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.