Friday, December 6, 2013

Richard at 22


I am the great beauty mired in my own vomit and piss
I am the handsome blonde boy limp and alone with a blistering headache
I am the charming young lad with the oppressive hangover
I am the precocious fellow grasping and gasping for more
I  am the more I seek in the world
I am the pain
I am the hunger of compassion and love
I am the one desperate for understanding and respect
I am the desire of all my wants
I am the futility of my wandering dreams
I am the liar obsessed with my own half truths
I am the living walking talking fantasy of my being
I am lost in my yesterdays unconscious of tomorrows
I am
I am Richard and I always have been

Thursday, December 5, 2013

At the Cafe


At the cafe
Eavesdrop on overweight lesbian with health problems
Hear skinny black crack whore cackling
See a dog sniffing where another dog peed
Muscular guy covered in tattoos yawning broadly walks in
Sense a young boy’s imagination being rankled by a parent’s admonitions
Look outside see a duck fly overhead must be lost
I cater to my whims and drink a latte while pretending to read
(There’s a chance of rain)
I see a kid go long for a pass that sails over his head
I see an old lady warily crossing the street
I see an impatient driver waiting for him
I see that football land in some bushes
I see an irritated bus driver let wheelchair rider on the bus
I listen to a teenaged girl pop her gum
I listen to a middle aged man hum a Gershwin tune
I listen to a car’s CD player blasting rap music
I listen to a moment of silence between noises
I wonder at the sense of it all
I speculate as to meaning
I fantasize about bikini clad beauties cavorting on beaches
I feel a little guilt for my fantasies
I wish that 11:00 am would last longer
I wish that the clock wouldn’t take moments away so quickly
Thirtyish mother pushes toddler in stroller
Skateboarder rasps against the sidewalk oblivious to pedestrians
Jogger pants and runs runs and pants
Car blasts horn at Hispanic kid crossing against the light
Old man in yarmulke opens umbrella
Homeless couple argue -- seemingly over possession of a can
Cute college girl walks unselfconsciously down subway steps
Rain starts
I’m glad for the rain
I’m glad for the cafe
I’m glad for the caffeine
I’m glad for the book
I’m glad for the city
There is more hustle and also some bustle
The stillness of the mind contrasts with the world in motion
Perpetual life
City life
Ambitious life
Swirling twirling life
Rambling shambling life
Finish the latte life
Rise from seat life
Go out the door life
Walk in the rain life
Life on life’s term life
Contentment

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Eat Me Poetry


I want to read poetry
I want to write poetry
I want to eat poetry
I want to be eaten by poetry
I want to laugh
But not the cackle of the crazy man on this bus
I want to laugh with joyous reason
At the poetry that I eat
And at the poetry that eats me
Surrounding myself with
Immersed in
Devoured by
Laughing among
Poetry
Yummy

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Sorry Mom


Mom
So sorry
About your insanity
Not your fault I know
I missed out on having a regular mom
I suffered some for it
Years and years of therapy
Constantly questioning my own sanity
Did I inherit your mad genes I wondered
Tortured memories of a childhood all wrong
But now I think of you
And what you missed
Like a good life
Like appreciating your sons growing up
Missing out on the loving marriage you had
Missing out on being grandma
You missed it all you poor woman
For you we're trapped in your crazy brain
You were surrounded and suffocated by your own paranoia
And you didn't even know it
I weep for you
Love you mom

Friday, November 22, 2013

Loudmouth


I see your anger percolating and I don’t like it
There’s no place for your simmering rage here
Leave it at home next time you come to work
Stow it shove it under the door don’t bring round here
Anymore
We are the essential
The quintessential
The reverential
We work as we not as you
And your wild and unruly ego
Flopping around knocking us about
Don’t you dare shout
Keep it cool
We are us not you
We are a team
Not your scream
We are we will be we want
We can do it just as well
Absent your anger
Thanks

(Author’s note: the day after I wrote this the subject of the poem was fired.)

