"Oh, Like Fish in a Stream!"

Haymakers

and elbows

slingshots

and spitballs

Hairy faced

hipsters

sliding

glass doors

to exploitation

in red-cup

competition

Nixon's jowls

jiggle

a soliloquy of

seventies

Hunter S Thompson

cocaine

addled

verse.

All the while

weapons of

little destruction

only damage laser-sensitive

retinas and

curious squares.

Take this drug

to augment this

other drug

and take this one

to counter act the side-effects

of the first two.

Stimulants and

aspirin

don't get in

a knife fight.

Most projected

holograms

are just

providence

that we can see.

[Now Inside The Matrix]

we can't control it

but if we

{Create the Matrix}

It's ours

for the Taking

Talking in

effervescence

about solid

green

liqueurs

and

syrup Scotch

with a

prairie oyster

snack

and a

pink

pickled

egg, it only

leads to want

and want leads

to suffering.

But everybody knows that.

From Babylon Back to Babylon (Cathinones)

Trumpets

like golden

Chanterelles

trills and Buzz

like bees at

a Buttercup

Slick Sultry

sweetheart song

sips sweet sambuca on

Aegean

Elysian

Isles

Nymphs and crocodiles

play perforated

downstep drums

out of jungle jive and

hip-hop high-places

timing the tempest of

Turntable Torrents.

Old Wounds and the Dogs That Lick Them

Here and there,
in the gutters,
I find an empty
spice packet
or maybe a
broken smirnoff ice
bottle, and
here and there
in the houses
on the streets
I find men and women
half awake and smelling
of rum at
six in the morning
on a Thursday.

I've got
too many of these
burn holes
these match-strokes
these scars
and too many totaled
cars.
Too many times
I've spoken my mind
with Seagram's
breath, too many
times have
we slid down the
ladder for a
false alarm.
All too often
I cast my line
a hundred times
and never feel
the pull
I so desperately seek and
all too often
is my mind's
eye broken open
for the purpose of
revelation.

I pluck
and pull
and push
and parry
every
sword-stroke
and slingstone
and
cower behind
a cowhide
shield
Knowing, as
one knows the sun will rise
again tomorrow,
that
we are all promised
the Hidden Jewel
in our ascetic's cloaks,
and nothing more.

Many times
I have sat in the woods
with a jaw full of
levi garrett and
a gun in my hand,
watching my own breath
steam into the winter's crisp
and listening silence.

Although,
many times I have been entombed in
metaphorical and literal
cages.

Day and night
I remember
and day and night
I try to forget.

The clang and bell
of the type writer
the clicks and beeps
of a laptop
the scritch and scratch
of pen on paper
fill the night and
I work to
tell some
twisted
tale
some odious
Odyssey
some
Epicurean
Epic
some
stolid
story about
a man who
remembered
to forget.

"Trains Have No Names" -The Pinehill Haints

Screeching metal on metal
banging like gunfire
over every imperfection
all-steel tires and
steaming off rain
with heat by convection.
Never to settle, always
headed somewhere, pounding
on rails, over gravel
and through the air, past
the water and without
fare, for the cargo is
its own money.

Further than doubt,
the helmsman throws
his arm out, sipping
whiskey sweet as honey.

Segment after segment faster
than to count, like a great
45mph worm with its
master in denim form,
sitting warm inside
its head.

Jaws open, to
reveal a blinding light,
it calls to its brethren
like whales,
who only know that
it is there,
but not where.

Paradigm Shift

Great Birds, sending

canoes to shore,

Full of men, tall

and fair, wearing wool

on their faces, with

boils and lesions

on the skin underneath.

They smell of salt and

old, dead detritus.

Their clothing is thick

and they speak as if their

tongues are too large.

Upon great, one-clawed,

hairy dragons they ride,

like a single beast with

two heads. With their

scales of mirrors they

carry great blades of the

same, celestial material.

In tubes they make both

Thunder and Lightning,

they can strike a

man from many arms away,

and turn him pale like

the woolen-faced birdmen.

Since the fair, tall

men have come

many have succumbed

to their mirror blades,

thunder tubes, and

the lesions that

they wear on their face.

