Some old writing

Some old writing

Some old writing that I just

brought up from a bin in the basement

reminded me of the time

when I lit a piece of paper

that I was typing on on fire

and watched the flames leap

up the curtain  in front of me.

I sat there in a catatonic state,

a zombie to the whole situation.

After she put out the fire,

my girlfriend didn’t know what

to do with me. She made a bunch

of phone calls and they said

take him to the mental institution.

It was about five days before

I figured out who I was

and who everybody else was

like The President, who the folks

at the loony bin seemed to think

it was important for me to know.

This was in the mid-eighties when

I was doing a fair amount of LSD

and drinking copious amounts of liquor

The doors of perception that

60’s gurus predicted would open

for me if I did hallucinogens

had quite the opposite effect on me.

A best friend's empathy

A best friend’s empathy

My dog, Morisson, looks up at me

sympathetically seeming to know

that I am in pain as I scratch the

psoriasis on my right hand.  He

cannot alleviate the discomfort

that I am feeling, but it is heartwarming

that he acknowledges what I am

going through.

Sociopathic imbeciles fueled by Budweiser

Sociopathic imbeciles fueled by Budweiser,

and their team’s World Series victory, torch

cars and buildings in a public display of what?

The city in question, Boston, was hit by terrorists

just months ago. Why do Red Sox fans act like

terrorists themselves then? Certain things are

incomprehensible to me, and this is one of them.

Yeah, Red Sox, but boo, to the Red Sox fans who

took to the streets with Bic lighters and destruction

in their hearts as a means of “celebration.”

It's very tit for tat

It’s very tit for tat

helps me know

where I’m at.

Gimmee some perspective

Gimmee some perspective

Are you speaking from
a first person perspective
or a third person perspective.

though I had nothing

Though I had nothing

I would have paid anything
to get with you, 
but you said that you didn’t
want money, and you showed me
your bird seed.

Heartache is hard

Heartache is hard

Heartache is hard.
Heartache is mine.
Heartache kicks me
in the balls all the time.
When listening to Chris Knight 
lines that are alien to my existence
come to mind and wind up
on this page. It's been a long time
since my heart was broken. It's
been a long time since I've shook
my hands in fists of rage at the moon.

I'm underneath the bottle

I’m underneath the bottle,

and, once again, it has put me

behind the bars. I started out

wanting to be a Superstar,

now I’m strung out, here, on Mars.

I'm waiting for my man

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

I’m waiting for my man.

A little inspiration

A little inspiration

When you’re looking for a little inspiration

where do you look? Do you look in your momma’s

cookie jar where she used to hide bus fare that you

took and bought warm beers from the boy down

the road? Do you look in the school book that you

used to like to read, though you were no good at

passing tests on what you had read? Do you look

at the map on the wall that you kept so you could

see all the places that you wanted to go? Where do

you look for a little inspiration?

Bigger Markets

Bigger Markets

If you’d been in a bigger market

you would have been bigger,

would have got your picture

on the cover of The Stoned Roller,

would have played Thursday Night Live.

But you weren’t, you were a big fish

in a small pool, and those much smaller

than you got big because of where they lived.

If you could write a poem

If you could write a poem

If you could write a poem

that would make all the world’s ills go away

how long would it take you to write it?

If you have that poem in you, why fight it?

Jot it down and release it.

Do it now. Do it right away.

Write that poem that will chase

all the world’s blues away.

It’s probably not possible, but why not try?

RIP Lou Reed

I am playing some Lou Reed, right now.
I think that it should be a rule that we
play some Lou Reed every day just so we
never forget him.

The same is just the past repeated

The same is just the past repeated

Have you ever gone for the jugular and failed;
found yourself face down getting stomped?

One of the greatest tastes in the world

One of the greatest tastes in the world

is the taste of an Air Head candy in your

mouth. There is nothing like it. It is a 

marvelous experience. This is not an 

endorsement by the sales staff, it is a

happy review of a wonderful tasting candy.

Live

Live

Swarm.

Burrow.

Migrate.

Infest.
Digest.

Ingrate.

Saliva.

Sweat.

Blood.

Water.

Minerals.

Aspirin.

Fire.

Tears.

Smile
Yes.
No..

Frown.

Die.

Live.

Dig deep

You got to pay the fare

otherwise you risk arrest

going here from there.

Hothead on the internet

Hothead on the internet

Have you ever known a person

who is nice in person, but is a

hothead on the internet? Their

personality completely changes

once they get their fingers on the

keyboards; points of view that you

never knew they had come rushing

to the forefront like a brick would

thrown at your face by an adversary.

They are very self-righteous about

their attitudes. Everyone is wrong

but  them. We are a bunch of losers

and they are the only winner at this

thing called the game of life. They

won’t go away either forcing you to

use the block button to get rid of them.

