Nice Boys and Girls

Nice boys find nice girls.
Clean cut boys
checkered buttoned down
solid bowtie
twice elbow patch
khaki/blazer combo.

Nice boys with
Quiet girls
popping their prescriptions while
the cat is away
on
business.

The rest of us -
Ruffians,
Rapscallions,
we are left with
dreck.
Meat for
the hounds of
hell.

In the dark
we entangle and scrape
eating the soul first and
the heart
last.

The big ending,
our grande finale,
another notch
on the
bedpost.

Heroes in
the revolution of
mediocrity
and
hope lacking
night.

A missed connection for "blonde flautist"

You look like her.
You don't know that you do
and
if I told you,
you wouldn't know what
I was talking
about.

But I saw you
and
I gotta say
it ripped my guts
straight up
the middle.

You look just like her.

Its in the little things.
Porcelain skin,
enchanting eye,
subtle nose.

But you are not her.

You are better and
you are gentle.

You're the type that goes home and
makes your husband dinner.
You never look sideways
and you dream
of produce
car seats
and baby's
firsts.

You buy tiny clothes
that say "my mommy loves me"
and you don't wear white after
labor day.

You seldom drink and
when you do
its just one before bed time
at a reasonable
hour.

You look like her but you aren't
her.
You would never cut a man to pieces
and send his soul
to hell.

No, you are too good for that.

Purity is your middle name
and in a prior life
would have left me
dull.

Such progress.

Honestly,
I would love to smell some sweat tonight
and hear the music only lovers
make.

Two delicate wrists
one shapely navel
and a salted nectar
fit for
kings.

Though I feel so dry and isolated

I used to live in a studio apartment
on the corner of fourth and broad.
The floors were wood and the walls
were cracked with smoke and age.
The plumbing drip-dropped incessantly
and mostly I laid around
waiting for death.

I had epic hangovers in that room,
sickness unparalleled.
I took drugs,
I wrote words and
I drank.
Every night I
drank.
I drank with the best of em.
I slept with strangers
and bought stock in
Philip Morris and
I drank with the best of em.

It's funny how people glamorize this way of living.
As if there is some sort of heroism in failing
miserably.
"Such an artist, man!"
You got it brother -
headache
vomit
and crooked
spine:
art personified.

After I collapsed on my parent's bathroom floor
at twenty eight years old,
I decided that Hemingway,
Buk,
Kerouac,
and the rest of the boys
could die how they wanted
but
it wasn't for me.

So
I shop organic,
I hit two kinds of gyms,
and try to get eight hours.

I am no Hemingway,
Buk,
or Kerouac (the latter being a blessing in my opinion)
but I'm alive and
they
aren't.

One good ankle
ready for
war.

Lifeus Interruptus

I've only got one good ankle
left.
Well, the right but only one
left.
Broke the tip of my fibula
Can't walk,
Can't climb,
Can't work,
just lay.
Lay all day.

I sit with Buk,
catching up on old times.
Got some Joyce
and some old religious texts.
Pills and prostration
and boredom.
I thought about drinking -
you can at least do that while seated stationary,
but instead I cooked an omelette.
Took me darn near an hour
as I hopped around
like a retarded
roo.

So hey, if you need me
you'll find me here
getting fat on raw cacao
and
dreaming of handholds
on
high.


I would be remiss if I resisted.

"I don't deserve to be this happy."

I feel lighter.
The world weighs its heavy but
I feel
lighter.

Today I strolled
down the sidewalk
with a fine beaned brew
(How pretentious)
but -
the sunlight man,
THE SUNLIGHT,
it found me and
it left me warm,
content,
and healthier than I've felt in
years.

Lunch with Sasha,
a conversation with a shopkeep
about the demise of small town USA,
seductive barristess with ironic glasses
and auburn hair that falls in waves,
a pleasant Saturday afternoon,
I hold them close
and begin to see
a future -

Devoid of death
and the stench of rot
with a hopeful heart
and an honest,
albeit tentative,
rumour of
a smile.


Give me moments.

Send it Onsight

I
I
I
on the wall high
see down below
encouraging faces.

Calling out
"Nice!"
as my toe finds hold
or my fingers wrap around
the jug.