The Birdmen are here to stay,

while

we

dry up and fall away,

The Pretty Girl I Saw at the Blacksburg Farmer's Market

You crossed
the street from the 711
to the farmer's market
with your friend, a
short girl with fake blonde hair,
just to make You look
that much taller
and Your
shoulder curls
that much
more like an old
but shiny
penny.

In the sunlight,
I could see Your
long legs, longer
than mine,
and they didn't shake
when You walked
because I assume
You ride a bike
when You're alone.

I said
in a low voice to
Ike:
"Man,
she's
tall"

"Who?"

And then You
blended into the
mulling
matrix
of monkey-faces
around all
the vendor
stalls.
I groaned:
"Never mind"

I went to buy hot peppers
and we had
both lost our companions
somewhere amongst
the eggplant and
woven garlic.

You stood in front of me
and upon
shifting weight
to Your left
leg,
You swung your
bronze rings around
to lay on Your
femininely wide
shoulder.
I admired Your
sloping, sculpted
nape
and Your
olive skin.
I felt a tinge
of envy for
Your inevitable
asshole of
a boyfriend.

You heard my
muddy boot
scuff on the
concrete
and glanced back.

For a second,
I saw You
and You smiled;
sheepishly I grinned, and
tipped my hat
from the fishhook.

You bought Your
hot peppers
(which I also admired)
and strode into
the countenance-crowd.
Your long legs
and hand-hewn
frame
fell away
behind
shrunken Asian couples
and hipsters
in offensive colors.

And now
I'm left to wonder
if You are a
good swimmer,
or if You
play
pool.

I think You
are the
apartment-near-campus
type.
But if you
own a car, I
like to think it's
a big, American-made
monster with a soft top
and bench seats.
One that You free-wheel around
sudden curves, without
power-steering,
as Your
copper curls and
brazen strands
fly carelessly in the wind.

Old Poems

Old poems
in shed dusted
half-light
with worn pencil
etching and
scribbled-out pen
strokes
sing nostalgia like
there were voices
on the paper.

Tomorrow is
too late to
remember
and yesterday
never was.

The tears and
smiles on faces,
for long too young,
now old, and
the articles and
facts and
fortunes
are old science, but
yesterday
can never planned ahead
for.

Old poems
and notes
on Buddhism
sing to me
the hope
of a younger
man whose
life was ahead of
him.

An Olympian existence
of love and ambrosia
that never was.

Now it is
the pyrrhic victory
I have yet to win.

Sisyphus

There's
emptiness in my eyes,
fire in my nose
and
drink in my gut.

Now if you were to
say to me, "Hello,"
I would surely answer
back brightly,
but the incoherent
reply may offend and affront.

There's
cobwebs in my
mind, dust on
my glasses and
burn-marks on my
cheeks.

Now if you were to
address me for who I
am,
and not for
who I look like,
I would surely greet
you cordially
and shake your hand.

My body has
kinks, my
legs have too many joints
and my wrists
are killing me.

However, if you
were to examine
my specimen you would
find no
outward dermal
affliction nor
internal infarction.

I've been called noble
but my sense
of Southern Chivalry
sometimes fails me.
I've been called interesting
but sometimes
inner deadening is necessary
and my
mouth just isn't such a
fount
for a time.

Though I have been cursed
for believing myself clever,
when I get the boulder near the top,
and it begins to
roll back down,
I notice how much farther
I pushed it
this
time.

And No One will Miss Him

With money
being pulled out of
the pockets
of the poor
and the lonely
being rejected
once again,
I have thus decided
to ignore it all.
What care I of
callous women
and civil suits?
What does it matter
now that I have
nothing
left to take away?
With breasted
beasts bearing down
on fragile psyches
and
pillared institutions
inciting depravity
and depression
within once fortified
men,
I have thus decided
to break the bonds
of servitude to mankind
and to my own
self-doubt.
There, in Elysian
swamps I will drink
the pool-water nectar
and slay dragons for
boot-leather.
There, above the
branches of the
Southern Yggsdrasil
I will lose at Ragnarok
and fight forever
within the
cigarette smoke-stained
Halls of Valhalla.
The floors will
be sticky
with beer and
the Valkyries
will sing my
favorite old-time tunes
and all the while
reality will float on
by, like a barge
of garbage
in the Ohio.
With one more
whore
adding insult to
incapacitation, and
with one more
reason the Peace Corps
won't even take me,
I have thus decided to
construct wings of wax
and cross the Aegean.