Disappointment and sorrow

Disappointment and sorrow

I had cracked two eggs and started melting
a thing of butter in the microwave. The oven was warming,
and then I realized that I had no bananas
and, thus, could not bake a banana bread for
my love.

Submission

If a publications says that they get 50,000 submissions a year and only print three poems an issue, I’m probably going to pass on licking a stamp and placing it on an envelope filled with my poems to send to them. I mean I think that many of my poems are good, but getting them in this sort of a publication is, to my way of thinking, like trying to win the lottery buying one ticket a week.

Pleasure

Pleasure

Mr. Turtle, George, had spent a few days

under his rock and I was starting to get worried

that he was sick, but this morning, he is gleefully

swimming the length of his aquarium, end to end,

he goes, as if he is making progress, which pleases me.

The first time I was arrested

The first time that I was arrested

I was of age to drink having a beer

at a party and a cop pulled up and

said, “Come here, boys,” to me and

two friends. The one “friend” dropped

his beer as he walked with us towards

the cop without warning us to do

the same, so the cop busted us for

Public Consumption of Alcohol.

My jail stay was short as my father

showed up and bailed me out, something

that he had sworn for years that he

would never do. I should have learned

some sort of lesson here, but I didn’t

and I continued drinking until I was 34

with many other arrests along the way

related to me and my drinking. 

I'm thinking about what to do

I’m thinking about what to do

now that I have had my coffee.

What I feel like doing is going

back to bed, but I probably won’t.

I will probably do what I usually

do in the morning: write poems.

Look how that turned out

I am not a handy person of any sort

but my love is, so I call upon her

to drive the nails, and unscrew the screws.

My father was handy, but he did not want

me to work with my hands, he wanted me

to work with my head, so he taught me

that I could not work with my hands. Often

you turn out to be what you are told

you will be by your parents. Sometimes,

though, you overcome these negative voices,

so I am sure that one day I will become

proficient with a hammer, and a screwdriver

because I will say yes I can to the voices

in my head that are saying no you can’t.

Businessmen and husbands

Businessmen and husbands

We used to go to Old Saybrook

for a week in the summer, as kids

with our parents. One summer

my dad let my turtle go, because

he said that I was not taking care

of  it. I think that he was full of shit

and just didn’t want the turtle in

his house. There were always kids

at the pier, on the beach, cruel kids,

who would hang string attached to

bait into the water to catch crabs.

They would then pull the legs off

of the crabs and burn their bodies

by holding a magnifying glass to

the poor things. Can you imagine

what type of businessmen and

husbands these kids turned out to be?

Politically correct

Politically correct

“Good Morning,” says the bird

as I lift the sheet off of her cage

that I cover her dwelling with

each night before I go to bed.

“Give me a kiss,” she adds and

then she clucks a few times as

if to imitate kisses. She then

says, “Good Morning,” for the

rest of the day. We are working

on teaching her, “Good afternoon,”

and “Good evening.” We do want

her to be politically correct.

I start my day with coffee

I start my day with coffee

a cup or two, not the nearly

whole pot that I used to drink.

Coffee can make you tense

I have learned the hard way

and I prefer for my days to

be pleasant.

Practice doesn’t always mean perfection

Practice doesn’t always mean perfection

My dad bought me a 99 cent basketball

from a bin at the grocery store when I

was eleven years old. I wore that ball out that summer

on the basketball court behind the public school

that I was to attend that fall after having spent

grades one through five at a Catholic school.

The ball wasn’t a real basketball;

I soon realized that plastic is not what

all the other kids were playing with.

Eventually, I got a real basketball and

got to play on a team of eleven and twelve

year old kids. We won the league championship

my first year on the team, and came in second

the next year. I was a starter on the runner up

team, the leading scorer. To get to that point

I had spent umpteen hours shooting a basketball

through a hoop. I even talked my dad into putting

up a hoop in our driveway, something that he later

said he came to regret because I used it so frequently

and the noise of the ball on the concrete and the noise

of the ball hitting the backboard ruined the tranquility

that he was seeking at that time in his life. I played

basketball through my senior year in high school.

I was too greedy of a player to really be of any value

to anyone by that time. I wanted the ball every time.

I wanted to score the most points. When I was on

the results were good, but when I was off it was ridiculous

how many shots I took and missed. Practice doesn’t

always mean perfection.

I've never lived with a bird

I’ve never lived with a bird

I’ve lived with my mother

and father and brother in a house

in the burbs.

I’ve lived with women in sin as some say.

I’ve lived with dogs, cats, turtles, fish, and a frog,

but I’ve never lived with a  bird.

I’ve lived with diabetes, with being a drunk

who hasn’t had a drink in a long while,

with dandruff, bad breath, and broke.

But I’ve never lived with a bird.