The Road You're On

You don’t have the money to feed your kids  

And you worry all the time  

About how you will afford the gas to get to work each day  

The backyard needs mowing  

And the carpets are spotted in filmy grays and browns  

Legos beating up the bottom of your feet  

And toys you didn’t realize were around anymore  

Plodding in clustered corners  

Like forgotten weeds  

While you struggle vehemently  

With your insides  

Wondering if anyone can love you  

Really love you  

Because the apocalypse of age  

Looms recklessly closer  

And your veneer of confidence  

Tired and beaten  

Verges on utter collapse.

You thought maybe he loved you  

So you gave and gave  

Until you were handing out offerings  

From your internal cesspool,  

Still giving, nonetheless.  

He doesn’t love you after all, does he?  

And slipped away in the dead of night  

With all your cash  

And your last stick of gum  

That you needed  

Because you are all out of toothpaste  

And don’t get paid for another  

Week.      

You don’t give your love away for free  

Anymore and now your heart darkens  

Just a tiny bit more...  

And you’ll never get over this one,  

You know that,  

Because you gave him everything  

And now you have nothing left.

Scissors, please

I ache for freedom.

For that cold, metal key

Just the right combination,

Just the right fee…

I want my soul free

From your malevolent strings

I’ve been gripping for life on

You’re severed, stripped wings

Spiraling quickly

Into your chemical sea. 

Who can love an empty vessel?

Who swims those venomous seas? 

I labored in your death camp

Let you strip my dignity

Let your perch upon my shoulder

In stoic sovereignty.  

The Family Meeting

Your eyes, pleasantly cloudy,

Idly indifferent

When the case worker

Brings the child into the room.

You pull out your phone

Browse through the latest

Slander on Facebook

While your child

Lays placidly

In a lively pink car seat,

Oblivious to your estrangement.    

We all watch you from our seats

And with impeccable determination

Refuse to criticize

What we don’t understand.   

What you Want to Read

There are some I write for you

And some I write for me

The ones that hurt me most

Are the ones you’ll never see. 

We write to express oceans

Our turbulent, tender seas

But the wounds that truly rift our hearts

Is our unseen poetry. 

We write what we imagine

Others want to hear

But sores that ache too long or deep

Our readers cannot bear.  

Mistress

Your lady perches

On a rusty throne

Broken and ugly

Her vigilant, swollen eyes always

Watching me…every move

Waiting for one more

Moment of disparity,

The edgy scepter of doubt,

So she can move in

Be your savvy she devil

With the razor studded whip

Her grip

Brutally stitched

To your marrow

Your central nervous system

Your mangled spine.

I imagine one day

I’ll open the door

And she’ll be there

With a glass of whiskey

And a barrel of bullets

She’ll pull the trigger

Because she loves you...

Without causing a tremor or ripple

In her glass

Of Windsor Canadian North American Whiskey.  

There was a pile of dirty towels

At the bottom of the stairs,

That I had to step over

Find you in the dim lit basement

Sleeping on a dirty couch

Heavy in despair

I lay down on top of you

Wind my fingers through your

Auburn hair,

Oily from neglect,

Trace your damp skin

Your crepe thin eyelids

Skim your tender lips

With feathery fingertips

While you pretend I’m not here.

I press my heart into yours,

Cautious arousal,

Mutual affinity,  

That shouldn’t be

Indignant cruelty

From indulgent deities

That for eternity

Bound your soul to mine

The little cement block beneath
The roses, glistening pinks and whites,  
A sentimental thank you to the donors plate,  
Looking more like a gravestone,
And I had to for a moment
Work hard to remove
Your bones from my thoughts
Because there you were
In your coffin
That I try not to think about
Too much.
I kept walking, keep walking,
Past the roses
Past the gravestone
And really should work harder
On seeing you as a furious beam of light
Rather than a body in a coffin
Forever decaying a little each day
Because the air will never
Fully reach you
And properly dissipate
Into the earthy breaths that
Created you.  
It’s a little too much
To think about
For a bright summer morning.

The Rehab Group

The women are heavy and doleful

Still curling their bangs

And wearing pleated jeans.

Or the skinny ones with tight,

Unforgiving buns piled high and austere,

You’re not fooling anyone, sweetheart,

Squeezed into acid washed pants

Leering at everyone under several

Coats of midnight mascara.   