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Rearview Mirror of My Soul


I embrace my regrets
I caress them
They are a part of me
They are my reminders
Of what I never was
What I wanted to be
Of that mad young man
Who took wrong turns
Of that crazy time
When I erred so badly
My regrets are mine
You can’t have them
They define who I could have been
What I could have done
Where I could have gone
I love my regrets
They possess the power of hindsight
They are the rearview mirrors to my soul
They are how I see what I am not
So I can better understand
What I am
No regrets about that
I appended inronically

Friday, November 15, 2013

What is Your Deal?


What is your deal 60ish pony tailed sallow man in plaid work shirt and jeans and sandals slurping coffee? Why do you look so plain? Why aren’t you more cynical? Why do you bore people so? Why can’t you think originally?

What is your deal short overweight Mexican woman of some 36 years riding the bus to your menial job? Why do you look so downcast? Why do you talk into your cell phone as if all alone? Why are you so unhappy and not unhappy about being so unhappy?

What is your deal serious middle aged man in a nice new suit pouring over legal documents on the subway train? Why are so occupied with your job? Why are you so oblivious to the world around you? Why are serious?

What is your deal teenaged girl who is texting while sitting next to a living human being who is your friend and is texting also? Why don’t you talk to each other? Why are you so alone together? Why don’t you talk and write and listen and read? Why is your world in short abbreviated messages?

What is your deal angry young black man? Why do you play your music so loud? Why do you curse so publicly? Why do you disdain society? Why do you not question instead of reflexively hating? Why don’t you try other avenues?

What is your deal Mr. President? Why do you let drones kill innocent civilians in faraway places? Are their lives so less significant than American lives? Why are you not more concerned about them being blown to pieces or having limbs explode? Why don’t you live up to your Nobel Peace Prize?

What is your deal America? Why have you forgotten your poor? Why do you let so many go so hungry in a land of plenty? Why do you care so much about celebrity trivia and so little about human suffering? Why America do you let a precious few become super rich ten times over while so many others have nothing?

What is your deal?

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

The Artist


I feel the ravages of forced rhyme
The cold hurt of poetic crime
I’m slammed by the pain of awful prose
When the words are repeated and the mind slows
It’s borne of anger caressing my soul
It’s flamed by resentment taking its toll
I feel the hurt of sad lies told
Of once new ideas that now feel old
I am resisting the pull of madness and hate
I want to be free of sorrow before it’s too late
Look for the angels that bring the light
Dance with them into the starry night
Insist that the best come from your heart
Sacrifice sacrifice in the name of your art

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Sad Middle Aged Lady


Sad middle aged lady
Alone and plain
Nothing to say
Living off simple pleasures
Enjoying that sandwich well out of proportion
To how good it is
You are a good worker
You are a good citizen
You are unfailingly polite
And helpful when you can be
You ask little
Expect little
Wish (deep inside) for a lot
You know (you do know) it will never come
That fact faces you everyday
You wear that on your sad face
Your loneliness is oppressive
It seeps out of your pores
Your sorrow is overt and ugly
You poor dear
You are so hard to feel sorry for
But you’ll never jump

Monday, November 11, 2013

Have I become less or am I more


Where is that blessed boy I once was
Where is the long haired happy lad sporting the big grin
Where did he go and what did he do
How can he be me now
What has happened to the years
What did he do with them
What did I do with them
Am doing
Have done
Were they squandered
Were they wasted
Who am I surely not the same fellow from the picture
Who am I know that I was before
Have I become less or am I more
I was a picture of happy youth
I am I was I are to be
The verb to be
The past tense: was
Yet I still will be
Eternal youth and terminal age
That is me I am all the rage
So I rage on angry at not being what I was to be
But what I am
Happy with that
After all what else is there but love
???