Crags crush the digits
and callouses form
alongside scratches on knuckles
yea, they be
war wounds.

My body aches as I sit with Clif
finding much needed
gnosh
gnosh
nourishment.

"Take!"
I exclaim as I reach the end
of my rope
and float gently back
to Earth.

From up here I can see
God
painting the horizon
in amber brushstrokes
of infinite
understanding.

What Means Anything Anymore Anyway?

I pump out these
"words"
all the time words but
they're hardly memorable,
just these moments,
points in time that point to my
current mood or
frame of mind.

If an eye could catch what
I brazenly produce here
I doubt they would even
comprehend it.

Am I so eager to set the world on fire?
Does it have to burn like I did,
as I flew home in shame
from what really just amounts to an unfortunate
disappointment?

At what point does one
simply come alive and
give it an honest try
out in the old
wild
blue?

I have to go to work now.
THAT is what is real.
THAT is the current reality of things.
Days in.
Days out.
Making the best of
an arbitrary
situation.

How about something to make it go down more smoothly?

I'll See You When We're Both Not So Emotional.

I was so afraid of losing,
F Line -
next stop Bergen ST.
You want blood?
You got it.
Walking home wind-whipped
wanted wide-eyed wanderer.
This is Brooklyn man!
I still walk around like I got it
dark and rugged
you know where I've
been.

Today I came out of the haze.
Live.
Life.
Now.

A Word of Thanksgiving

This time last year I
held in my arms a complication.
Left standing with my right hand
outstrectched I
found smooth skin
interrupted
by the ring of
another man's
promise.

But they say love conquers all
and eventually there was a man
who wept
while a woman collected her things and
moved them into my
apartment.

In February of 2012 I
arrived to find
my belongings neatly folded
and packed into suitcases
ready to fly south
like birds far away
from the north
and faked love
forgotten.

I wept that day too and
finally what went around
came around
and the difference between I
and the former man of my position
vanished.

History will remember me as a brevity
and she will remember if at all
that one day in November I kept her
fed and warm.

Is it possible to live
without comparing?

"This time last year."

We smoked cigarettes
ate and drank
this time last year,
and we made love
until we fell asleep
intertwined like soft
strands of
yarn.

Will This Day Be Remembered Down The Road?

Images of The City still haunt me.
Seeing those buildings (in stills) rising over the treeline
(What trees?)
burns a hole in my empty
gut.

Today I'm letting the sunshine in-
my little room is warm and mine and
sunlit.
Today is also a free day and I've packed it
full
as best as I can.
Still sober and
still maneuvering
around the voices calling from the staircase,
"Come with us,
Come drink and be
comforted."
Yet No Drink November continues.

Meanwhile, the buildings in The City still stand
and so do I-
to go upstairs and make
coffee.

The moral of today's story.

How Presumptuous, How Utterly Full of Himself He Must Be.

For something completely new
things are looking up.

Yet I find myself staring
down at feet and
counting toes.

We've walked countless miles they and I.

I look into the corner of my humble room and
contemplate footwear.

But I am a more clever animal.

This was on my mind this morning
so I wrote it down in the manner which follows:
"I see her like Sylvia at her window,
taking in the sound and swell.
She with her coffee
bathed in gentle,
fluorescent,
glow.
Tapping out the knots of life
trying to make them straight
with sense."

Let it be known
-should they ask-
that I seemed to always admire
fire.

Good Day Sunshine.

Coffee blood,
caffeinated veins,
another day in
paradise.

In the hall goes the suction
and blow
and scrape, scrape, scrape
of painters at their profession.

Nine a.m. and we are all in it
together man.
Sleep has left us -
replaced by scrape.

I sleepily smile in solidarity
and snark.
There are worse things in life
than a heart broken and
solitude.

The painters' scraping smooths our walls
and somehow too the bumps in my road.



Dance immediately.

Manic Mondays

I've been reading -
over the things I have had to say lately and -
I'm saying,
mostly nothing.

I think you get the wrong idea
here.
In real time I'm -
kind of super and -
this whole thing is making me


look,
I've got it pretty together for a guy -
it's not like I cry in the streets or
I mean, I don't give out hugs like candybars,
sometimes I just have some
- things -
going on from here I should probably try
to save a little
face.


