Festooned with an array of fresh-picked weeds
in the breast-pocket of his light blue button-down shirt
a gentleman rides a subway car quietly
in the early evening of a warm New York night:
There is a suitcase sitting next to him
that does not belong to either he
or the dirtied waif on the other side
of the upright bar they both grip.

The waif glances sidelong at the gentleman –
the only other passenger in that particular car –
and takes interested note of the weeds which
so prominently adorned his person. He nods.
“Got a little girl?” The waif asks, making clear
that the nod was toward the gentleman’s greenery.
“Yeah,” The gentleman replies sheepishly,
“She’s 7 today. A real sweetheart. A gem, really.”

“Seems like it.” The waif says with another nod
as the subway begins to slow, finally screeching
to a soft, if shaky, stop. The doors open but
no one gets on. The gentleman does not move an inch.
The waif is fingering a knife in his pocket,
but the Gentleman does not see it.

It is a swift and fluid motion that the waif makes
as he spins suddenly and draws his knife. He stabs
the gentleman seven or eight times (neither of them
were counting, really) and lets him drop to the floor
while snatching up the now (and always) unguarded suitcase.
The waif leaps from the car just as soon
as the doors start closing, making off with
another man’s tax information from the previous year,
and leaving a bloodied father of one to die,
and everything right with the world,
unfortunately.

I, as a vulgar man
have made mention of you
and in polite company, too.

Nearly was I ejected from that brood
and sent on my way to colder climes
but I swore, on my life,
to never speak of you again.

But alas, an absolute
is such a fickle, wish-washed thing
and sooner or later I,
try against though I might,
will curse your name again.

Right about now,
specifically.

And pretty soon things
got so bad that I
had to process all
forwarding messages
and take the responses
as Gospel

It was Condensation-damp that night
when I paid a visit to your garden
and it grew well, at least the Morning Glories did
and it was your mother’s favorite spot
in the whole wide world

and it was fitting, I suppose,
in all the wrong sorts of ways,
that you went so far to show it to me.

After all, though we tread softly,
it was not our garden to trod upon.
Your mother was quick to show us that,
too.

Dry goods and processed foods deaden your palate
While your gullet undulates furiously
to make due with what amounts to nothing
and your body is hungry and your eyes are dry
but your nails have grown long in this squalor
and every now and then you scratch yourself
deep enough for the blood to just get through
and you know that you are living
though you feel as though you’re dead
but you only think that it’s a terrible shame
and you’d be far more comfortable
six feet under in a large padded box
or less hungry at the least.

Those thoughts came across as vacuous and venomous
hardly worth the time taken to think them
blown out of proportion
creeping like a terrible octopus from a wooden chest
just like in that nightmare you had
and they scared you just the same
so you sleep with a spear next your dresser

Those thoughts tried to kill us
and tried to tear us to shreds,
or to split us in twain or strangle us whole
(as a terrible octopus might)
they tried to inject their terrible venoms –
a cockail of pain and wrtetch and necrosis –
but your spear was at the ready

And when I ran to you to warn you
you were standing over the fleshy, spineless corpse
of some terrible octopus,
And though your spear was snapped in two
and the monster’s tentacles were still squirming
I knew you had won the thing
and I knew that we were going to be alright

He did not come here looking
for acceptance or unity
or your love or affections
but he will take them
and store them away
for sale at a later date
with the old tags scratched off
and replaced with hand-written
sticker-and-sharpie ones
with a price a bit higher
than the price they were had
by him.

But the ones that really matter,
the unquantifiable bits,
those ones always seem to work out,
somehow.

She walked along the riverside with her hand on the railing
that had been installed many years ago to keep the people
from falling to most certain discomfort

She was distressed:
Her spirit had died
and had left her with nothing but a distant feeling,
a tingling in her fingers,
every time a conversion van rolled past

She contemplated leaving this town forever
but it hadn’t worked the first time,
so she contemplated ending things for good
but the river she stood by, it certainly was not deep enough
or strong enough to carry her
and the parking garage had a guard on it now
with express instructions to watch for people like her
ever since the fiasco last February

She thought for a moment of leaping in front of a bus
but surely that would ruin a great many other people’s days
and that’s not fair to them.
She was considerate.

So she kept on walking along her riverside
until the wind picked up and carried to her
the smell of a nearby housefire
which she ran, full-tilt, to the scene of.

There were six fire trucks and two ambulances
and she was sure no-one would be inside
so she ran past the fire-fighters
up the front stoop and through the door
and between the extreme heat and smoke inhalation
she did not come out again,
and with a dead soul and everything,
that may have been the best thing for it.

Yeah,
there was this sonofabitch named Benny.
Played the drums real good,
like they was goin’ out of style.

Had a big ol’ set and flying saucers
up on poles that he hit with sticks
and he paid a lot of money
and he did it, boy. He sure did it.

Benny couldn’t add though,
ain’t never read no books or nothin’.
Failed the 9th grade and didn’t go back.

But he can tell you all ’bout drummers
you ain’t never heard of, but you sure heard.
An’ he can sing every word to
every song the Beatles wrote,
and get’s ’em too.

And Benny, that sonofabitch,
he can tell you about life,
and Charlie, let me tell ya
that’s good enough for me.