My prison at Knossos
is far too unpleasant
to make a life there.

Flowing fingers and cloudy vision out of vermiculite bound magic.

I'm not jealous, I
can keep my moustache.
Corncob pipes burn
away the midnights
and ease our ache
while awake the bats
and Mr. Toad.

Kerosene and
mildew stink
dirty books
swollen with water

A Nation of
tobacco spit and corn husk
red dirt in walls
faceless cornerstores
the arsenal's
poisoned the fish.

Bear scat
and fungal forests
crunching leaves
and sloughing
needles.

21st century bukowski
hunched over
bleary-eyed
an overheating laptop
holds a tree frog
aloft, to free it
from its cistern pit prison.

Short lived
is how all freedom
is and will be
All is temporal
and even the
truncheons and
walls of cinder blocks
fall to its
perpetual cadence foot falls
as time
keeps
marching
on.

So if you find
me
haggard and smelling
of fish guts, camped some
tuck-away-somewhere on the
tennessee
(the everlasting life-blood)
You'll know I'm there
only cause I wanna be.

Diddley-bows thump through
the tupelo and sassafrass
songs of the south
slip slowly gospel
ploughs on yankee ears

of The Wind and Rains
only the Wind ceased
The Rains screamed unpredictably and
Sol
spoke at noon
but the aboretum of
mountain hard woods
silenced his chant.

Blackberry and
red-clay tattoos
those are the
only flags I'll carry,
those of Maiden
Earth.

Soil from whence we come.

Dirty hands
muddy feet
busted boots
copperhead strikes
devil's bushes
spice tree
wonderin'
whether is was haint
or
turkey.

Deer in the mornin
bear in the evenin
beer for suppertime
baby cricket lullaby for bed.

For once in my life I
felt like I
didn't need a pistol,
and probably
one of the times when
I may have needed one.

Bears and small rivers, my god.
People without air conditioning in
southern swelter
feet of yankee
snow
into march
Barbarism.
Lovely country.

Sweat bees
linger and like
rotten heartbreak memories,
they sting you
when you try to shoo them away.

Poems about the Aztecs
and trains.
Songs we
can't remember
and wonder why
we even
know so much.

I casted poems out into
the wilderness,
to be consumed
and destroyed,
only because
I could.

And now you'll have another
one to read.

Woods

In trickle-down moonlight
Silver dollar beetles
in a high-speed thump
burn through the obscured
night trees.

Pollution makes
otherwise delicious
bass nothing more than
a good fight
and a mild sunburn,
knee deep in warm
and ancient
waters.

Had some yellow poplar leaves
and rationed toiletpaper
for hygiene and smoke baths.

Weak wrists after days
of dirt daubing a
human hovel.
10 foot walls weighing
at tons of clay.

Remembered songs and
stagnant stinking memories
flurry down and melt on my mind's
ground.

And to think
that I can do even
better.

Lucid (Feb. 2010)

faces faintly seen
in dark whispers
of what may or may not be
a light
or a darkness
rippling
swaying
pulsing pins and motes and grains
weighed against
the background black
the way away waning
the far off farce
of what was once
an iota
of measurable
photons
immeasurably
numbered
bouncing beamed beyond
the moon's own craters
and the farthest
rings of
the Haymaker.

I Hope

and wish the worst
on people.

And I should care, in fact
I should work
to not have such thoughts.

That said,

I hope that
City
eats you alive.

I hope the bloody pulp that
comes out its
digestive tract
is acid etched
and you can
feel

every

single

moment of digestion.

I wish every mugger will
eye your purse
and every crack in the sidewalk
will make you trip.
I hope the sun via the pyramid blinds you
and you careen into the Mississippi.