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Staring

I lay awake staring at my death
Contemplation regeneration masturbation
Gazing toward the void blocked by the ceiling

There is nothing to see in the cranial abyss
Suffering signs of unwanted desires
Exploiting by my ego for love

And there is no song
Only the laughing yaw that seems to await
As  I lay awake

Staring
At my
Death



Saturday, October 19, 2013

How to Say Hello?

It's so beautiful where I am today that it makes me wonder where I am. - Steve Martin

Dropping bombs on the sun
Shooting the head in the head
Upside down cake right side up

The longing for short versions
The depth of emptiness
The running on empty to nowhere

I am you are and we all
Stooping to conquer
Inspirational words from a begotten son

The daughter of my magnificence
Under the time of the laser shot
We all dance this way sometimes

I am happy to be here and
I thank you for your kind attention
Hello

Monday, September 16, 2013

And


And during my breaks at work I read the news
And its about the disregard for the poor
And the oppressed the creation of more poor
And more oppressed
And the demonizing of anyone not in the comfortable white straight christian middle or upper class And their fear and ignorance
And bigotry
And the total void of creativity they bring and leave in their wake
And the ronald reaganing of america
And the nostalgia for the days of lynchings gays in closets
And women as second class citizen citizens
And their repression of any ethos that casts a critical eye on the use
And it's shameful
And I commute
And I take long circuitous bus rides to the subway for cramped
And uncomfortable slow subway ride to the other side of the bay
And get on another bus then get off and walk
And I’m home an hour and fifteen bloody-mother-fucking-suck-ass minutes after I left work
And if it’s hot I’m sweaty and uncomfortable and rip my clothes off and wash the dishes
And do stuff to be ready for the NEXT workday
And meanwhile
And oh holy shit of a crazy ass cracker has said something incendiary
About guns or war or arabs or muslims or terrorism or taxes
And I’m exposed to it and want to vomit or take a hammer to the whole fucking world
And then....
And the wife arrives home and she can sniff out a bad mood
And will deal me some serious  hurt if I’m not polite
And gracious and all disneyland like
And so I smile the biggest smile and say the how was your day
And can I get you anything and how’s about some dinner
And we eat I fumble and tumble to be just so
And when I get to bed I'm so tired
And so I fantasize about the incredible and the amazing and me famous not fatuous
And imagine the taste of glory but I doze and fall asleep and dream ridiculous
And wake up at 3:26 in the fucking morning to pee
And get back to sleep but not until after I toss
And I turn
And the cat wedges between us and oh well the damn alarm goes off way way way before I’m ready And I struggle out of bed and into the shower
And try to figure out what the date is and if there’s anything significant about it
And like a birthday or anniversary of any damn thing
And how far it is now to vacation or at least a goddamn three day weekend
And so please dear god that I don’t believe in
And I need a break from this shit but instead I shampoo soap myself
And then I shave and towel off
And goody
And now I gotta make lunch then breakfast
And eat it and dress and head out the door
And don’t come back again for nearly 12 hours
And all the while there are crackers trying to turn back the clock
And make america back into the antebellum south -- state’s rights
And carry on my waylaid son

Monday, September 9, 2013

The Agony of Understanding

Oh desperate horrible pain of living
Oh clutching grabbing pain and heartache
Oh grasping angry tired confusion

Leave me alone
Let calm and contentment
Rule my life

Why the suffering of knowledge
Why the agony of awareness
Why the internal struggle of self

Oh to be numb to wisdom's dagger
Oh to be immune to lucidity's grip
Oh to be barricaded from life's eternal questions

Let me seek serenity not answers
Let me sleep in comfort not doubts
Let me walk away from the anxiety of asking

Oh let it be
Oh let me be
Oh oh oh

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

We Are the River

We are the river
Our lives are not divisible
Into day and weeks and years

We flow
One moment is part of the next
One minute is part of the next
One year is part of the next

We are the same person always
No matter the chronology
No matter the clock or calendar

