i hear someone
walk through the door
and keep staring
at my drink,
expecting another old man
in the dive bar
so I’m surprised
to see nice legs and a skirt
walk up next to me,
wait patiently
for the bartender on the phone
and when she asks for
whiskey on the rocks,
i feel my imagination run
to the end of its leash
pull,
pull,
but I’m sturdy
going back to my beer.
she downs her whiskey and leaves.
somebody says,
“did you see that girl?
what was she doing here?”
american monotony
yawns another
stretch of sky
for me to
dwell in.
it’s noon
on a saturday.
i’ve had my coffee
and jerked off,
only to put on
Brahms no. 3
and ride the violins
toward my own
horizon.
they say
everybody needs
a hobby.
i just like
being alone.
there is
no normal,
so we’re all
fucked up anyway.
it’s any drunk’s guess
how lost the world is,
and the ones
in big mansions
don’t know any more
than the ones
sleeping in
a doorway.
the student
is as mortal
as the teacher,
the silence
is another song,
and tomorrow
is just another
comparison
to now.
having a cookie
with my coffee
and enduring
the obvious wait
on the rest of my life,
countless hours
fulfilling dull tasks
for money that’s never enough–
open skies with no room
for your soul.
all those bodies
stuffed into the train
and not one mind.
everything going,
going,
going,
and we can’t
say where.
when the booze
starts working
and the stomach
is empty,
as the brain
echoes into
its own image–
i suffer
leopard farts
and greek drama:
persona coming out
another hole
twisted like turd cursive.
i put it
in a frame
and ask you
to hang it
on your bathroom wall.
you don’t want to offend…
may we both
get this shit
over with.
i can’t tell
if i even care
but i suppose
that’s the approach
to writing
unless you want
to try.
no, no,
i know better
than that.
this drink
and this smoke
is all
it has to be.
as the 3am sky
folds in on itself
only to laugh rain
on the already homeless
and horizons line
impossibility
to the length
that we can see,
i’d say this
written accident
has gone
far enough.
i guess it
works out because
i don’t care
if i fall down.
whatever the task,
whatever the glory,
it’s being able
to eat shit
that allows you
to shine.
if you try,
if you grip the wheel
too hard
you crash the car.
it’s those
un-resisted movements
matching rhythm
without naming
yet somehow writing
a poem.
everything held
vertically.
a felt pen
worn-out
on the page
life strung
to the bones
alive in
every corner
the lights
still on
for now.
movements
keyboards
and sounds
seen from the eyes
maybe
it amounts to something
maybe
there’s a progression
and if not,
my breath
is wasted properly
one soul
contains the stars
and you
can’t escape
what you’re
made of.
