singing for my supper

i physically felt as if i would shortly die

if i didn’t walk away

from the dark streets of decay

 

five days sober

contemplating attending AA

 

but i in no way recant

anything i wrote

i am still a fucking nihilist

 

and believe in the grand scheme of things

it doesn’t matter if i’m drunk or sober

it only matters to me

 

so here i am

detoxing

clearing my head

 

tossing around ideas for a new novel

which will be even more bleak

then anything i’ve written before

since it will no longer contain

the sacred and the profane

otherwise known as the pleasure principle

that constantly held sway

on the dark streets of decay

 

***

 

 

when you leave my view do you still exist?

it’s almost one in the morning

toes tickled by the sand

the full moon lights

i can see beyond the length of my hand

 

but i can’t see the horizon

waves crash on this beach

but vision of is out of reach

 

the edge of the earth i could fall off of

no longer exists

and to my perception doesn’t matter

 

the waves with their endless splatter

mock

unwilling to reveal from their stock

the water that washed ashore

at big sur

while jack kerouac sat there

unsure

 

and lately i feel so far

from the dark streets of decay

no

i’m not ready to come out and play

but i’m ready to say

this sequel needs to end

 

i’m just not sure what is the next pretend

a moment that lends motion that makes me feel i’m alive

and not just living

 

all stories need a climatic ending

or do they?

i’m rescinding

and no longer lending my strength

to the definition of length

that can’t be seen

 

when plants only share the color that is green

and keep the rest to themselves

 

all i’m saying is the thing missing from your shelf

is not a problem

unless you believe it to be

freedom exist when you no longer can see

because perception is an illusion

lacquered with the language they gave you

to make sense of what your senses sense

 

if you hadn’t been taught what you know

a different truth would have been bestowed

because all things are as you have been told they are

not because they really are

 

yes they exist apart from your perception of them

but they do not exist as you perceive

and you will never be free

until you are relieved of all your senses

 

no cup is ever truly empty

they are always full of air

at the darkness obscuring the horizon i stare

and realize

nothing

 

***

 

an empty store front still had a sign, “books for sale”

i would write a song

about paul gauguin

but no one i know

would know what i was talking about

 

i would quote a line from the naked lunch

but it wouldn’t even be a hunch

that those i know would know what

i’m talking about

 

i could clarify with the verify

the author being william s. burroughs

and they would say,

“oh the guy that wrote tarzan?”

 

i could console with paul bowles

and blank eyes wouldn’t even wonder

think that i am the one who blundered

no way can he be the greatest novelist

that ever lived

they never heard of him

 

and when i recite howl by allen ginsberg

it will be words they have never heard

i could recite anne sexton

but it wouldn’t be fun

to tell them about the unknown girl

in the maternity ward

 

because they have never heard

of these things called books

only that someone can be arrested

for smuggling them into the confines

of the cages that are only lined with pages

of art that is defined by the amount of money

it made the company that distributed it to the public

 

i try to act like nothing matters

but amid the endless daily chatter

all i hear are conversations

about playstations

and slogans that enslave until

they have the consent of the uninformed

 

i am the perfect storm

but all storms dissipate and die

so i alone will have discussions in my mind

regarding kerouac’s critic of stepphenwolf  

 

i will sit on the roof

of the building that houses my apartment

and watch everyone try to matter

while writers, painters and poets

drink too much

and write about such

hobble with a crutch

 

and know a healer needs to know more than them

but illiteracy abounds

and no one can cry out hallelujah, i’ve been healed

especially the one who can walk into

a place that still has books and say,

“yeah i’ve already read that”

 

***

i rolled a page from the dark streets of decay to use as a straw

oh man

we all take it so seriously

because we don’t get

that there is nothing

to be taken at all

 

well,

i take that back

cause i’ll take another beer

 

yeah

it is good to fight corporate greed

protest signs, revolution seeds

the carbon levels are rising

one day there won’t be much

food or fresh water

but there will be plenty of guns

 

but i can’t help stand

somewhere on this ant hill

and just feel it doesn’t matter

 

isaiah said god sees us as grasshoppers

and in the psalms we are told that god beholds

and laughs

 

this is the kind of god i understand

not the one that wept

 

and i am bombarded everyday

with petitions for concern

while i wonder why no one has learned

that atlas was not a thug

when he shrugged

and dislodged this boulder

from his shoulders

 

unburdening himself

from the weight

that we create

by the carry

 

everyone expects you to be merry

as they thrash you with their flogs

they will give your life meaning

when you become their lap dog

 

i keep the howling dogs at bay

because i will stray

where even angels fear to tread

 

and when i die

don’t try to understand why

death is not the result of

too much whiskey and rye

death is the result of being born

birth has a 100% mortality rate

 

*** 

the dark streets of decay 18

it’s L.A., it’s raining

i’m wet and i’m walking

sound familiar?

 

maybe this will help

i’m drunk

 

canadian physicists

are saying the universe has always been

eternal

no beginning, no end

 

let them come walk with me in L.A.

on these dark streets of decay

and their armchair equations

will be exposed as mental masturbation

 

nothing lasts forever

 

i go under an overhang

and light a cigarette

it’s so cold and i’m so fucking wet

 

i shiver and sliver and refill my quiver

a genuine repose i’ll never deliver

 

stripped to the bones and bleached white

it’s one a.m. in the morning

but we call it night

 

equations, theories and ideas

seem so unreal

right here, right now

concrete and steel

 

i am a poet with nothing to feel

but the intoxication of late night L.A.

and all the beer that came out to play

with me

 

and once again i have nothing to say

i’m just responding to what was said

 

enticing me to come to their bed

ripples and shock waves only occur

when something still is suddenly disturbed

 

a man and a woman, a woman and man

running past me as fast as they can

holding their jackets over their heads

the rain is the reason for their instead

 

and the momentary reason is the only

real reason there is

 

***