but an
officer has just
pulled you
over and that
seat belt
is choking
you and you
should have
stayed
home asshole
like they
told you to do
on the TV news
because
we are
out in force
as if those
people you might
have killed
are really worth
killing

Here's That Rainy Day

to the late great Freddie Hubbard

when I snuck backstage
to tell you how
much I love you
you gave me a 20 dollar
bill to go get a 12-pack
of Budweiser so we
could bullshit proper
"you gonna come
back ain't you?"
shit man that was funny
so was me asking how
that Ascension
session was and what
did Coltrane have in mind
and then all your guys
with those fine
Japanese bitches
saying yeah how was that
never thinking to ask
after playing with you
for so long damn
and when it was time
for the next set you just sat
the first tune out with me
talking there in the wings
finishing the beers listening
to that beautiful shit
coming out of your group
until you had to go back on
and you told me "stay cool"
as you picked up your
horn and walked out
bathed in all that light
poised to motherfucking blow

MIRACLE OF LIFE

just seconds
after the Big
Bang in the
beginning of
time and space
a Universe of
open rooms fills
with transients
made of connect
the dot stars
causing sparks as
they walk on dry
carpet soon stained
by cheap black wine

THE

THE

EGO

EGO

OF

OF

MAN

GOD

TO

TO

CREATE

BERATE

GOD

MAN

I
like
to feel
it all
the
way in.

WHAT'S MY MOTHERFUCKIN' NAME?

2009 marks 4 decades of me being a published poet
in this once greatest country so try and find any of my
books in your local bookstore and you'd be shit out of
luck yet if I would have similarly wasted my life doing
almost anything else I could be retired by now with a
modest check and better teeth but all I've got to show
are consequential words across an empty white space

Winter In America

a 300 lb. Wal-Mart mama
with bacon strips in the
panties secretly considers
a face transplant via the
magazine rack at checkstand
7 when an unemployed and
balding grief counselor
glances over and smiles

Dreams About Sleeping

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

THE POEMS

I watch the nightly news and I love
all of you assholes in this new great
depression who have lost your job
or who very soon will from Detroit
on down with your credit cards burnt
and the mortgage and a greaseball
coming to take that new car and oh
but little Eddie has asthma and how'm
I gonna get the medicine and blah blah
blah blah fuck you welcome to my world
of the bleak hustle and the food banks
and the hospital financial aid and the
petty theft and the drug sales and the
parking lot handouts and the flea markets
and the top ramen at the end of the month
and the energy assistance and the car held
together with baling wire and absolutely
no one there to ask for any kind of magical
relief for almost all of these last 40 years
except there's the poems so now you tell
me which one of us is going to survive

THE LEGEND OF DAVE CHURCH (01/20/1947 - 11/27/2008)

slumped
over in
a cab
with the

death
poem
how it
happens

when
trying to
get last
words out

a second
before it
shouldn't
matter

I Know Something About Love

So far, in this lifetime,
I've pumped out enough
semen to lift any boat
full of insane women
off the ground.

PRONOUNCING MYTHOLOGY

she's young, traces of vomit


"get them before
they scar more of us"

NO XMAS

for Jon Alan Carroll

such a righteous story you
told all those years ago about
that drunk who picked you up
hitchhiking Xmas Eve on the
downside when the dude says
there ain't no Xmas for
bums like us that it has stuck
with me this far past every
agonizing holiday and reminds
me of the time I played Santa
at the Emporium Capwell in
San Francisco when some kid
had asked me to please cure
her mother's cancer right after
this other girl had wanted the
fur coat in the window down the
street at Macy's each with the
distinct pleading of their own
station in life which made it
easier to customize the lie so
that when after the shift was
over and I took off the costume
that reeked of piss from hundreds
of kids sitting on my lap all day
I felt like what that prick God
must feel like and I punched out
to go get a double shot backed
with a High Life not exactly too
gentle into that Stille Nacht

Stranger On The Shore

in Mr. Acker Bilk's
driveway what you
remember before
you were born may
be helpful in death
but two lug nuts on
a rim is flat stupid

PLAY
WHAT
YOU
BELIEVE
IN
THE
FUTURE
TV
JUNKMAN
FRED
SANFORD
ADVISED
AYLER

THIS WAS WRITTEN WHEN I WAS 19-YEARS-OLD, HITCHHIKING THROUGH OREGON:

POEM IN MEMORY OF ALAN WILSON

this is my opinion nothing
goes for sure we can
take life can't give
death back want to
suck out your hole the
outlet/fingers vibrate/
(arms crisscrossing
like all the telephone poles
along Highway 101 collapsing)
/sounds of a cat
with hairballs choking
then they play the
national anthem
when the country music
station goes off the air/
("...every town is the same
as the last, the future
looks worse than the
past...") the winos
with the shits on Grant Ave.,
S.F. I know/where
are you sweet Gypsy Norman
Tibet-Alaska-maybe back
to West Virginia where
are you Hip Eddie
(wearing M's sunglasses: "They're
rapping what we rapped
ten years ago, man!")
where are you M!
this light bulb this
12' by 15' room also today
waiting/carrying boxes
of food for the
people at the Abundant Food
Center no one wants
to work they are
Americans hick/primitive/
rustic remains of 1850
the only colored people
come when it's
potato picking
time (the Deputy Sheriff:
"...we're proud of that...")
you can taste
the discrimination/
America is dying/
I remember coming across
from Canada the fat
decadent border guards-American/
"...want to check your
things..."
"...what for..."
"...we're told to check everyone..."
"...how come that family in
the Cadillac got through
without being stopped..."
no answer
then they wouldn't let the
French Canadians across
not enough money/
"...fuck your country..."
oh yes-yes what
are borders tear down
those walls let's
all copulate the open
road the open road
Arizona/Utah/Texas/Montana
/too spoiled America
is too soft GET OUT
love it then leave it
sure those sweet
young hitchhikers
"...ass tight, all night..."
oh my god oh
my vision of god the
highways are too
surreal remember
Debbie drinking whiskey
with that old sailor
in the Jaguar
from Monterey a
living Hemingway/
the way we acted each
other's part/
America is dying what
did Kerouac say: "...a
rucksack revolution
...millions of Dharma
bums going up to the hills
to meditate and ignore
society..."
yeah that was early 50's
look now Mr.
camper/trailer/tourist/truck
driving/DYING AMERICAN
look those fuckers
with thumbs out/
everywhere it is
happening!
it is happening!
react/
take a razor blade and
slit your eyeballs
while gazing into the
rear view mirror what
is there to see-
there is
nothing like some asshole
staring at me when
I am not even there



-Bend, Oregon- Sept. 1, 2/'70

Thanksgiving

he woke up dreaming he was
President-elect there at the
food bank not able to spell T-o-p
R-a-m-e-n but still discussing
the world-wide food crisis in the
loudest of fuck you syllables
with a couple of unactivated
credit cards stapled to a sunken
chest and so especially proud of
a 30-year-old car and that time
getting handcuffed for drunk
driving in front of the Human
Resource Center counting how
many children he has by the
tracks in his arms with three
bindles to the slow motion wind
yet still not recognizing most of
the other names on his application

FOUND POEM


the word verification that came up when I just now
left a comment about Steve Richmond at fhole:

ANTINT

NESTING DOLL CULPABILITY

on TV shows
these cops are
always talking
about the vic
or the perp
like it would
take up too
much time to
say the whole
word just as in
real life when
with nesting
doll culpability
you'll soon be
fitting each
description

LIKE

BECOMING MODERN
TO

CREATE

NO

COLLECTIBLE

ART

Someday

the dead never told me
anything I could use
other than keep it up
you'll be here soon and
you know what fuck you
motherfuckers is what I
say being a first lieuy in
the devil's army because
actually I was thinking
of those whores who let
their kids go hungry when
I sat there chopping lines
awash in very cheap whiskey
as they sucked my numb
cock while occasionally
glancing over at that cold
stove like it was Iceland
and someday we would
all vacation there

WHAT PRETTY CLAWS

in
stolen moments
in
stolen panties

FORGOT GODOT
FORGO) GODO,
F RG G D
or got
short lives.

WALKING INTO GLASS DOORS

who
could wear
that mask of
Kenneth Patchen's
reading
with the
Charles Mingus
Band
when
there is a
chance of
someone
else yanking it off

For All Who Served

I remember when I was young
most of my friends seemed to
have photos of the same guy
an older brother standing next
to a sanitary '55 who was now
over in Vietnam but would
soon be coming back from a
free-fire zone to the Twilight
Zone so that when I got drafted
myself in '68 during Tet I thought
what a crock of shit this is all for
nothing while I dummied up at
the L.A. Induction Center and
after one year was granted a
4-F status which was actually
harder to do than it sounds and
a way longer story but I covered
my ass and that is the point I
wouldn't be here now if I would
have went to their jack off war I
am sure of that and each year
on this day when I hear the
stories of honor on the TV news I
still feel the same way with no
guilt at all what you did for your
country may have been arguably
groundless but what I did for
myself was a fucking necessity

58 Tears

if you want to be me
come back to the
graveyard where I
just now visited my
sweet baby under
cloudy moonlight with
the headstones leaning
backwards expecting
the shadows like no one
comes here sober and
really no they don't so
that has nothing to do
with it I came to see
her on my birthday
ain't that fucking stupid
because if she could
spread her legs it would
be dust and that would
only throw me off

PRECUM REDUX

Stories of wisdom
when stupid.