I heard the words aloud
clear and thick and sultry
like a mad man’s last speech
and it touched me just so
with my fingers tight on the steering wheel
the headlights were bright enough
to make the tall trees glow
but we were rapt and hypnotized
so when we burned alive
we did not feel it
but we understood that we were dying

They have a word for people like you,
‘vegetative’ it is, I think.
You have not moved in sixteen years.
You have not thought for yourself.
Your bones are breaking under your own weight.

I know another fellow though,
real live gentleman, stuck in a rut is all.
They’ve got him on a breather and
a big folding bed and he’s intubated
like a science project but god damn,
when they get him back on his feet
what will be your excuse?

The Hell with you, I think.
I think the other guy though,
after a few good sits
and a few more colorful dressings-down,
he’s gonna be alright.

light exploding through small arched windows in doors
warm and temper the cold and clutching fingers
wrapped around the bleed in his side and stomach

There is no sound but the ticking of the loudest clock
that he’d ever heard and it is not long before he realizes
that in this mess and easy chair he is going to die

the explosions in the window get brighter
and the ticking clock gets slower and slower
just like every movie says it will
and he tries to breathe deeper but only gets shallow gasps
and he wishes that he hadn’t taken all that air for granted
and there’s nothing he can do about that now

The tick sounds one last time but does not decay
it just stretches on in to a sharp warm hum
and his body begins to shake like crazy
and his breath is not shallow, but gone forever
and he can not see, but he can see everything
and he can not feel, but it’s not bad so much as perfect

And when I walked in to find him dead from two cuts
laying on a La-Z-Boy with the back door kicked in
he didn’t tell me anything, but if he did
he would have told me that he hated getting stabbed
but in a way it’s alright because the rest of the thing was beautiful

Absence makes the heart grow fond
or some shit.
But there is a point of diminishing returns
somewhere between day eight
and mile 600
and then the routine readjusts
and then they start to slip away
and then they’re gone.

Statistically, though, there are outliers.
and I think you may be just that.
Not your hair though.
You can leave that shit in Dodge.

And his soul was cut out
and stretched across a table
and with pins, it was held open
while a big black sharpie
was taken to it, corner to corner
then once again
so an X was clearly visible
as if it were a tree to be cut down
Then it was left out in the open
in the sun to dry
and the carrion birds picked at it
and after a week
there was nothing left
but tatters.

I wandered in hoping to fear you
and that you’d tear me apart
and that my blood would flow freely
down the crevices in the masonry
of your fine study
but I was not so ruined
and when you told me
that everything was alright
I almost evaporated

But then the clouds rolled in
and things got a little darker
and I said ‘see? It’s set to
start raining, now!’ and I
waved my arms in triumph
but you would not be deterred
and that smile almost killed me

So I tried to show you the blood
on my hands and on my jacket
and you wrote it off as souvenirs
of some accident. And when I
drove a dagger through your chest
to prove I was no good, you shrugged
and said that everybody makes mistakes,
sometimes.

And sometimes you catch me
singing Steely Dan
into a telephone
at 1AM

but at least it’s not
The Monkees

WHO ARE YOU AND
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH JOHN?

HE WAS HERE JUST A MINUTE AGO
AND YOU SWEAR THE DEVIL TOOK HIM
BUT I’M NOT SURE THAT’S TRUE
AND I’M NOT SURE YOU’RE NOT THE DEVIL

YOU SWEAR YOU’RE NOT
BUT YOU’VE MET HIM, AND GOD,
AND SERENDIPITY TOO,
THEY WERE DRINKING AT A BAR TOGETHER

BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JOHN
AND I KNOW YOU SWEAR
THE DEVIL TOOK HIM BUT
I’M NOT SURE THAT’S TRUE
AND I’M NOT SURE YOU’RE NOT THE DEVIL,
JOHN

I am chewing seeds and
spitting them

I have half a mind to do
anything and I
won’t do anything
because
half a mind is
just enough for
nothing but
chewing seeds

I count the flaws on my fingers
and run out in no-time
and another handful to chew
while I keep counting
and look for more fingers

I taste vertigo but
it is not the same

It is a lack of forward motion
and I feel it in my
muscles and my bones
and I taste it and it
tastes like vertigo
but it’s not

and chewing these seeds
doesn’t make it taste much better

Sunlight breathes heavy sometimes
and shakes the windows
and threatens a mudslide
and we cower in our outhouses
grasping at straws
for some kind of salvation

and the White Man upstairs
doesn’t mind us one way
or the other, and his PA speaker
is blown and muffled and
when he talks we listen
but we don’t understand

so we drive to the nearest
freshwater supply and
we pitch our tents and
play our songs and
pray and pray and pray
but there’s still terror to be had:
As much fun as we’re having
the ends don’t meet

So the White Man’s thugs,
they come to us with
billy clubs and megaphones
and we’re fully at a loss
but for every guy that gets away
there’s ten that don’t start running

But boy, if they catch me they’ll
flail me something good and
shout and say ‘didn’t we tell you
to stay put, sir?’ and I’ll be honest
when I say ‘I don’t know’ but
they won’t hear it:
if their megaphones are broken
then their hearing aids are
off alltogether