Sing along

A Heart Hardened, HTML free

Brooklyn is under water. I don't care if she is alright. Does that make me a bad person?

Everyone lets you down. I am looking for another job because they let me down, I am living in a strange situation because someone let me down, I got a blues I can't kick because I keep getting let down.

When am I going to learn that everyone leaves? You cannot rely on anyone but yourself and just as you are born so you die: Alone.

I don't mean this in some existential angst sense, I mean it in the literal. No one will stay. Everything you own you've already lost and everything you love is already broken.

This should bring freedom right? Right now I just wonder if not caring about whether someone who I was completely devoted to is injured or in danger means that I've lost my humanity.

This is going to sound pathetic but how much longer am I going to hurt over this?

See? It's not all bad.

Baby's Got The Blues

I've been down and out for the last month or so.
That new life smell has worn off and now things aren't feeling
quite as fuzzy.

I have lacked direction for so long that
I forget where I even came from.

I've been getting depressed over Alice again.
Although late last night I was reading the last missive I ever sent to her -
so long ago and so truly dramatic -
and it was as if I were writing for a stranger.
Someone who I can't honestly even picture anymore.
Someone who was, and remains, so far away and forgettable.

I can't even muster the moxie to go the Heming way
and just drink until there's art, song, or tragedy.
It just won't leave me alone:
one still, small, persistent voice telling me
"Don't give up."

Sometimes I wish it would just shut up.

Platitudes:
It's always darkest before the dawn.
Time heals all wounds.
Tomorrow is another day.

Tomorrow may be another day
but it's always seems so far
away.

Maybe I'm just being:

From Roses Come Thorns.

This particular evening finds our hero
housesitting.
There is a cat to care for and I told my folks
I would.
So here I am warm in their quiet corner of the universe
with just about everything I could ever need.

Truth be told it almost makes me weep.

Every object has its own place
to belong and be.
Everything is together and lovingly placed just
so.
Everything is normal and free of madness.
Everything is whole and untarnished,
everything is right, calm, and free of regret.

They do not drink.
They do not smoke.
They have never been awake at dawn
riddled with substance.
They have never been arrested.
They have never moved hundreds of miles
for lies.

They found one another and made it stick.
They created the flesh and did the best they could-
probably better than the flesh will ever do itself.
Staying stalwart through every blemish
they never stopped
showing love.
They had a family-
They had each other-
They had a normal life.

Sitting here with cat in lap I
realize that I will probably never have these things
and I honestly don't know
what to say about that.

Days

Oh and also:



How about that world?



Honestly, these about sum up everything I could ever write here.

Love,
Artemis.

Spasm

I wonder if it is possible to have both achievement and art.
Does drive take from us our wonder?
If we form an uneasy alliance with monotony
does that take away our fire?

Last night I reconnected with Stephanie,
B-R-O-O-K-L-Y-N,
I wanted to crawl through the wire.
It was so good to hear that voice.
A voice from that time when
I felt like more.
I let every word she said wash over me.
We spoke of love, death, destiny, and regret.
We spoke like wild things but completely devoid
of judgment.


This song has been on my mind for days:

(I was introduced by a child fair-haired and
she politely corrected me when
I said, "Annie.")

I used to find meaning in bourbon and beer.
Today I sat on a park bench eating roasted beets in the sunshine
and I thought about how long it has been since I lived this way
and I was truly missing
out.

After The Last Shot Is Fired.

Exhaustion.

I had to clean up my technohistory today.
It is amazing how many people I do not know anymore.
We all exchanged "I love yous" and words which I am sure that
we meant
at the time.

But no one stays.

Our story is fluid and
things wash in and wash out with
the tide.

I saw a picture at four in the morning
that reminded me of a face I've sworn to
forget.

There it was again.
Lips on mine, skin on skin.
How strong we think we've become but
time doesn't care
and heals wounds on its own schedule
if at all.

I've covered my tracks.
I've removed myself from the web.

Starting with seclusion
I seek those who won't
disappear.

Why Now?

I've often said
that this is the last time.
Well
this time
I mean it.

You are my center
When I spin away.
Out of control
on videotape.