BRIDE OF GOD

I am stupid because
I am dead

laughing but crying
saturated

with the wisdom
of crowds

EXIT POLL

here in Oregon we have vote by
mail so I sent off my ballot
over a week ago but before I did
I had my daughter who is in
the 4th grade pencil in the little
oval next to Obama's name
a talisman to be sure because I've
seen enough of these assholes in
58 years these Presidents who
some of you would call great men
but I wouldn't even piss on if their
motorcade were on fire out in
front of my house so I'm just
sitting here today hoping we don't
get fucked again while I drink
a few beers with history

Born To Die

for Iron Mike

this is the last beer in
the twelve pack and my
partner just left after that
healthy dose of pot butter
I gave him because it's his
birthday and his bike is
down carburetion and my
birthday is a week away
to the day so we trampled
the scorpions talking about
Sturgis and all the bullshit
fuck the cops and blah blah
I forgot to mention the Evan
Williams so he was pretty
fucked-up but you know
when you're born to die you
might as well kiss your ass
goodbye because that journey
could end quickly with all of
your photos blown across
a dusky highway where
no one is looking back

Day Of The Dead

brings me back to the
electric hangover
crushing scorpions on
Tweety Blvd. in
snakeskin boots waiting
to hear Sonny Boy
blow when with sugar
skulls for eyes she says
soy una cabrona erotica
and that could be just
about right except for the
part about pistol-
whipping the wind but
you mustn't turn away
so I carry on living

MARGIN OF ERROR

the mismeasure
of man in

weak-kneed
sentences

and to be
called poems

Forgetting Incandescence

it's as black as the white
side of midnight if you
believe her story of the blood
seconds inside the no reply
broke down and trembling
in the Valley of Fire with
no services for the next well
I mean who counts the miles
when you're out of luck waking
up with lips pressed against
the disrupted upholstery that's
crumbling like Coleman lantern
mantles to the touch of
your one last match

The Light They Waste

this week I got the
phone call from two
old brothers one
calling from a Tijuana
hospital where he just
had triple bypass
surgery to save a
hundred thousand
dollars because the
weed business is not
covered by Medicare
and my other soul
partner in Spokane
who got five stents and
was feeling fine except for
the fact that his fucked
up liver will kill him
before his heart does so
he's still drinking the
wine and writing the shit
but what more could
you expect when you're
the last of your kind
living amongst the
incompetent others
in the light they waste

SHINTO MUSS

you just
asked
an oddly
shaped
rock for
an order
of fries
with that

Out Of The Dish

a week ago in Portland
I performed with
the Be Blank Consort
these sound poems that
everyone read off of
scripts and Bennett had
me do this one where
I barked like a dog for
about 5 minutes which
was indicated by all these
drawings of little bones
but as the rest of them
read the text it put it all
into perspective these
last 40 years of fucking
with the poems ended in
this one quick yap

TO DETERMINE GOD'S WILL:


DIE AND
ASK HIM
YOURSELF

DIE AND
YOURSELF
HIM ASK

DIE HIM
YOURSELF
AND ASK

ASK HIM
YOURSELF
AND DIE

HIM DIE
YOURSELF
AND ASK

DIE HIM
AND ASK
YOURSELF

AND DIE
YOURSELF
HIM ASK

ASK HIM
AND DIE
YOURSELF

DIE ASK
AND HIM
YOURSELF

DIE AND
ASK HIM
YOURSELF

Untitled

this colored guy walks into
a bar and tells the bartender
give me a drink you poet dink

now this really pisses the poet
off so he tells the dude look man
you trade places with me and
I'll show you how it feels

so the colored guy gets behind
the bar and the poet sits down
on the stool then shouts out
give me a jigger nigger

the brother slowly looks him
up and down and then says
we don't serve poets here

ROBO CALL

blow out the candles at the shrines of great men)

The Hard Letters

It's
how a
woman
must feel,
spread wide
and relaxed,
not having to
be in charge of
that best guess.

BODY OF WORK

if only words could
kill then I would
spell out the names
of the lost in one
last poem

America Votes And Goes Home

"the ATMs don't
frickin work
girlfriend"

ENOUGH

it's this time of night that I come
home buzzed from the lot I own on
the side of the road that I call a flea
market where I spread out all the
broken shit that most nobody wants
but some do and I make enough for
a six-pack or gas or some pop for
my kids and a lot of the fuckers say
I'm a veteran I'm fucked-up
my legs go numb I'm hurting
you got any whiskey or these tired
women beaten by family and life the
assholes who call themselves men
I'm sorry but I can't keep from
crying I got nowhere to go would
you take 50 cents or all the others
who ask hey you got some hits or a beer
I need a line I just want to sit here and
get fucked up until the pain goes away
or the tears can I camp here tonight
can you give me this coffee maker I'll
pay you on the first man but that day
never comes so that's why I hate
this country

so scared and alone no future for
the future you've put your faith
in lovers or tormentors)





EVIL TINES




Grief-stricken, the old man put his head
in his hands and moaned.