The men slumped in their chairs

Gripping their hands together

Slouching in defeat,

Outwitted, dimwitted,

Checkmate,

Mother fucker,

You’re done. 

But I try not to judge them.

On the Richter scale of trauma   

They score 7.5 on their good days.

I listen to their stories

And in my gut

I know

That this is life’s meanest

Selection

The thwarted cogs in humanity

Caught between the fucks

Of kin and fucks

Of sin.  

Those Pictures

An aging beauty queen’s frigid smile

Coy, stupid smirk

The superficial, terrorized look

Of an animal just before

The car careens into its impotent, lazy head.

That’s the face in those pictures.  

We will all be there someday

Make no mistake

With our heads bowed    

We’ll grasp, without acknowledgement,

Our reaper’s hand.

No sense in flirting

With the reaper,

He will cleave you in half

Before sending you to hell

Or wherever you’re going.  

The cat sits outside my bedroom door

Pawing to be let in

Not caring, like cats do,

Of the crisis tensing the molecules

Thickening the air in this room.  

I fucking hate

Surrender.  

But beauty withers

Always replaced…by something bigger

And better and more alive

Before it dies  

Again..and again.

You Want to Write A Poem

That’s brave…

To take my life

And eagerly, spitefully

Put in on a page

For others to ogle

To study the ugly corners

And the littered floors

The filmy walls

Brave and bold

Like removing someone’s

Underwear, turning it inside out

Reveling in paltry stains

That aren’t yours

Will never be yours

Will not be yours

You fearlessly stand

With a golden halo

In front of Heaven’s Gates

Waving a white flag

Freshly washed

In my urine

And for that

You will easily be

The heralded hero

Bold and true

You beat this shrew

And discovered the witless charms

Of martyrdom.  

Theologian

You circle the periphery of clouds,

A vagabond of the firmament.  

Perusing the sun’s corona,

A specter always pining

For meaning

But never needing

The touch of a woman

Or the feral scents of intimate urgencies.

I want you...I want

To be the pungent indecency

That binds your feet to the earth

Inhale the seedy pleasures in dirt

The artistry of sin

Lubricious offerings

And corporal sufferings

When desire consumes you whole. 

All this

Before you go drifting back

To your heavenly elopements.  

Knowing Your Past

Look at you

Buried deep beneath the covers

Your nocturnal aroma,

Musky, red blooded, the hard

Acidic smell of a man.

I’m standing at the edge of your bed

Performing a study

The hard lines where the sheets

Fall against your thighs

Your chest

Your face cringed painfully

As the violence of a dream

Clutches your backbone,

Diminishing you into the frail

Skeleton of a boy

Every night

I ache for you

I want to climb into bed beside you

And with my hand,

Smooth your ruffled skin

Break into your fractured thoughts

To piece the fragments back together…

Make you whole again.  

Paralysis

I didn’t get out of bed

For two days

After you swept in

With torrential rains

And bleeding winds

I gave you

My vulnerable, riverless veins

Aching for you  

To persuade the vultures

Circling up ahead

To abandon their quest.

And for a moment

The needle plunged…

I still see you

Peering so deeply

Into my soul

That the air around us

Paused for breath.  

How a Poet Sleeps

Our minds don’t stop

On a perpetual treadmill

Un-ordinary tragedies crowding out

Other emotions

Like hope…light fading in bitter  

Interactions, a mutual attraction  

Conversations that will never happen

Stories unwinding

While we lie between sheets

Of anxiety and prostration  

Brimming panic

Because we aren’t what we want

To be

And we will never be

What we want to be

Tragedies in the brooding night….

Hovering

…a figure

Stands stoic in the doorway

Just staring, standing

He’s not real…  

But we must keep our eyes closed

To fool ourselves

Because we fear the fatigue of

Tomorrow.

Death on a Stairwell

This kind of exhaustion

Belongs on a billboard

By the side of the freeway:

“Stop by our clinic

Before you die from  

Emotional prostration and depravity!

 Get the help you need IMMEDIATELY.”

I am required to walk up and down

These flights of stairs everyday

Delivering this document to that person

Or this person

All of them girls

With short, bouncy, brown hair

Typing and hustling, giggling  

In this busy, assiduous work space.  

But my head

Is static,

Permanent anesthesia

Sometimes thinking about how easy

It looked

When he died because though his breaths

Were stunted and labored,

He didn’t know anything….and wasn’t in pain

Slack jaw and dead head

And maybe that’s how everyone should go

Wrapped warm like an embryo

In an intimate darkness

Where the hearts and panic

Of others are comfortably meaningless

Maybe the rest of us are actually

 Fools

To wait to see what gore

Will claw in to our bodies

And grimly seize our breath.    