Vignette II

Finding space to do what is right.
Breaking free of this broken down man
this cocoon of failure
is painful.
I accept responsibility freely
and the pressure is palpable
but through strength one
prevails.
Accepting that failure
is mine.
Accepting that weakness
is theirs.

Trying to grow beyond bitterness
is still a trying
road.
I received a message this morning
from my past
which was humbling
and beautiful
and I am eternally
grateful.

Sometimes I wonder
if I am leaving any mark at all.
Will they even remember me
when I am
gone?

Sometimes I picture my funeral
and it is a very small gathering
indeed.

Things To Think About.

Sipping my coffee I contemplate
the ways in which
we treat each other.
Cruelty is often hopelessly intermingled with
good intentions
misunderstood emotions
and passionate
expressions.

Calm.

It's hard to find poetry
in the best of times.

The majority of the day is given
to getting it done and
producing results.

I have all but forgotten before
and I have since
moved on.

I took a long walk through nature today
and I sat on a rock and noticed the sun glint off of the ripples of
a lake. (How Frostian.)
It was good to be outside and warm.
It was good to be sober.

I don't know where I'll go from here
or what tomorrow will look like.

But for right now things are alright.
Nothing to report
just another day in the life.

Goals are being formed
and futures becoming evident.

I hope that when tomorrow comes
I am proud of who I am
and the sins of the past
will all be left
behind.

In your face.

I know it will be gone tomorrow but
I want to fall in love tonight.
All of the wine-light making you
a dime-sight and
we stop thinking and just feel it.

Boo-yah.

Had me a tiny dancer once
who moved in time while the band played and
the people screamed their approval
while I contentedly smoked and smiled.

Heard their tunes again today and
remembered how I miss the dreamers.

Everyone I meet these days is
analytical
predictable
and
dull.

I shouldn't hate
I should motivate
but I like em a little left
of center.



Now that I'm back in the field
I seek the dreamer
dangling from the tree and laughing
and rambling on like me today
with likewise childish rhyme scheme
having.

Today is brought to you by the letter
caffeine.

Memories are a dish best served suppressed.

I woke today and felt good.
I felt really, really good.
I twisted open the blinds and let the day's light pour
in.
I decided that today I would lay my hands to the task of
general cleanliness so
I put on an appropriate soundtrack
and began to dutifully put my life
in all of its "proper" places.

Suddenly-
painfully and without mercy
my mind wandered backward.


Pushing the futon back against the wall
I shooed Rufus, straightened the blanket and folded her robe.
She said, "I'll start in the kitchen,
do you want to get the bathroom?"
(J stands silent as if in the awesome presence of
a heavenly being.
Alice stands in front of the window waiting for him to answer.
Outside is a beautiful Brooklyn blue sky day.
The early afternoon light plays over Alice's delicate features
creating an exaggerated angelic effect.
Children can be heard on a nearby rooftop playground
happily enjoying their period of freedom from stale
surroundings.
The scene is surreal, almost as if the two are frozen in
a sublime and cinematic moment.)
I smiled at her,
"Of course."
She smiled back.
She needn't even ask, I'd kill for her so
a little grime was no egregious obstacle.
I went into the bathroom and
shoved my sponge bearing hands into every crevice which
the place possessed.
I wanted it clean,
I wanted it cleaner than clean.
Beyond clean, I sought immaculate.
Ne'er would her porcelain flesh touch
a single impurity. Not on my watch.
I didn't care if it meant that
each finger would be worn to a twitching mound,
I would see to it that she was surrounded by
perfection.


Remembering this I paused as I held a pair of socks
black and soft in my hands.
Nothing moved, Nothing.
The cat was still, the street was silent,
and I ceased to breathe.

Finishing my task I
picked up my keys and
went to the store to buy vegetables.

Eh, What Can You Do?

When I first broke up with that mess
someone told me,
"You won't see it for about a year but
this is one of the best things
that could possibly happen to you."
Well they were right, I guess.
It is a weight off the shoulders and
when no one is making you miserable on a daily basis
it really is much easier to get the grocery shopping done.