The last class will be over.

The last textbook will be closed.



______________________
With bible, notes and poetry
Nettelbeck came to talk to
lawyer and newsmen.



"we invite you to measure every
destination by how deeply it moves
you"

BRIGHT SIDE TO EVERYTHING

Like a rubber full of smiling faces

on a beach with no name twelve

blocks down from an abandoned

warehouse where pincushions of

meat still discuss the relevance

of a big toe.

Cash Game

for Morg

I had 6 t0 7 grand in a
jar when I was selling
chronic to hillbillies and
Indians but I gave up
half when the man came
around every two weeks
to collect and that put it
all into perspective I was
still in the bucks but not
writing the poems so the
shotgun aside I took what
I wanted and told them
all to get fucked

IT FEELS LIKE FREE FALL

a propaganda matrix)

(my dry rotted safety net

REVELATIONS 9:11

spoon-fed newscasts)

(your neocon kicks

Just Like The Movies

for Michael C. Ford

a Rory Calhoun
look-alike is ravishing
in boho chic
when the
scarcest of gauchos
wearing
rubber masks of
retrospect
kick his impenetrable
ass between
the porticoes of
infinite space
just like the movies

;;;;;;;;;;;;;WHY;

;;;;;;;;;;;;;NOT;

;;;;;;;;;;;;;YOU;

CULTURE OF BULLSHIT

the teleprompter speaks for
a tortured puppet who has
no idea how many homes
he owns but has designed
a strategy to fight against you
the homeless the buttfuckers
the pregnant the atheists the
starving the dopers and drunks
the cripples who always look
down anyway away from a
luxury those who have it all
could never have achieved but by
facing the real test the work the
faith the service a complete
culture of bullshit designed to
make it all feel better when
they're kicking you telling you
to stand up stand up stand up
nothing is inevitable here

The Songs Of Coyotes

I walked in the streets of night
so no one could see my face
-Jack Micheline


Your crosshairs are now
where your bullet is
hitting.

MORE DEATH BLUES

for the continental OP

death wants more wine not
more death that prick already
took three of my sweet bitches
but I'm still here they're still
here so with no street corner
available I scratch a watch crystal
deep with my initials during one
long hydroxed breath at a redundant
crossroads like I'm supposed to
be scared of wearing blackface
shit I ain't got any whiteface left

HOW TO LIVE ON NOTHING

the grass turns red the
baby fingers plummet down
severed at the joint never
to flip no one off and that
makes me cry into my top
ramen sleeping out front at
the lost and found with a
heart full of soul and no
poems left I fucking spilt
the wine while picking off
scabs on the skin of my teeth
so which of you shits are
going to patronize me now

EVEN

NOISE

DEATH

OF

WILL

CONSTANT

BE

BOMBARDMENT

SIMULATED

IN

OCCASIONALLY

THE

ONE

PROGRAM

RECRUIT

HAS

WILL

BEEN

BE

FAKED

PULLED

SO

FROM

TOO

THE

THE

SHOW

SMELLS

AND

OF

SENT

DEADLY

HOME

GAS

WITHOUT

AND

WINNING

ROTTING

PRIZES

CORPSES

GOOGLING REGINALD LOCKETT IN HOPES OF ASKING HIM IF OUR FRIEND THOMAS MICHAEL FISHER IS STILL ALIVE AND THEN FINDING OUT REGINALD LOCKETT IS DEAD

What the fuck ever happened to Paul Mariah?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
finding "Kill All Niggers"
sprawled across a rest room
wall on vacation in Yosemite
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll Stop At Nothing

like Morton Marcus once told me
you never did like me and you
know what that motherfucker was
correct I didn't much like Greg Corso
either but I got all of these poets in
my Bushnells anyway so what's the
difference I am poor and spit on
everybody I write my poems in my
head while drunk driving in my tactical
vest because America wants to kill me
for robbing a Food Bank with capable
stanzas of dearth and no sick days
left at least on that surveillance video
where I'm wearing my Galway Kinnell
mask and brandishing a squirt
gun full of piss

SOFT FOCUS

you just really fucking enjoy
making an asshole of yourself

"I especially hate people"

Cool

we would always go trip in
Hollywood when we were
teenagers high on pot and
my partner would always
want to go to Jay Ward
Studios on the Sunset Strip
where the revolving statue
of Rocky and Bullwinkle was
and we'd try and look in the
windows but they were all
blacked out and we would
wonder are they in there
now creating cartoons and
it was all very mysterious
with that statue turning and
everything so one night we
were there smoking a joint
and out of the shadows on the
sidewalk comes Jack Kelly
who played Bart Maverick
on TV wearing a tux with the
bow tie undone stumbling and
carrying a fifth of whiskey
looking quite handsome actually
probably coming from Dino's
nightclub and we ask him hey
Maverick you want to smoke a
joint and he pushes us aside and
says fuck you and keeps on
walking back into the darkness
and that was so cool we couldn't
stop laughing for twenty minutes

IT'S NOT LIKE
I GET PAID
FOR THIS.