I’m going to deliver this document

To this bitch

With the short hair

And the perma smile

This document about work shit

That no one really gives a rat’s ass about

But  

What I am thinking about

Is how easy it is.

That maybe I wish I were dying

Right now

How inevitable the process

How easy the pace

Particularly when you are the vector,

The deliverer,  

Of your macabre but inevitable fate.  

Two More Minutes

Let me tell you what it’s like….

To have a man

Die on your couch.

Mouth full of un-chewed pizza

Poised to slide with easing grace

Down his throat

So loaded up on blue oxy’s and Xanax

Crimson red wine

He’s stopped breathing

And moist beads of death dew

Patiently spread across his skin

I think I am screaming

“Wake the fuck up!” and shaking him

But his head lolls and rolls

Like a marble

His fingers turning a lovely, lavender blue

While I stand there

With a phone in my hand

My soul and body shivering

Being adjacent to HIM:

The venerable. The dazzling.  

EVER OMNIPOTENT death.  

I hear myself screaming to no one

Alone with a dead man

And then

And then

His mother arrives and we fold him

Knock his lolling head into the

Stone cement stairs

Push him into the car

Curled and sagging like a sausage.  

And before we left,

While I stood inept and shaking  

I felt his soft, strange heart behind me

Alive and Alarmed

Auburn hair, bright and beautiful,

Begging me

Nudging me

Pleading with me

To get him off that couch

Because he wasn’t ready

He wanted to stay

And death was not his companion.

It only took a day

You were right,

Of course.

He’s on another bender

Another heroin one way track

To oblivion

While his son sits beside him

And says,

“I wish dad would be normal

Not like this:”

And he hangs his head down

And makes sleeping noises

Lifts his head up and laughs

Because it’s funny, really,

To a five year old.  

He nestles himself into

The crook of his dad’s waist  

Waiting for him to maybe wake up

But he sleeps on, forever,

In a black, molasses world

Of paradise.

Maybe I Sound Angry

I think what bothers me the most,

Is that you think I asked you to save me

Assuming I am a damsel in distress

Assuming that what I need is your stand up

Masculinity Morality

To straighten me out;

Smooth my hard and awkward edges.  

You are talking to the wrong girl.  

What you need

Is one of those blithe caricatures

Adorning the back of a cereal box.  

I say…

Put on your cape

And with your blunt, raging

Superman ego

Fly through the vacuous sky

And save that stupid bitch

From all other men

That are just like you.

My Letter from Jail

So you write me a letter

Empty of solace.  

Just so you know,

Loneliness is a choice

And perhaps

I need to turn my back

And find another

Until you can learn how

To write a letter

A little better

A little more refined

To buy a heart like mine

You need

To fucking know

How to write.    

The Housewife's Dilemma

She sweeps the floor mechanically

Expertly tilting the corner of the broom

To remove the smallest crumbs

Nestled firmly in the corner

Her head wrapped in thoughts of him

How will she get out of it tonight…

He’ll want it, of course,

But the thought of slipping

His yeasty, gritty cock  

Between her thin, polite lips

Involuntarily makes her shudder. 

He can’t get if off his mind,

These blow jobs,

But she has other things to think about

And his insatiable dick isn't one of them 

Although, she must make him happy,

She must at least try,

So, she wipes clean

The little puddles of milk on the counter

Trying to come up with ideas, with counter stories,

A blazing headache…

An injury…

Perhaps she will start her period...

These thoughts making her tired

And melancholy.

She needn’t worry so much.

He’s in his office with the door

Cleverly locked and the lights turned off

Slick red lips perusing the length

Of his hardness

Up and down like a piston

His fist clutching platinum blonde locks

And he tries not to make a fool of himself

While he loses control

While he cums

Into her hot, red mouth

He feels a little sick

Looking at her  

As the cum begins to drip

In thin lines down her chin,

Her eyes narrow and astute

Because she knows what he really is,

Oh, she knows.    

And in the back of his mind

He hates his prudent wife

Hates her dainty, feminine excuses;

Who is at the moment, scrubbing the spaghetti

Sauce off of his shirt from last night’s dinner.   

The Man I Want

He walks up behind me

And wraps his

Arms around my waist.