Told B that last night to try to cheer him up.
I mean really, no one means that much in the long run.
A wise woman told me once, when I lamented to her my plight
via text,
That no one is actually more special than anyone else.
(Or something along those lines.)

Nailed it kiddo.

She just had her first child.
Maybe the only one, I don't know.
Point is she looked happy in the picture.

It's a marathon.
It's long and it's tedious
but it is there and you deal with it.
I don't know what is coming
but I should probably stop trying to force it
and get outside for a little bit.
I hear there is a world out there.

Left and Leaving.

I've been saying a lot of goodbyes lately.
My [former] roommate,
now my roommate's former lover,
packed her things and left this
morning.
I helped her stuff her swaddled cat
gently into its carrier and
she hugged me and said
goodbye.

I was completely alone in the house
for the first time since I moved in.
It's very odd when she was the one
who got me the room in
the first place.

Ellis came by work tonight.
I haven't been so elated in months.
I stood back, got low, and opened my arms
in exaggerated preparation for our embrace.
She charged at me and threw her arms around
my neck.
It was genuine.
Being that close to someone sends lightning through
your bones.
The look in our eyes said it all:
we genuinely miss each other.
Somewhere, some place, we simply missed
the mark.
I'll settle happily for friends.
But the time came for me to leave and
I hugged her again and told her I missed her.
She said she missed me too.
We made "those" plans to get together soon.
I probably won't see her again for who knows how
long.

So we said goodbye.

I thought about how many times I have said goodbye and
how many times I will again.
To my parents,
lovers,
and friends.

We all end up alone eventually and
no one belongs to anyone else.
All we are guaranteed is death
and all of life is
borrowed
time.

The Earth Is Not A Cold, Dead Place

"I was out on the town so I came to your window last night.
I tried not to throw stones, but I wanted to come inside."

I rolled home with the windows down and let the
uncharacteristically cool air flow over my work-weary body.
The above lines were sung through my speakers and
it kind of made me
smile.
I know it's all hype and over dramatized songwriting,
but there was a time when I actually thought that way.
When I was in college I threw myself down like a hot beat
and created some epic scenes that deserved
accolades.

These days I am stoic.
I pictured myself outside of our Brooklyn apartment
staring up at the window in present tense and feeling
that empty yearning.
Yearning for something that never was and never would have
been.

The only realities are the rubber and the road
and the hum of the engine beneath me.
Life is mine now.
I am the captain of this potentially sinking ship.

If I found my way there again I know
that I would probably just keep on going.
The past has passed me
by.

This fresh ink on my shoulder reminds me
that silence has the loudest voice
and we will never
speak
again.

Having A Great Summer, Wish You Were Here.

So the other day she sent my mother
my forgotten birth certificate in the
mail.
Apparently she found it while doing some cleaning and
thought that I should have it.
(Or so the enclosed note indicated.)

Well I'll be.
It only took seven months to finally hear something.

She ended the note with a hearty:
"I hope you are all well."
Well isn't that cordial.

I listened as all of this was relayed to me and
I mostly felt a heap of nothing.
Enough time has gone by
that I have all in all stopped
caring.

However, if I were her
I would have skipped the well-wishing.
One should be aware when words perhaps are no longer
warranted.

Even the nice ones.


My roommate is being cheated on by his live-in girlfriend.
She stands in the driveway and relates the hows and whys to me
and it is interesting to listen to the other side of
misery.
Listening to her I actually get insight into many things
about my past that I failed to understand and
the lessons are valuable and I am sure improve my experience
if ever so slightly.

Yet I can't help but be nauseated.
Loyalty is a dying art.

But who am I to judge?
I'm just taking it all one day at a time and
if you are reading this
then I hope you are all
well.

Honesty

I've had a hard week.

The money isn't coming like it used to,
through no fault of my own,
but the good times have dried up.
I've been spending the majority of my time with
faces younger than mine and
half the time they have no idea
what I am talking about.

Tonight I broke down.

I got off of work and I went
a few doors down to the bar.
I walked in and saw the usual suspects
and it reeked of alcohol and shame.
I could actually smell the odor of bodies sweating
away mixed drinks and martinis and
I turned to someone and said as much.

