i am eating shit and
drinking piss
at the encore hotel and casino
and i hear someone
screaming, in the distance
but i don’t care and
i won’t go looking for them

because i’m a lazy killer
it could take me a lifetime
and blame lies with the beholder

sounds of bugs and birds chirping
as the sounds of plants growing

look for food until
you get tired
look for sleep until
you fall into it

thoughts chattering in the meantime

whether your imagination lives in the ancient language of metaphor
or not

whether superpositioned wormholes allow for space travel
or not

it does not matter

there is nothing
for you
to do

torn out to sea
on a lazy sunday
didn’t heed the warning
a fine swimmer, or not
he couldn’t fight the ocean
alone

Everywhere you are
Is paradise

Every breath you take
We take together

Every dream with you in it
Is a wish

Every moment with you
Is forever

I will be here with you
As long as I am alive

And always I will keep you
In my heart and in my mind

Every day a wish fulfilled

i thank sc johnson
for the clean smelling shirt
as i fly over the yellow sea
with munitions to erase
the human mind
and lucky me that
my prayers kept the cancer
(colon, esophageal, pancreatic, et al)
at bay, long enough
and at least for these few more hours
to reflect on where
romance lives, far away
probably, with the pain
that started all of this

name it and give it rules
so that in the future you can replicate
something similar, but not the same
a soulless and shallow masked figure
with just you underneath
you

you you you

reify, hyperbolize, generalize
trick your god into believing
that you love him
so you can make it a part of
you

you you you

i am driven by something foreign
like an alien-human body
stumbling around target

i am driven by a 2.5 litre 4-cylinder
engine made by toyota across
a bridge built in the early 1960s

where it smells like death
when the air gets stale
next to the garbage plant
of course it does

of course it does
dead dinosaur bones pile up
by the side of the road
and no one picks them up

when I was younger
and a wild oat
roaming freely
I could sit on air
and watch the sunset
without sorrow
and spend all day staring
out a window taken
from wood not far from here
as a lowly bug biting with
compassion and not trading
stocks in silence or attention

bounce back
piss on my pants
cherry hill new jersey
amc
where desperate birds chirp
at night
conflicting visions not unto me
we all seem to know that
every sad thing is happening
all the time
irrespective

if i knew
what shallow pools i swam
what otherwise,
a sunny day i
would forever love
yet after god had
banished me
for months without rain
i find myself dying,
here

and shallow still
are their eyes
as i lie gasping for air,
even
they are uneasy to stay
because the school moves on

it is hard for those
who are fleeting
and flittering away
wasting away
and not resting, at all
not resting even a bit
to not see the last
moments as the longest

and their closests friends
more greatly scared to share them
than their love extends
because the school
moves on

the cat birds have moved on without me
of course
now replaced by the house finch

i’d hoped to be here waiting
alive still, with the oak tree
whatever shape we were both in

but i sense the inevitable
snapping back of the rubber band of time
closer, now

can i make peace with them going on
without me?
if for no other reason than
to make myself feel better

as is all that man, and cat birds, and house finches,
and all we can all ever do

riding the back of some big thing
smiling
scared
excited
crying

the underbelly of the crushing
machine is a beautiful red
from the blood of its enemies
as the miasmic soup of reasons
that people stand in the way
are mixed together with the cacophony
of screams just like their bones and
blood and reasons are mixed together
creating the beautiful red

oh brother, brother
aurora borealis
ouroboros

look at what you’ve done

now florida is dissolving into
the atlantic ocean

why don’t you take a long look
at my father’s mirror?

and look upon your sinful heart
whose desires were so strong

that we simply had to divide up
the middle east into irreconcilable parts

and we had to fill your blood with
sugar and plastic

because we are just so giving
to our brothers and sisters

who are fatty little piggies who
eat eat eat and get fat

look at what you’ve done

if you shut the fuck up
i’ll make an offer you
can’t afford

lest you work for the rest of your days

i will make a machine that will
filter your blood
because i am so kind, and wise

and if you give me, say
half of your things
i will levy the ocean-side
and save the resorts and
sea-side villas

i will do this in spite of your
fat filled piggy heart
who dreams of fairy tales
and sugary piggy pies
sleeping standing up
in piles of shit
before the hammer gun
shatters your spinal cord

that is what i have done

the cat birds will no longer find perch on
south greylock soon
because the oak tree there is
starting to die
and the grey squirrels almost
fall off the thin branches
when the cat birds land