LANDFALL

my baby humpback whale is lost
on Pacific Avenue along with the
ghost of William Burroughs Jr. who
was cursed from birth so the more
we drank the more we drank and I
don't fucking have to feel like a natural
woman full of injected saltwater
the camera crew is making its final
adjustments to the shot as I keep
trying to make small talk in this poem

The Untouched

the new valid sentences will be
empirical truth now that the sociopath
is gone yet 6 ft. under the moonlight
a melody played in a penny arcade
makes the homunculus seem ridiculous
because of course Mickey Rourke could
kick Mickey Rooney's ass but who
would make the better Bukowski if a
young Judy Garland had her legs spread
and was calling all the untouched home

The Hills Have Eyes

roadside death-crash
markers enough to make
the realtor cry like hot buttered
soul on your blood libel or
the lips of law enforcement
around the shaft of basic human
rights so you shouldn't really expect
too much it is only life after all
you're just humming a rain song in
hand-me-down handcuffs
while checking the mailbox for a
duplicate birth certificate
filled out in someone else's name

FAILURE TO APPEAR

so you wanted to implode
the tears of a clown
when you woke up this
morning just to go get
yourself a beer
then why wonder whose
face is really behind
that sky or what
parallel universe you will
blackout in when
that joker asks to trade
you smiles

CARNIVAL

how you pooch your lips up after

rimming your old lady and they

smell like dirty cotton candy

At The Book Display Table

All the pretty names that they give to
baby girls who grow up to be whores.

OR AGAINST LITERACY

control the metaphors
to control the thought

Ghost Story

years ago I took the guy who owns the store in
Sprague River to my favorite fishing spot down
from my house here across from Council Butte
where they signed the peace treaty for the Modoc
War and I showed him the rocks like fingers that
go down to the shore and the foot deep grinding
bowl that is in one of them and I told him to imagine
when the Indian women would prepare meals there
so long ago and that blew his mind but right around
then I started smelling a heavy BenGay smell and I
asked him if he had any of it on an injured shoulder
or something and he said no and that he didn't smell
anything so I took him back to the store got some
beer and wine and went over to visit some friends at
the bottoms which was kind of a hobo jungle where
everyone lived in old dilapidated overhead campers
but all I could smell was BenGay and it was starting
to bother me so I asked them if they had any of it on
or could smell it and no no was all they would say so
we drank all afternoon and into the night and I was
getting to where I could hardly breathe from that
heavy menthol smell so anyway my friends started
asking me again about all the Indians I knew and
right then pow it motherfucking hit me with goose
bumps up the arms the whole shot it was Old Fella
shit Jesus he was an elder who I just recently had the
extreme honor of being pallbearer for because we
would party together and me and this other white
partner would kind of look after him a real character
who would only speak Paiute except every once in
awhile when your back was turned he'd say something
in English just to piss you off and he would always
smell of BenGay because he was so damned old now
exactly the moment I realized this the heavy odor
completely disappeared which was a relief but I got
real scared not knowing what it all meant so I said
goodbye to my friends and decided to drive over to
see Gow who was kind of an unofficial Chief who could
tell me something so I get over to Beatty about one
in the morning and wake his ass up and he comes
out and sits with me in the car and I tell him the whole
story and he says no no Old Fella was just giving you a
sign that he was ok and not to worry but I tell him I
don't know man it seemed like way more than that to
me but Gow just says don't worry don't worry and goes
back into his trailer and I just sit there for awhile and
begin to think that yeah he is probably right it was just
the old man touching bases so I drive on home to sleep
it off but now here is where the whole thing gets unreal
the very next day my Paiute old lady who I have been
arguing with for a week gets hit by a train and killed

A Little Dark Mirror

index finger against the temple like
you're blowing your brains out

crotch butter girl through
layers of synthetics at
a querulous 1969 drive-in movie
with the car still running

lost celluloid burning crimson
like a flash of chrome
at the Sharon Tate crime scene

buying food stamps from the south
Texas hippies who stole the remains
of Burroughs's orgone accumulator
in the early seventies

being born a poet after The Last Poets

crusty binoculars dug out of a ditch
before a garter snake bites the adolescent
boy who will kill you someday

THIS WAS WRITTEN LATE 1980'S AT MONA'S NUDE BAR, S.E. PORTLAND, OR:

through you no
blank thoughts
________________

As is now.
(I know)


crawl into the
dark
-------------------------
surrounding voices


NOT A LIFE


we last this
long:

as sweat &
wet
as the fear


as the lips

in the ground


stupid, but I
write &
this moves
-------------------------
to forget you


flesh & mirror;
long fingers
of time
expose need.


so you breathe
hard into his
face as he
fucks you.