"Yeah, isn't it great?" he asked as he smiled an inebriated
smile.
I nodded and the bartender passed me a glass.
"On the house," she said.
I took the glass outside and sat down in the evening air.
It was humid and I stared at the glass in my hand.
I raised it to my lips and before contact was made
I lowered it again and thought about everything:
How tomorrow I would feel sick
and how tomorrow I would need a ride to work and
how I would still be so empty and
how I would curse myself for the whole thing.
I stared at that glass of wine for ten minutes
until I stood up, walked to my vehicle, and
got in.
One good decision.
One in about eight years worth of terrible ones.

I never realized how painful and difficult it would be
to stop being a drunk.
I have built an empire around the sauce and
ninety percent of the relationships I have built
revolve around it.

Alice.
Bottles of wine and cigarettes.
Endless conversations over glass after glass.
Drunken sex and headache mornings.

I stood outside tonight and looked up at the sky.
The house is far enough from downtown that you can still see a star
or two.
I realized that I now embody the antithesis of everything that
I ever wanted to be
as a child.
I have become trapped in this feminine energy
that keeps me captive in second guessing and
overly emotional agonizing.
I dwell with fear and it with me.
I let New York steal my confidence and bravado.
I used to grab women by the wrist
pull them outside and
push them against the wall into passion and persuasion
before I even knew their names.

Perhaps a bad example but truth nonetheless.

A vicious cycle that persists, and persists.
Drink, sickness, sadness, drink, sickness, emptiness.

You wouldn't know it to talk to me.
But then I come home at night and type it
on a screen that prints it somewhere
no one will ever know a thing.

How brave I have become.
I hope that tomorrow delivers me.
I hope that I will save myself
before I become the things I hate.

Lost and desperately trying I grasp for straws.

When The Pipes Are A-Knocking...

"I get on the train and I just stand about
now that I don't think of you.
I keep falling over, I keep passing out,
when I see a face like you."

Today's visitor to my home turned construction site
was the plumber.
Knocking pipes and blocking the driveway
the water was promptly shut off and I was once again
a refugee about town.

I've heard it said that you don't get what you want
but you get what you need.
Well if this is the case
then something big is coming which all signs point to
as either being lost in the jungle
or homelessness.
I'm becoming very adept at survival.

I've never adapted very well which
- if one spends any extended amount of time with me -
becomes painfully evident.
Especially at the end of a relationship.
I shake my head at the thought of the tears
which I have so shamefully shed
in front of a retreating lover.
I wonder if years down the line they remember it.
I, the emasculated.

The details of my life story in the past six months
are getting blurry.
I find it difficult to recall the names of the evil
or afflicted,
or bit players in my overdramatized journey.

I suppose that I should be grateful.

I do appreciate the plumber,
and the shiny new showerhead,
but he is unwittingly just another reminder that
it is nearing time to leave.
Six more months and I would like to be there -
a there in the next there in a long line of theres.
Possibly better for the experience.
A little stronger,
a little leaner,
and with a slightly dryer eye.

Another episode of nothing at all.

I drove my Jeep out to Saxaphaw
to see The Tallest Man On Earth.
I bought tickets - apparently -
one night when I was drunk at the Clarion hotel.

My nephew came to stay with us and
he needed my room so
instead of spending time with him
and his little deaf ears
I got a drink and slummed around.

So there I am at this concert,
just me and myself as a companion,
and I couldn't get out of the car.
Something was making me nauseous about the whole thing.
I don't know if it was the crowds or
the odd location of the venue
or the smiling concertgoers
and teenagers smoking their stolen, smuggled, cigarettes
or what.
I just couldn't get out of the car.

So I drove my jeep away
and met up with those few who I still call
friend.

It strikes me that throughout my life
I have been followed, and harassed, and annoyed
by people constantly wanting to get near me.
This is an odd phenomenon
when you just want to be left alone.
I try to blend into the background
but I constantly stand out to someone.
Maybe its the height, I don't know.
They tell me I have presence and
I am dynamic.
Well that is all well and good I suppose
except I wish I could attract something
worth keeping around.
Most just want to prove they aren't intimidated or
they can stand just as tall.

I don't care about being the tallest,
I just don't want to stand alone.