I am an astronaut
made of
a million or
so bugs

and i look down upon
cosmic rain washing the city

although, not god
I see my own reflection
on the oceans

walking in space
each step, another miracle
“I am not god”
I say to myself

just an astronaut
walking through
space, although

of all things I wield the most terrible power

to your children the beach is magical
but they are only excited by the novelty
of fresh neurons firing

that is for you to know
and them to find out

and their bodies are not much more
than a carbon copy
of yours

and the beach really looks like shit
i mean, it looks just like a
soggy
and impoverished
wet plane
where trash and debris wash up

but we love the beach, daddy!

like how a lion loves the warm and
gushing blood of a gazelle
as it’s limbs go cold and
its life fades away

they don’t tell you what to do
when the high wears off
and you are left feeding on slop
day in and day out

in a big cage
suspended in air
and seemingly
suspended in time
and lined with springs
for to absorb the shock
from any momentum
you may have had or will have

they weren’t your friends
but enemies before
and enemies hereafter
and that’s why they didn’t tell you
is what you finally realize

don’t let it be too late

philadelphia is an extra long and erratic drum
solo in a jazz set
with a stressed out show promoter in the corner
because it’s 45 minutes passed closing time
and everyone is angry

the band is angry, which is what the extra long
improvised solo is about
and the bar owner is angry because people are
still coming in
and the crowd is angry, looking for that catharsis
from the drum solo
and the bar tender is angry because he is still
serving drinks
and they are all looking for catharsis
catharsis as the drummer goes on

and eventually the owner of the bar
shows up and says
“everyone go home, everyone
fucking leave”
so the band winds down and the people
file out of the crowded space one by one
and the band is there even later, packing
up gear as the hanger’s on try and
talk about the set with the players

and the drummer eventually gets home
to his angry wife, who says
“Jim, it’s 4am, you can’t keep doing this
you’re going to lose your job!”
and she’s right, because he has to work tomorrow
and it’s going to be a long shift because he will
be so tired

and the drummer’s shift the next day is
really bad and the whole time he’s thinking
“i can’t play in that band anymore”
and when his boss remarks on his tired
demeanor he knows it won’t be long
until it becomes too much for him anymore
and after counting up the tips and calculating
for the drive and inflation and the time he decides
he’s not going to do it anymore

so the drummer leaves the band and
the jazz band can’t sustain it so they break up
and the drummer’s boss at work eventually says
“wow your work has really improved”
and so he decides he won’t have time for
the drums anymore

so the drummer sets out to sell the drum kit
and the pawn shop offers him a price that he
can’t stomach, so he goes online to list the
drum set
and gets asshole after asshole offering him
next to nothing for this vintage set
although it is well kept
and the deal he finally accepts
he wouldn’t tell any of his musician friends
even less-so the guy who sold him the kit
which was practically a favor
from another musician
and overall just a sad way to end the storied
history of the drummer’s jazz kit

both his wife and boss are pleased
with his performance after he sells the kit
and leaves the band
and the drummer feels good too

he is getting paid more and everyone
is happy except, well, we can’t call him the drummer anymore
so he’s just Jim now
and Jim goes along feeling well except for
a weird twitch in his right eye sometimes
and that some nights he can’t sleep because he is
worrying away about everything

so one day Jim goes to a doctor and the
doctor diagnosis him with high blood pressure
and depressive symptoms due to stress
and he prescribes some pills that make Jim feel
leveled out but not quite there
and they make the twitch worse, actually
but he doesn’t tell the doctor that part
and one night when he is up fretting
he hears a strange noise coming from the
basement

so he goes to check it out
and it gets louder and louder as he gets down the
stairs and like an insane acid trip he
is suddenly transported back to the bar
and there is a guy just wailing away
during an extra long and erratic drum solo
in a jazz set
and he thinks
“oh, this is so cathartic”
catharsis
he stays for the set and as the people start
to leave, he walks up to the stage and
strikes up a conversation with the drummer
as the drummer is packing up his gear

Jim says to the drummer
“hey man, great set”
and the drummer says
“cool, man, thanks for coming out”
and it’s kind of awkward
so Jim wanders away feeling dejected

tears creep up on him slowly
which can sometimes be the worst kind
so he starts to really let it all out
and before long he is loudly sobbing
like rolling waves of vomit out of his face
and Jim does not go back to his apartment
or his job
and they don’t really come looking for him
so he just sleeps downtown now

that’s what philadelphia is like