I have kissed
the mirror.
________________

I have kissed
your mouth.


an exploded view
of intimidation


Agree (trail of

stolen eyes

far away)


All about you, it's
all about you,
swollen &
important inside
these words
like heated
blood.


________________
All I have.


blank mirror.

this is what
time
is

the waiting to
go back

glorious &
smooth

to that first
room


gggggggggg
I know it.
gggggggggg


--------------------------
it is not like this


MEAN
MORE
TO ME


what it takes.

a heart torn
subject to fear.


--------------------------
not to be harmed,

I accept the
fever.


I AM STILL HERE


this is now time;
not to repeat
words:

you are sick,
contained by an
eaten past.


_________________
she stood in
the room.

he stood in
the room.


burrow into sadness


then to remember,
we are governed
by our hips-
gyrating into
nonexistence.

Short-term Americana

dirt road beer

piss mile in

duct taped

cowboy boots

cutting

backstrap

on a dented

tailgate

LOOKING FOR FEAR

...so then I got a job deflowering
noxious angels on this big blue
marble that seems more like a
Tidy Bowl commercial to me...



Subtle changes take too long.

Them Or Us

the psilocybin is in the portmanteau near the foot
of the bed where Dr. Phil is sucking your heavy
nuts inside an odorous TV on a rainy night in
Portland just a couple of blocks away from Powell's
City of Books where one of your earliest volumes will
soon be experiencing spontaneous combustion in
a parthenogenetic book buyer's hands

BEER RUN

these wasted days
the wasted nights
not recognizing
your face in the
rearview just for
that one second
when you question
yourself and your
weak-assed poetry
hungover in an
America which has
no talent no derring-
do no tolerance for
for your own bilious
breath filling the
inside of this
25-year-old car
with the ether of
those beat and lost
long before you

WHAT YOUR SKELETON HOLDS UP

I am looking out at you
from that album cover
Merle Haggard Pride
In What I Am

Friends

then what

LOVE POEM FOR EVAN WILLIAMS

under my thumb in
the midnight hour w/
mystic eyes when the
music's over won't
come back from dead
man's curve cuz freddie's
dead

already

STOP-MOTION HANGOVER

like bodysurfing
The Wedge
high on glue

GUTTED BIBLES

magnificent desolation

ggggggg
time is cum

Selfless

for Michael the K

puppet up dress

thrill is gone

bug light on

how blue (can

you get

ONE WORLD ONE DREAM


the linked rings on every
Chinese Coke bottle

the leaping athletes on
each McDonald's paper bag

ABOUT YOURSELF


SO WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME
ABOUT YOURSELF
NO ONE CARES HOW YOU FEEL
SO TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF
NO ONE CARES
TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF
NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU
OR LIKES YOU
SO PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT
YOURSELF
NO ONE CARES MUCH WHAT
HAPPENS TO YOU
WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME
ABOUT YOURSELF
YOUR LIFE IS A MESS AND NO
ONE CARES FOR YOU
SO TELL ME A LITTLE BIT
ABOUT YOURSELF
NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR
OPINION
TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT
YOURSELF
TRUST ME NO ONE CARES
SO TELL ME SOMETHING
ABOUT YOURSELF
NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU

HOT

tonight on a back
street in North
Hollywood the
severed head of
a porno star looks
just like this one a
waitress had on who
served you breakfast
in 1972 when you
were hot hot hot

Hummingbird

inefficacious bones of
every piece of puke
I ever fucked up or
kicked the shit out of
because I do it for a
living so why would
I front you a 20 sack
when I personally won't
even write a poem unless
someone is buying

THE SENTENCED

Based on this true story
that is based on the lie,

I'll integrate my body
with machines.

Amaranth

ghost tavern on the outskirts.
small and musty like an old train car covered in
rusted beer signs of unknown brands.
tongue and groove walls yellowed by nicotine.
smoky blurred characters at a dark burgundy formica
topped bar suspended in canned laughter.
crumpled red and green Lucky Strike packages
on corner tables full of empty glasses.
a father's skeleton hands lifting you up as a shadow
slides you a Coca Cola in the thick light green bottle.
clicking of an overhead fan like a Nellie
Fox baseball card in the spokes.
faraway smell of a neighborhood burning leaves outside
a hand worn door that doesn't even open.