Sighing seconds of sibilant sounds
Dying decades of decadent drones
Mutating minutes of miniature murmurs

And so we are organic
And so we are spiritual
And so we are at one with the universe

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Victory Over Mortality's Sorrow

I was going to write a poem about death and dying
Because lately I find existence quite trying
Getting up each day facing the same routine
Dealing with people who sometimes are mean
Knowing that the future may hold agony and pain
Realizing I'm not far from being slightly insane
But then I see the happy clouds of distant joy
And my heart casts about as if I was a little boy
The drum beat of green bursting rays of an awkward sun
Help me realize that sumptuous bliss is all about fun
I cascade and ramble and and mentally cartwheel
Letting go of anger and sorrow and the tired spiel
Hops and jumps toward the sunset rainbow
Force the remembrance of life all aglow
So I do not mind my impending fate
Because in life there is ever so much to celebrate

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Old Man: Be

Older older older older older older older older
Everyday
Every minute Every second

But what happens if you don't feel it?
Feel ageless?
You still are closer to the end

Death doesn't approach
It waits
Patiently

We walk glide run dash amble meander crawl
Towards the inevitable
The final curtain

The sighing breezing dying lighting illuminating
Coolness of it all
Is temporal

Take it
Hold on
Don't release your grip

Stay above the void
Swing to and fro
Hear the music

You can dance
You can live
You can be

The eternal self
Happy happy happy
Ignore the endings

Be a part of your being
Be a part of the now
Be

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Tired

Tired
Sleepy
Bed awaits

There will be dreams
But first the toss
And turn

Pillow wrestling
Thinking thinking thinking
Fading

Images
Faraway scenes
Figures morphing

Snooze city
Hopefully no interruptions
No noises in the night

Not till the alarm
Signals the struggle
To wake up

Remember what day it is
Who I am
That was just a dream

Step out of bed
To the shower
Though still sleepy

Breakfast
Email
Dressed

Out the door
Start another day
Which will end tired

Monday, August 5, 2013

We the Eternal

The avenues of my dreams are paved with reality
These misty mornings delight those thoughts
Turning raven haired vistas into liquid commas
And still I stop to ponder the essential you
And still I look for the otherness of me
And still I laugh at the fairy dust sayings of yesterday's moon
Because it is all there
Out and about
Trailing behind the never
Leading to forever
If I could only steal a moment of crying clarity
And bring to you my softest joy
We the eternal would be singing
Together and apart like the dusty laughter of Summer children
And the long forgotten whispers of their maiden aunt's morning
Oh to leave and come back to never stop
This is what our carousel in purple brings home to us
We the eternal

On the Bus

On the bus
With people talking too loud
With people too heavy
With people so rude

On the bus
Trying to read
Trying to think
Trying to be

On the bus
Wanting to be home
Wanting to move
Wanting to be alone

On the bus
Hating being on it
Hating other passengers
Hating the hate

On the bus
Sighing into my sleeve
Crying into my mind
Dying into my end

On
The
Bus

Goings
Leavings
Stayings

On the
Bus
On
The bus

Wishing I weren't


Saturday, August 3, 2013

Something More in the Distance

Not afraid just resolute
Unyielding head down going forward
Seeking truth settling for answers even if they're wrong
Just an idea to play with
A way to stimulate the mind
To see something more in the distance
Anything at all will do
Provided its new
Needing that hope of possible
The mere chance of a change
A way out onto a new world
This one so tired so lonely so forlorn so limited
The next one will be
And I will be
There
With it with you and with a chance
The sumptuous challenge of the coy mind
The cascading hopes of a restive mind
As long as I keep eyes forward
And do not stop
Never stop
Musn't
For there is something else out there
I can almost make out its shape
In the distance

Monday, July 29, 2013

The Rime of the Ancient Marinated

Specious
Spacious
Audacious
The rime of the ancient marinated

How wasted and forlorn the many days I passed invoking booziness and lust There gone
Sad little man I was pissing Looking up at the heavens and letting loose with a long loud aaahhh of delight

Or was it fright?

