fog forever bound by limited imagination

i’m bored

 

yes i’m out here at i don’t know what hour

smoking, drinking

doing all the things you expect from me

 

tried to engage conversation

the periodic table of elements

has expanded

there are the elements that occur

in nature

and there are the added elements

created in labs

designer atoms

created by humans

 

and i want to consider this concept

of atoms created by humans

 

blank

 

i lost them when my mouth

disengaged from a cigarette

exhaled more than smoke

with my breath

and was forced to stray

back onto

the dark streets of decay

where i can’t find anyone to engage

 

and doubt i can find anyone

even in the strongholds of higher education

where repeating the porn of whores

gives the satisfaction of masturbation

 

and everyone gets to use their degrees

to feed the complacency of their mortgage

 

i put it all in storage

leave it locked up

knowing no one will break in

because nothing of value lies within

for the common thief

 

no relief

just drink till the only option

is oblivion

 

incoherent

till an ear is lent

that also contains a mouth

that can make words interesting

 

***

 

 

 

 

letter to our next president

christian brother and sisters talk about

the values of our founding fathers

the individuals who created a document

that was for the people and by the people

 

we are a government for wall street

and by wall street

and every veteran who has died for lies

can do nothing but cry

 

leader of the free world

the flag unfurls for profit

while the voice is left without choice

 

transgender, conservative, denizen

we are all citizens

seeking equal protection

and equal treatment under and by the law

you take our taxes, ignore our faxes

 

to trump i say seig hiel

the bile is my own laziness to insist

that the government answers to me

and buy the lie that genocide will eliminate

my responsibility

 

to clinton i say

make citizens united go away

or you will be another politician who prays

to the idol of the image

made to imagine money mongrels

who have installed rhetoric

you repeat

while they deplete

everything but the money that lines

their own pockets

 

sallow eyes in hallow sockets

hungry masses become davy crockett

till we become full from the flesh of the bull

symbolizing wall street

making it all street

 

if the next president doesn’t make a dent

in a government

that caters to wall street coffers

instead of an offer

that makes my hard work

the means by which i can provide

for those by my side

 

americans don’t compromise

and the next genocide

will be the 1%

which no one will miss

 

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if seasons change why is winter always the same

(the dark los angeles evening is steaming the church – jim morrison)

 

the snow is in no hurry

amid every little flurry

falling in flutters from the sky

alighting like white butterflies

 

o.k.

i tried

to circumcise my words

make them holy and pure

but i can’t cocoon

come out as something

that will make you swoon

with the beauty of its

new existence

 

i now have two pairs of glasses

one to see far

and one with which to read

i rarely wear either

 

nothing worth seeing

 

pass a homeless man peeing

in an alley where no one has

ever ventured since the concrete dried

 

sent a group text

“by the way

when the dark streets of decay

take me away

and literary scholars come and holler

so they can write and earn a dollar

you have my permission to tell all”

 

though there is nothing i’ve done

i haven’t already sung

in my lyrics without music

 

in my most recent sleeping dream

i was walking on a los angeles sidewalk

covered in petals of black roses

thinking of when people have said

to always say a goodbye when you leave

because it may be the last time you say it

i woke to find my cat was dead

life is a tire with a worn tread

 

at any moment…

 

it’s not the endowment of death’s bestowment

that vexes

it’s these apexes i am offered

spare change in coffers

that act as an act that contracts

sub clauses obligating

meaning to the empty exercises of existentialism

 

i’m just a poet pretending the ending to the poem

is a literary technique i control

while all the while the bedroll i unroll

is looking for more than temporary parking

i look to be more than the skin cells i shed

on her bed

but hunger is never fed

when you’re really not on the menu

 

so i walk these city streets

searching for nothing

but the numbing effects of alcohol

 

after all it is easier to be alone

then be a me who must atone

to be worthy of your graces

 

i just want an accept with all my precepts

i’d even settle for an embrace

aware of my disgrace

the kind that will erase

everything but the moment she is holding me

 

***  

 

 

the lathe of nihilism

(everything’s over

and everything’s clear

everyone’s older

and no one is here

- adam duritz)

