Going Hardcore

growing up, i didn't always drink the most beer. i didn't "party" the hardest. i started smoking pot after all my friends did. i got into all the bands after they did. i made all the jokes and heard all the news after they made them, and they heard it. i couldn't hold my liquor when i drank it. i got high and it and made me weird. i dropped out of school. i went back. i partied - and studied. i fucked girls and did my homework. i faked chugging all that flat, canned beer. i ripped the weed incessantly, i won't lie. that part i won't lie about. i watched my friends deteriorate. i watched them dump it into their lungs and into their guts. i did all the things - well, most - that scoundrels and vagrants and deadbeats do to mortify their mothers. i was a pussy. i was an amateur. i could never quite keep up. but the thing is - i remember those fucking parties. i remember it all.

change over time

i have to make friends
with strangers, just to appear
that i'm still myself

It is the Memory Factory

As when liquid metal thuds
on granite or marble. A bump and
a smokey simmer, a wet hot drop.

Or when sunlight finds a crack
in the glass, and shimmers a
bit brighter than in the past.

When tired grasps clump
heavy glass onto bedside
table: surrender's sleep at last.

For every child's cracked smile,
bloodied wrist and knee
crying Dad! for a while.

For the bright partition of clouds.
For jungle air darked blue by the shade
of a billion teeming canopies.

Or the best part,
of kissers' first kiss
and first kisser's first.

Better still, lips plumped
puckered and pursed-
a perfect thirst to quench.

Of old laughter,
the playground of a child's mind
and decade designated memorabilia.

There it is

just dont

There’s an Applebee’s across the way
and my grandpa always told me never go there
its full of creeps and wives and spitting children
there’s grime on the walls and grudge in their hearts
its a terrible place with decent bacon, he said.
of course i went there,
of course i did because he told me not to.
and when i came out, there was blood on my hands
and on my shirt, what was left of it.
and so i took a picture of myself,
looking like a newborn baby - all bloodied -
so that when i told my children never to go there,
they’d fuckin’ listen.

National Identity At Last

I had a sentiment once:

I saw a black man in a suit,
jumping from a cliff into a lake,
and there were mountains
in the background, covered
in trees the color of autumn
at dinner time.
The sunset was every color purple,
and he was falling fast
with a giant American flag
in his grip, and a grin
the size of the grand canyon.

Below, his friends,
also wearing suits,
cheered from the deck
of a boat
wavering on the surface
of a sheet of
glassy
black
water,
reflecting the white flash
of handheld fire crackers,
an intense, pulsating glow -
fire-colored fire flies -
from embers
of deeply inhaled
joints;
the collective shimmer of
celebration.

Splash.

Their beer bottles clinked and
their spirits flowed overboard
as they helped him to the
deck, extending a beer
for their sopping friend
and I thought,

this must be the place.

Untitled

I went to my friend's house
and let myself inside.

He was reading.

"What's up man?
What are you
doing?"

"Learnin'."

"Oh yeah?
About what?"

"God and stuff."

I grabbed an apple
from the counter
and sat
down next to my
friend.

"God - and stuff..."

"Yeah, well, I'm reading.
Can't quite elaborate, can I?"

"Guess not."

I crunched my apple
and flicked on the TV
while I waited for him
to stop learning.

"Could you stop that, please," he asked.

Mouth full of apple I blurted, "stop what?"

"The TV. And the apple. I'm trying to learn."

"Lemme tell you something, man.
What's there to learn?"

"That's a question."

"That's not an answer."

I turned my apple
against my teeth,
eyeing my friend,
watching him think.
I bit down
just before he
spoke.

"Sheesh. What's there to learn?
Loads. Does god exist or not?
Can he exist? What are his qualities?
Where does morality come from
if it doesn't come from god? If
god created the universe, then
who created him? What
can abiogensis tell us about
the creation of life?
Does the presence
of the forbidden
fruit in the garden
of eden suggest that
god knew man would fail?
Is supernaturality a
logical contradic -"

"Okay, okay. Alright.
Jesus.
Sorry I asked."

"Lemme ask YOU something."

"What."

"Do you believe in god?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Science."

"You can't just say 'science.'"

"I can and I did."

"Well, extrapolate. For my sake."

He folded the book closed.
I bit my apple and started
talking while I ate.

"Every fucking thing in the world
can be better explained
by science than by
religion of any kind."

I swallowed and repeated, "everything."

"Really. Everything...?"

I nodded and he proposed,
"The ceation of the universe."

"Big bang."

"And before that?"

"Don't know."

"See."

"See what."

"Science can't explain it."

"What can?"

I chewed my apple
all the way down
to the core
unti there was
nothing left but
the seed
while my friend
sat
ruminating.

"God dammit," he said.

I popped the
seed in my
mouth
and obliterated it
with my
teeth.

"You're god damned right."

The power of prayer

beaten by gunfire -
a wake full of silences
buried by the Rest.