I want

Him to tangle his legs with mine

Before the burgeoning shadows of night

Creep into the room

And sleep finds its mark.

I want

The tender kisses as well

As the passionate deep.

I want

A man who is inspired by intellect

Who can find truths and mistakes  

Brilliantly polished by the strokes of a painters brush.  

I want

Him to sometimes reach under the table

Part my legs and with

Smooth sophistication

Fondle and caress me to oblivion

While dinner cools on a porcelain plate.  

I want

To be on all fours

So that he can firmly hold my hips

And push hard into my scented cunt

Pulling my hair,

For better leverage.  

I want him to possess the strength

To navigate the labyrinth,  

Into the solemn dark

Of my heart.  

Seriously

I don’t understand

Why the touch of your hand

Sends shivers down the length of my spine.

I’ve tried to conceive

Why you’re my biggest pet peeve

How you don’t find the truth in my eyes.  

I’ll never believe

That in this great sea

Of wandering souls and tepid, lost people  

You find solace in me,

In fucked up debris,

When you could find a soul that is peaceful.  

I wish you could tell me

There is an overpass

On I-15

A 200 foot drop

I walked there

Believing I could

Let gravity

And God’s palm

Push my tender head

Towards the calloused

Hard earth. 

But I didn’t do it. 

Maybe I am jealous

And angry

That you felt you could leave

Because you were bereft

And deadening inside

You lost your way

Pieces of your soul

Loose and drifting

Like everyone else’s.

You needed peace

And there wasn’t any to be found. 

Not here.

I hope you’ve found it. 

And I hope that your voice

Still skims the top of the earth

And finds solace

In the desolate sky.  

I'm Listening

I am sitting with my back

Against the wall

Just listening again

To your delusional diatribe:

How wonderful you really are

Once the drugs are gone

How wonderful you always were

If only we could all just understand

Each time you say it

I become a little smaller,

Shrink into the wall

Until I am a part of it:

Stoic cold stone  

No longer me, only

Part of the bland, white paint

That goes unnoticed and untouched,

Rooted indefinitely

Into obscurity.

Your Oxy's Are Worth Thousands

You get your little blue pills

 Worth thousands of dollars, you say,

And count them

Over and over again

In a dark room

In a dark car

On your mother’s couch

On your unmade bed

And then….

You spill them all over the floor

And must count them again.  

More missing each time

Less to count, but each becoming

An even more precious commodity

Your lips mottled and dry

With that sticky blue spittle

And your pupils shrink

Tiny, black points

I imagine your soul

Is fleeing

Diminishing through those

Little black points.  

I’m leaving, I say,

You don’t hear me.

I walk out the door feeling  

A demon smile smugly

Burning the skin  

Of my receding back

Through those little black pupils

While carefully eyeing

That diminishing pile

Of little blue pills

So You Say You Love Me

You finally give them to me,

The words I waited and ached for

So long…

Spears of hurt thrown

Into the frigid, deep of an ocean

That no longer belongs to you

A place of secrets and sly, slippery

Fish, bottom feeders

And forlorn creatures

That your words miss

This time

Because I’ve learned

That a hunter of your caliber

Only aims for the kill.

I’ve learned to survive

And outlived your lies

Now you

Weep; melancholy whimpers

Penetrating the ocean

Like the moans

of a stranded whale.

The Horror of Death for the Living

It’s much easier to write about

The triter things in life

Like turbulent sex poems

And my druggie boyfriend….

When I try

To write about

That little blue child

I held for 30 minutes in my arms

Before they stashed him away into

A cold dark room, where he was more

Alone somehow and colder

Somehow

And you kept the beanie on his head

Because you were afraid he would

Be chilled….

This remembrance;

50 daggers to my heart

I can’t let myself

Think about it.  

Or when I try to write

About the chaotic solitude

And confusion

At my brother’s funeral

Everyone strolling the graveyard

Like the walking dead

With shattered shards of glass

Piercing holes into their brains

Because he’s dead now

And we don’t know who we are anymore

Our world split in two

And the graves sit idly

In the frozen, hard earth

Oblivious and obstinate to our

Suffering.

I write   

To refrain from feeling

These heavy lacerations  

And the holes in my soul

Where I am no longer whole  

That ventilate the

Horror of living

Cocaine at the Gym

You take your shirt off immediately…

And walk around like you own the place

Puffed chest, pompous, soaring ego

And everyone takes heed…

Recognizing that you are a raging jackass

“Put your fucking shirt on” I say.  

