Safety in Numbers

Pride

I would be proud
if someone bought a book of my poems
on credit
causing them to overdraft their limit
then spiral down into an un-ending spiral of debt.
Then distraught
at a family dinner
when questioned on their indigence
this person were to quietly excuse themselves
from the overflowing table
and went to the bathroom and
held their mothers pain medication in their hands
ran the water in the sink
hesitated
then
took four
instead of thirty
and finished their meal with a
‘who gives a fuck’
attitude.

I am calling you from
your quiet cup of coffee
with your traitor lover.
Stand
walk to the poetry isle
and randomly select this book.
Open to this page
find me speaking directly to you.
I agree. Life sucks.
Finish your cup of coffee with your traitor lover
and when she goes to work
wear her dirty under ware and play James Brown
too loud.
When she comes home
to make you feel alone
you’ll have your new crazy friend
in your head
to confide with.

I encourage you all
to masturbate at work.
Then and only then
is when
cracks in the facade of sanity
will form.






When I was five
I said something insightful
as only a child can.
A stranger on the subway
smelling of tobacco and seventy years
hoisted me in the air and lied to me.
He promised a future of creativity
fueled by the brilliance of children’s eyes.

I have long since vomited out all my potential
and live as a cheap lawn ornament
in America.

I swear to you
in every art gallery
painters studio
and writers cafe
there is no brilliant glimmer.
And their children argue amongst each other in shrill tones.

That man on the subway
is now dust.





I lied to her


‘There’s something different here’
she said stumbling into my bar.
‘You are here now,’
I said pouring vile liquor.
She drilled my brain with eyes of pain,
to avoid her gaze
I merely stared at her breasts.

I lied to her
when I was an alcoholic.
I implied I would slowly die with her.

‘I wish I could take you far away,’
I said to her breasts.










Love Moments

Cackling and farting
in the neon beer isle
at Safeway
she breaks a bottle on the floor.
As we dash away I realize
no where in my soul
screams to die
anymore.

broken divorcees
drink before me at the bar
like cheap puppets
putting on a vile show
and I cannot leave.
my tip jar fills for you
and I don’t get fired another day.

you don’t wish I were
writing a book
rather watching TV
or tracking down some
fun pills.

I won forty dollars gambling
enough money for you
to spend frivolously
like we made good money.

and
nowhere in my soul
screams to die
anymore.