WE
CAN
OCCUPY
OUR
TIME
BY
CONSTRUCTING
VIRTUAL
WORLDS
WHERE
WE
WOULD
BE
BORN
HAVE
ADVENTURES
AND
DIE

1968

that's when I graduated high school
and on the last day of class we took
reds and went down to the beach but
got delayed for hours because thousands
of people lined Imperial Hwy. to watch
the jet that carried away Bobby Kennedy's
body into the void fly low overhead and that
was a weird sight but a lot of heavy people got
killed that year one way or another so we
didn't really think nothing of it standing
there in history walking up and down in it
ready for a world which when I look at
it now was hardly worth waiting for

YOU COULD BE THE NEXT BIG WINNER

write your little poems for the
rest of your life rolling up
pennies for the top ramen and
beer because all the extras you
can shoplift for your kids so they
will feel normal in a digital
jungle of bad movies and violent
video games where a nigga is on
top of the game with a bigger
pistol in that drug kingdom of
advanced dementia where no
one buys any books or says yes
to beautiful until it all ends
up on You Tube where depression
hurts and no one gives a fuck anyway
unless you're stalking them with the
fake identity that made you want
to write a poem in the first place

VOICE OF THE MARTYRS

(a lesser Flamingo

Red Herring

my storytelling dashboard Jesus ready

for unearthly impound laid beneath

a bullet-punctured highway sign

getting rustier in cold rain

You also have a beautiful clit.

Dead Reckoning

for Greg Hall

back to scars on a trigger. gravestone streets
skid marked from her bloodthirsty Bratz doll face.
chandelier of tits in a shotgun shack by the tracks
of an LP tacked to saber tooth tar paper. adult
beverages with get down syndrome. three lines
of the haiku on snow while kissing a belly button
from the inside. 60 second stopover with a
25 Minutes to Go new coffin haircut mimicking
the lost coordinates conducive to all flesh.

COLONAPEN AT NOON

Someone pets
the kitten,
someone throws
the kitten
against the wall.

From The Glass Lined Tanks Of Old Latrobe

to the filthy
porcelain
of a St. Louis
Greyhound
station urinal
shaking off
before a blow job

All Fell Down

[Your Name Here] liked nothing more than to
take off for the park at night, drink wine
and look up at the stars.

gene transfers
between animals
and plants
are possible
it is conceivable
that we could
create animals
that would bear
fruit or have
flowers just for
our amusement

WE ARE FUCKED ASSHOLE

I'll drive my Chevy to the
levee and get interrogated
with three dollars in a wallet
bulging with more false hopes
than what I could find in an
emergency room filled with
cranksters so what the fuck
I'll at least get a candidate
lawn sign that will help the
cops find my house a little
easier next time when I'm
out front screaming how
I'll do something about it

ENDOWMENT

shit

if I
didn't
sell

drugs
I couldn't
write

poetry

I wish God were alive to see this.

As No One Ever Did In Life

The man-eaters
are nauseous.

TATTOO ON MY FACE

NN

a tattoo of my face on my face

THIS FROM A NOTEBOOK CIRCA EARLY 1970'S BOULDER CREEK, CA:

wash the television screen.

blotches, motion
disturbed. we

smile at her intelligent
answers. "I

would have said the same
thing."
________________________

we asked the
robots 'what do

you do?'/

'III emmm an Ahrrrtist'

John hit this
big one

with a wrench/smashing

the two
tubes on his head.

"Kills Bugs Dead."

,this was in the Museum.

Circumciser Vespiary

this nest of foreskin
and labia inside a
rummage sale
Land Camera
is really nothing
extraordinary

SOME PEOPLE WILL CARE MORE ABOUT AN ABUSED DOG THAN YOUR DUMB ASS

A cataract clouded sun
over dull bodies flush with
carcinogenic credit cards
mean the poems ain't working.

This rifle was broken beating
an old visual poet to death.

LOVE POEM FOR MARK JOHN BROWNING

all those years ago today
on your birthday we
took all the pills and
went and saw the Doors
at the Hollywood Bowl
with Morrison screaming
so beautiful man we never
even wrote a poem about it
but so what who thought it
would mean anything
and it really doesn't
because it was ceremony
and we were there as
unkempt literati with a
Small Press literary magazine
ready to come out on mimeo
which didn't really mean shit
to a tree but so anyhow my bro
I am thinking of you again
on this another summer night
all these years away from
the words we once thought were
as unstoppable as an iron lung
in a breezy field of butterflies

Birth Of A Poet

Bass Lake
with the
Angels
that 4th
of July
when I
was about
14 my dad
dug the
chicks on
the back
of the bikes
in their
white bras
we were
driving
through
into nothing
but were
a family
just like
them so
his Iron
Worker ass
shut the
fuck up
that one
and only
time after
that he
talked too
much when
I wasn't
listening