How mindless and sad to ravage one's brain with chemicals and pretend and lie and act and escape and evade and deflect The reality The real life existence that is such a gift though not hard earned just given

Driven

I had striven to be a hero of my own sotted fantasies and never caring that others were there laughing at me or feeling sorrowful or quizzical or confused or betrayed And so I lurched thus dismayed and betrayed

Played That's what I did

I loved the taste the smell the feeling the mind reeling and peeling apart as I got high high higher Highest Oh me oh myest I soaked the truth in scotch and cheap beer and chased women and woe betide the ones I caught

Overwrought

But laughing and dying and sometimes crying I wallowed in exploding magical sessions of bullshit and groaned as the angry hangover clawed at my soul and tried to wrench mind and Suicide

Brain fried

My life stood still as chances perished and still I imbibed The addiction was my predilection and no saying anything would matter because I was the almighty of my intoxicated world Another round for the boys

Joys

Delayed diminished not quite finished Then the miracle came in 12 steps A staircase leading up above the river of alcohol a cleaned out brain and not so insane but mostly a way a path for my wrath to channel and funnel another side of the tunnel and I started

Just started

Mind you

To get better

A long journey from now till then and later still on the horizon

Yessuh



Thursday, July 25, 2013

A For Effort

I read the clouds wrong last night
Thinking they meant rain
Not another fight
I messed up the tea and made it too weak
Oh be mild, be mild
Remember the meek
I tried to clean my room that messy place
I picked up the floor
And threw it into space
How the stars twinkled lighting up the sky
Rows of gleaming orbs
In response I sigh
Portentous events I do ignore
Pretending to be oblivious
But to what advantage, what for
I can’t read clouds nor predict the rain
I can’t make tea or clean
My weaknesses so plain
Where can I go
What can I do
When everything old 
Seems brand new
My mind is failing
Can’t get things right
But I’ll not go down easy
Not without a fight
Look it’s me
Still trying

It Pays Brudder

It pays to advertise
Monetize
Rhapsodize

I got your black
No slack
Stay black

I got chops
Pops
Little bitta hops

So bold
Never old
Don't be so cold

Reading a book by Burroughs
My brow furrows
Savin my Euros

All about it, slick
Stick to stick
I don't, you don't, we don't panic

Keep it real
You feel
One last meal

Before
Out the door
I score

That's it
Lickety split
Got the spir-it!

Not Title, No Meaning A Never Posted Permanent Draft

The bitterest root of my sighs
Will not be blemished by your ugly perfection
The never can of your tiresome tirades
Has flaxseed oil for brains
And I'm not listening to any phony English accents
So there

Easy Now Big Fella

Oh to have such vanity
That one proclaims his sanity
Those who think themselves sane
Have failed to heed their brain
Seeming sensible and smart
Shows a lack of heart
Better to muddle and stagger
Then to believe your own swagger

Atheist

God was chasing me
I looked back and yelled: you'll never take alive
We had a good laugh
Over that one
The great invisible man in the sky
White flowing beard and nasty temper
Has been silent most of my days
Riffing quizzically I wonder
If there he is or there he isn't
At all
Had my doubts
Have my doubts
Our shared laughter notwithstanding
Grandstanding

Monday, July 22, 2013

It Would Be Nice

It would be nice to think I could do something right for a change
That I could a part of my life
That I needn't rearrange

I skip about so freely
Seldom stopping to think
My mind whirls like a bicycle doing a wheelie

It would be nice if some thought could be shown
Perhaps at long last the right decision made
Not another situation blown

I could really stand to feel good about it all
Would be wonderful to sense some order and direction
Not like I was taking another fall

It would be nice to think that I could count on me
That reliability and steadfastness in myself
Was something others could someday see