I hope someone
can destroy your
self-esteem
and make you
feel worthless.
As a sunburnt
mangy
stray dog, who overhears
the neighbors
calling him 'ugly'.

I hope all the fast food kills you,
or rather
ruins the rest of your life,
with sugar-piss
and diabetes
and for every
morning
I cried
You will
drop a toe, or
a finger.

Now no one
will care
what kind of garbage
you put in your body
ever again.

I hope you
get skinny again,
or catch a black
man or maybe
a Mexican immigrant,
who should beat you
but won't.

I hope the next one
enjoys talking about
your job
and nothing else, and I hope
you continue to sigh
and roll your eyes
whenever he tries to talk
about politics, or
a dark star, or
Tesla's experiments.

I hope and wish that I had,
in my worst and most
crazed moments,
picked up that shotgun
and killed us both
like I wanted to.
If only for a
fleet moment.
Or at least given you
a reason to leave, like a good
knock to the forehead.

I hope and wish someone
makes you hurt
for as long as I do, which
is indefinite and unlimited.
A heart's alignment to evil
and consignment to defeat, or
my God's fearful wrath, I hope
it burns and itches like
chiggers in your skin.

I hope and wish someone
lies to you, fools you
lulls you into contentment
and shatters a glass pane
over your head.
I only wish that someone
else out there is
as cruel as you.

"Oh, there's Alex, the
drama
queen, get over it already."
Fuck that mess and
fuck you too, I only hope that
someone mocks your
shortcomings
and mental disorders
and makes light of
your hurts and sorrows.

You would have said, at the
sight of Auschwitz,
"Smells likes money."

And the best, most convenient part
about all this?

You won't see this, maybe not ever,
because
you never read
my poetry anyway.

And I

Chose to suffer
So I could write.

I awoke and cried,
most people
smoke something
or drink a cup of coffee.

And I chose
to suffer
for the depleted
mind
for the addled
psyche
praying maybe
motivation
would show herself.

And then, I chose to suffer.

And I
didn't eat for
8 days
so the twinge
in my gut
could remind me
of your
touch.

And I chose
to suffer, for
every tear a
treasure map
or heiroglyph
from how long ago?

"X" marks the spot
where we first
kissed.

The Shipwreck
drawn in afterthought
near the compass.
Northbound sea monsters
in a weepy, teary wave.

Carbon dating
the dating
and love
and luck we had.

Fossils of
lions
like
mice.

It was my fault,
it was your heart.

And I chose to suffer.

Perdido

Cry no more, no more
keep one hand on shore
I was always awful inside,
and you know who I am,
You know me

Man is a strange beast,
a monster with no leash
in a cave of his own making
raving
over nothing.

A trembling, quivering mass
brought here not to last,
but to be beaten,
and subdued.

Love will not betray, delay or enslave you
It will set you free
and I'll be more the man,
That I was made to be
There to consign,
an alliance to cry
At my heart you see,
the wholeness of love,
as it was made to be.

Eheu, merdus est.

If the World doesn't go to shit

And we somehow
skirt the threats
of
peak oil (oil depletion)
and
climate change (be it plus or minus)

We'll inhabit the internet, hopefully

We already do this part of the time

We "exist in" and "take up space" in cyberspace

Folks sing and dance
and groom one another in "Second Life"
And form relationships,

We fight plenty of wars where we kill our metaverse avatars

there's plenty of cyberspace like that to exist in.

There is infinite room and resources
in
The Metaverse.

Fuck the Matrix, we can create paradise.

We can exist in perpetual bliss, in the Metaverse.

While in "this" reality
we can just be big pulsing masses of organic flesh and brain
attached to a bunch of computers
attached to a spaceship that
soars at the speed of light
through the cosmos
suckling at the Universe's infinite supply of hydrogen for energy,

While folks in the Metaverse suckle for whatever their individual minds can desire.

But we can check our facebooks while we await the Totality.

The Mirror

Some men
stand naked,
wag their dicks
at themselves
smile inwardly
and move on.