Token

the old ones with American

dreams caught in the pantomime

of possessing nothing are speaking

tonight on the wind of Yankee

Doodle Dandy with the blues

harmonica gathering power

passed out in a Buick Regal under

a Mt. Rushmore tagged with the

stylized verbalization of flames

THIS VERY MOMENT

to sit think to absorb

the sun with
cold beer

in hand for ones who are

not here but
would still

like to be I am sure

now there is
Canned Heat

blaring out a car window

where the
river turns

away from this very moment

The Last Poet Standing

will be the stupidest
motherfucker but
happy in ignorance
with chill-bumps on
the arm and a brand
new moleskin filled
with incorrect spelling
because the truth isn't
really true if you tweak
it a little for Zyzzyva
just for the contributor's
copies to throw on the
bonfire that night all
instinct fails

WHY?

because Hank 3 saved country music
because Oklahoma is not OK
because Opstedal saved Nortena surf poesy
because Milwaukee's Best is the worst
because Jesus saved Blue Chip Stamps
because no check is in the mail so I'll come in your mouth
because I saved this last dance for you
because Elvis was never ever the king
because you didn't save that stinking snatch for me
because nothing could ever be the same again
because you can't save me from drowning in a sea of liquor
because I don't remember reading I Remember
because I won't save anything except the bones
because Will Smith is not really an actor
because not even God would save this country now
because who really gives a fuck if you're going to die anyway
because you didn't save the instructions to your defibrillator
because Robert M. Petersen wrote: "many-peopled desolations"
because why save anything now
because no one ever told me there was a war going on
because I never have saved the best for last

ggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggg
starving the world to feed our cars
ggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggg

Blood Alcohol

the thread of these
drunken cities
towns where the
dream is over
and another has
just begun in
the brotherhood
of the insane
in a handful of
change under
an oblique sun
down the tracks
of chromium where
my grandfather's
brains are splattered
dreaming of lost
Chicago because
the suburbs are
crumbling next to
the yellow dandelion
with our hearts in
a boxcar while I
shatter this empty
bottle against the sky

FORMER
MARINE
BRYAN
CASLER
RECOUNTED
HOW
FELLOW
MARINES
URINATED
AND
DEFECATED
INTO
FOOD
AND
GAVE
IT
TO
IRAQI
CHILDREN

WORDS WILL COME

I could watch you hurt yourself with the prism of

lost years that illuminates this orthopedic shadow.

during yourduring your
lifetimelifetime
you will waityou will wait
in linein line
a total of twoa total of two
to three yearsto three years

SUN UP SUN DOWN

don't think about it too
much that is how you
fuck up because the long
crawl of time requires no
explanation when you're
born to lose falling off a
mountain indefinitely like
anyone will ever figure it
out we'll be here awhile
with an index finger raking
up and down oscillating lips

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits

for George


The seven words you should
never use in a poem.

And we held each other.

Dogs From Hell

so I got this job driving the
tour bus past 5124 De Longpre Ave.
and I'd put this joke shop fake
rubber puke on the floor and these
lames from Beverly Hills would
flat love it and tip me big time
because it made them want to go
write poetry at least for 15 minutes
until it was time to do somebody else

DON'T YOU WORRY 'BOUT A THING

suppose you had a real life
with the pussy
and god

because you ain't

Chasin' the Trane you
don't even read Jack
Micheline asshole

and he was my friend

so if you ask me who
is the greatest poet

that depends on how
drunk I am and how
the bitch reacts to
being a bitch

when she tells me
I'm a bitch
but

that ain't true
because to love
everybody you must
hate yourself

so imagine
Jack Kerouac bleeding
all over your

notebook when your
inner voice says you don't
even care

and that is so true

I'M



the
Soviets
controlled
language
through
"political
correctness"
-----------------------
th
Sovi
contr
lan
th
"po
corre
-----------------------
I am standing here.

American Postcard

when the ghost train whines across
hollow eyes when ciccadas speak
Texarkana sentences when the hands
of a waitress unbutton his grease stained
jeans in the back of no memory when
the radio plays a hobo song inside a locker
at the Greyhound station at noon when
the children find a brown body in the alley
next door to the Hotel Grim when the pink
meat of the watermelon splits obscenely
open when the one mosquito lights on a
cheerleader's smooth bare ass when you'll
turn to alcohol where the weathered
metal sign says Cool Inside

DARK
ggg
ggg
ggg gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

hospital lights

jail house lights

let's crawl under

the comfortable

dark of a bridge

I'm Buying More Ammo With My Economic Stimulus Check

in memory of Tim Russert

it's your Wal-Mart nation where the fat
women sing inside their nacho cheese
colored skin before the undulating flat
screens as crisp as diet cola and as bright
as the spandex that covers those stretch
marked cheeks so you can sure bet this will
be a credit card purchase because this time
the revolution will be televised live on digital
tv and not to be outdone they must spare no
expense in being part of broadcast history