 

walking around in the cold

wiping my runny nose

on my sleeve

hands shaking

feel tired

 

lately the drink i’ve been chasing

is catching up with me

 

every night i say

not today

but i’m already working on

a twenty-four ounce can of beer

bagged in black plastic

the other hand a cigarette

flask full of fireball

 

is this any less meaningless

than all the apartments i’m passing

lit with screens

filled with vacant voyeur eyes

netflix is the new fix

and everyone’s binging

while constantly fingering phones

 

drones that have made their way home

from jobs that rob more than they pay

 

not today?

give me a reason other than l.a.

concrete, cement, steel

that makes me feel forthright

in my nihilism

 

waiting for a felon

to point a gun at me

i will wrap my lips

around the barrel

and gaze with pleading eyes

 

all your solutions

the how, the why

i’ve tried

now i’m just a guy

meandering in the meaninglessness

of all motion

 

impervious to reason

because there is no reason

 

chain smoking

brain no longer choking

on the lies it was once

forced to swallow

i callow

amid the consciousness

contained within the bliss

of knowing nothing matters

 

a dreamless state of existence

 

i don’t say this to convert

if i don’t believe what you believe matters

then why would it matter to me what you believe

 

i just nod and move on

leave you to linger in the liabilities

of your limitations

 

my only hope is that you continue

to have something to hold onto

i am what happens when you don’t

 

no matter my choice of font

my words will never be pretty

 

on the verge of converge i will never be

no rehab repentance

people will judge the sludge

of my existence

every eye dry at my funeral

 

never comprehending i meant what i wrote

as they break things down

to their simplest equations

 

preschoolers learning to count

while i mount an assault on physics

challenging the validity of quantifying

our existence

after all, its laws that govern

may not have even existed

prior to the big bang

 

another beer, another cigarette

found a place to take a shit

we defecate almost as much as we eat

very little of what goes in us

offers sustenance

 

and love is an export

rarely do we import

especially when expressed

in the form of consumerism

 

dead flowers decay

diamonds can be hocked

and everything else in stock

is just an easy way to convey

the inconvenience of someone else’s need

 

in l.a. they step over dead bodies

sidewalk without chalk

before crime scene police tape will rape

with a detour

increasing the distance to your destination

 

not yet wasted but beer basted

my brain has tasted momentary reprieve

while my body is ready to fall to its knees

concede

that when all my literary heroes died

from all the drinking

there was no need for final words

 

***

when something else is your priority other than me

yeah, i can’t tell you how much my phone blows up

with women’s words 

not about rocking my world

but how they need me to live in theirs

 

i understand why curt cobain killed himself

(“broken hearted of your highness i’m left black

throw down your umbilical noose so i can climb right back)

 

because men are not as complicated as we seem

women think they have the corner on emotion

and that men are unfeeling

 

no

 

but with women it’s all about them

and of course they will argue the stem

could not be without their root

 

but the truth?

men are you

pansexual

if sex is nothing but foreplay

for satisfying emotions

 

but like all words

these words are pointless

women won’t change

it’s all about them

and we men

flop like a fish out of water

 

wanting love

 

(hey! wait! i’ve got a new complaint

forever in debt to your priceless advice)

 

and of course women are the reason

philosophers exist

trying to figure out what the fuck is going on

 

we need what you need

yet no matter how much we bleed

we are neither strong enough or weak enough

to water the seed that flower’s your grow

and you tell us so

as if we are donald trump trying to hump

the reason everything is not right in your world

 

(meat eating orchids forgive no one yet

cut myself on angel hair and baby’s breath)

 

all i’m saying while you’re on your knees praying

for the white stallion knight to make everything right

while you endure the manikin man

you must span your life with

that doors will close amid his repose

that as you feel justified amid your unsatisfied

that he is like every other guy

 

that he is cut by the words that are heard

that flow like diarrhea from your mouth

he is not all that you need

not realizing you are the infertile seed

he sees no point in pouring water on

 

i can’t define a woman’s definition of love

i only know it doesn’t include

loving you

for who you are

you are clay in a jar

she needs to mold into something

that is not the image of you

 

until you learn how to lie

and when you try

to find the eye that sees you for what you are

you eventually learn each woman has her own agenda

and isn’t even interested in your need for acceptance

but makes it very clear that it’s your fault

and how you can correct

so she thinks you’re worth the investment

 

subject to her government

she thinks democracy is how you please

what she needs

while all the while saying you are not the demographic

from whom she expects to get the majority vote

 

***