Some women
stand naked,
flatten their pubic hair
and check for
deodorant residue
and move on

Some children
stand naked
stretch their
fleshy parts
laugh out loud
and move on

But some men
stand naked
see themselves
and in a fury
throw on many layers
of concealing cloth

And some women
stand naked
and gaze into the glass
like deer
gaze into
headlights

Some children
stand naked
and remember
things
that they'll
never forget.

But sometimes
a human
naked
viewing himself
in the mirror
is humbled

or amazed

or both

much like the
astronaut
gazing at the earth
as a whole
for the
first time.

Hooked on a Feelin' (High on Believin')

One can easily lose
The meaning of a poem
But one does not so easily lose
the feeling it left them
with.

A feeling like
it feels
to stand
in the woods
alone
with only the talk
of a cold
creek.

Or the feeling
of walking into a
completely darkened
room
and not being
able
to find
the switch.

When one
is torn from sleep
by a heavy breeze
from an open
window,
and a whipoorwill
sings outside,
that feeling.

Maybe how
it feels
to see a
shooting star
so big
and so close,
green
and
whistling.

Or the feeling
of reading
a poem
that reminds
us of
sometime
else.

Dear Mr. Chinaski

You lied to me,
Bukowski.

Or Chinaski

Maybe that's the guy.

Either way,
there are no women
and there is no booze.

Post Office
lied to me,
and
Women
did too.

I sifted through the Madness
and the
Way
is not there.

Alabama!
There is no horse track
and you said
dogracing
is-
well, I don't remember what
you said
but
you didn't like it.

There is no Santa Monica Beach
nor is there any
Air-condition-less
windows.
No Santa Ana winds.
No
women in short skirts.

Late night
runs to a
liquor store
just to borrow
wine?
I hate wine.

Chuck, man.

There is no wine.

However, I think
you'd appreciate
how long
and how much
your poetry
has helped
moved along
my bowels
in the morning.

Bukowski, you
fuckin' liar.

A Spider Thread

Once
The Buddha
awakened
to a man
hidden and defiled
in the depths of
the Sixth Realm, in
Hell.

He squirmed
and was tortured.
An arsonist and a
thief, he was in the company
of others like him.

The Buddha
awakened to a moment
in the Thief's life
when the man almost
squashed a spider
upon seeing it,
but spared the Spider's life
because it was
like his own.

The Buddha knowing this, he
lowered a spider thread
down into
the Depths of Hell
and the Thief found it.

He found it strong enough
to hold his weight, and
he even found himself
able enough
to begin to pull
and climb
his way out from the depths.

As the Thief began to
glimpse the Buddha Above
he turned and looked down
and saw many others
climbing the thread out of hell.

The Thief shouted
"NO! This is MY thread!"

And it snapped
and he plummeted
back
into Hell.

How Cold Can the Day Get?

How harsh can the wind blow?

If one
is helpless
on the ground
how many times
can he be kicked?

Booze bludgeons worries
and pain, only to
have pain
wake up, take a piss on you,
and fight your brother.

Fuck.
Just a few pumps,
to kill
a
few aches
and
make a few
more.

Cigarettes again,
to burn holes
in time alone
and good clothes
too.

How hard can
they make it
to even get
anywhere
and
who the fuck is
"they"?

A lot of my poems
were
are
written
drunk, stoned
sad, elated
fated, free
organic, synthetic
back to the wind,
or facing the east.

A lot of my poems
have been written
in ink, in pencil
in anger
in vain
for love
by myself
after Humanity's face
scowled at me
and frowned too.

I fear
every morning.

I write enough about it,
and no one reads.

A voice in the wilderness
yells for another
and hears
only the wind in the trees
and the cries
of a buzzard.

Fearsome Furrows

On my forehead,
an angry, yet sad expression
of wrinkles on
the bare patch of skull
above my angled brows.

It's hard to think about what you
want
when you can't
have
it.

My sandcastle glistens white
clean sand of fine grit
wet to mud and plastered
to walls and parapets.
But as the sun's countenance hides
itself under blanket of dark
the cool water moves in
and floods the Royal Chambers.

This is Impermanence
The source of suffering is want
To remove want
is to remove suffering.
even wants are impermanent.

The most
beautiful
face
furrows
and
wrinkles
and
dies.

And it is beautiful all the while.