But you go to the weights and lift

And lift and lift and lift

You are

KING OF THE WORLD

High on Crank

When we walk

I make sure

I am at least

4 paces behind you

Pretending that actually

I don’t have a fucking

Clue who you are.

Lover in my Wasteland

Today the wind is

Blowing bits of ice

In a vortex, from the vortex.  

My hands are frozen bricks,

Brilliant, blue skies

Empty and cruel.  

Your overseer came for you:

Black tar

Blow

Blues, pink ladies

And you’re gone again.

But what are we,

Any of us,

Under this kind of sky?  

Nothing more than one

Of these slivers of ice

Swirling in an empty eddy.  

Only you

Can get away with your

Loving addiction  

And I stay chilled

In the barren grey.

Your Lady of Choice

At last

The fairytale of your docent love

Desists

And you stumble around

On the phone

Calling me profane things

Demanding your profane needs

While my jaw drops

In astonishment.  

All the things you say I am…

A selfish, greedy bitch

Hoarding my splendid riches

And now you must turn back

To your heroin rich bitches

And I’ll return to

Where I was.

Quite content

Without your love.

This Day....of all Days

If you spend your nights alone

Writhing in a bed, too comfortable

For one person

And eat dinner alone

On a table with four settings…

Valentine’s Day is a 24 hour

Exercise of loneliness and despair

If you spend your nights

Writhing in bed with someone

Who forgets to reach over

And touch you

And you eat your dinner alone

On a table with four settings,

Valentine’s Day is a 24 hour

Exercise of high expectation

And bottomless disappointment.  

If you spend your nights

Wrapped in a friction filled embrace,

And spend your dinners

On an embellished table

Set with glorious, blooming flowers…..

FUCK. YOU.  

Where Did it's Head Go?

I am on my lunch break Trying to fake The motions of eating my lunch But near to my left Lies a mottled black mess That bereaves me with each carrot crunch. This fly lying dead Missing it's head Causing me much consternation Throw my lunch in the garbage My mind wrapped in larvage Felling ill over death's bleak invasion.

She

Waiting for this Death

I do not feel you anymore.

Your thoughts are as distant

As the strange, eccentric shafts

Of moonlight.  

Your touch no longer

Animates my soul

But rather, seems foreign

And fragile; lackluster incantations.  

I wait for you in an empty room

With empty expectations.  

I wait for you

With a death bell clutched between my fingers

Furtively waiting

To ring in the death

Of this affair.

Little Brother

You’re still hurting

Much more than I imagined.

I wish I could reach over

And touch your heart,

Put something in it

To make it beat like it used to

And bring the light back into your eyes.

We all have cracks in our world

But yours is deeper

Darker

And buries incurable tragedies.

I would offer you my hand

And lead you to life;

But I don't know

the way.

Your Love, As a Metaphor

This little earth of my mine

Never quakes anymore.

I am lumbering

In a dead land

Where the land and sky

Cracks and aches

Parched and stripped

As dry and swollen as a corpses lips.

It seems so long ago

That I was forced to let you go

And wander deadpan

Into these vacant dead lands

Where your touch is as rare

As the song  

Of a bird.

How to Love an Addict:

Come here a moment,

Sit down

While I stitch up that

Same, sore wound

You’ve reopened so many times. 

If you don’t mind, I’m

Putting in a small piece of my heart

Before I close this up

Just as little as I can give;

At trite relic, really.

When I’m done I want you to leave

Shut the door behind you

And never look back. 

I'm not a surgeon 

and I'm not saint

and I want to keep close

what's left of my heart.  

I miss you for

The man you want to be

The man you never will be

The man you never were

Which is to say

I don’t actually miss you at all.  

Unprophetic Vision

I had a flutter of a vision last night

Standing in front of a snow capped mountain

With a cherry faced man, both of us wearing

Fleeced winter hats, baring toothy grins. 

Sparkling like a tethered bird

Who forgot how to fly.

But I wear red, spaghetti strapped camisoles

And vexing, black skirts

Drunk, just a little,

High, just a little,

Dance on the slippery, glittery club floor

Like a stripper;

Letting them caress the wild, wisps of my black hair

Touch all the right places, just a little,

Until I able to

Unleash the fettered, bruising restraints

That bind my soul. 

Now that is a vision.