7/29/2012
Six months and twelve days later.
This time last year I was warm in the bosom
of a great big apple and I didn't feel so hopelessly
lost.

Today's forecast.

Sometimes there is nothing to talk about.
That's ok.
Nothing is better than bad things
or sad things
or get ups
or let downs.

I wish it would rain
and rain
and rain
until yesterday was washed away
and today could begin again.

When I dream I dream of before
when things weren't yet where they are
and there I am where I used to be
and it seems much better than it is now.

I think they might be onto me.
They are starting to know that I don't like it here
and that I would rather be somewhere or someone
else.

Other than that nothing new to report.
Just another weather report from the same old place.
End transmission.

Fernweh.

I had this whole clever post thought out
where I would begin with an abstract thought
which would somehow tie it into the metaphorical bottom line.

Well.

Here is the bottom line:
I moved so much when I was a child that
it is almost impossible for me to ever feel
at home.
Every day I feel myself searching for the cracks
and the downside of the present situation
with the hopes of convincing myself to pack it all up,
again,
for the fifth time this year,
and move my carcass to another locale.

I'm restless.
I changed the bedding today and
I am almost confused as to why.
I haven't slept under the sheets since she left me -
some strange manifestation of mourning
or perhaps I believe that if I get under covers then
it is all true
and New York is much further away than I want to believe.

Stupid sobriety.
In the morning I will feel like a king
but the nights find me just a little bit
lost.
So I make the bed
and lay down to sleep.

How dry I am.

I thought tonight
about how I used to have long talks
over green teas
with Stephanie during Brooklyn afternoons.

She and Mike had called it quits
after two years of giving it the old
college
try.

She used to call me on the phone while
he would be in the next room
making some young thing scream
as a sweet revenge.

Then I moved out there and it had been about
six months since the whole thing happened
and she started to get that twinkle back
in her eye.

I splashed water on my face to
clean the gel from my skin and
when I opened my eyes I saw it.

It has been five months since I left.
Six since single.

I asked Stephanie at that time how she felt
and she had an uneasy easiness that was hard to
explain.
She needn't worry though, because I get it now.

I have it too.
The last stage: acceptance.
I accept that life is completely different
and it is completely random
and I have
ABSOLUTELY. NO. CONTROL.

All I can do is stay true to center.
Embrace the unknown and stay the same.

My writing is starting to look foreign to me.
I don't consider myself some great author but
my voice has changed.

Maybe its the lack of alcohol.
Maybe its the growth of spirit.

All I know is:
I miss Stephanie
and Brooklyn
and green teas
and
sublime afternoons
on the
JMZ.

I don't like the wording but it all seems true enough.

Day two of my newly found desire to live
beyond the barstool.
Already the ghosts have come to haunt me.
Their faces are so vivid when
I lack the proper substance
to drown them in oblivion.

Josh.
Casey.
Alice.
And all the other "could have beens"
or
"I wish they had beens" come
cascading down through
actual,
considered,
clarity of
thought.

I, the martyr.
I, the villain.
I, the failure of so many moments
that may have brought the definition of
a better life.

Without blood rushing to my head
it gets so quiet in my little room.
Living with two very kind souls who I fear
know nothing about me at all.
Just that I will play the Jester
for everyone so that
I won't feel so
very alone.

The undercurrent of every day
is this unshakeable dissatisfaction.
Not a melancholia
or great victimized drama.
Just a constant buzz of dissatisfaction.

It really does hurt to try.

To attempt to be more,
do more.
To reach some level where
people begin to expect things
from me.

Like greatness.

That is something I fear more than
the ghosts that visit me.
I don't want to let myself down.

When in the grip of the bottle
I feel absolved from my sins.
But then I impurely awaken
and find them etched all over me.
In my mouth,
on my tongue,
across my arms,
wrists, and chest.
Living testimonies to how I really am
not enough.
I don't have what it takes.

Yet I have always had a talent for destruction.
I can bring everything good in my life
to hopeless ruin
in such a fashion as to amaze.

It burns to realize the years
- years -
I have actually wasted
with self-destruction and
vice.

I wonder what I could have been had I just
actually
tried.

I would never have met her.
He would never have died.
I would never have hurt
even half as much
as I have.

Perhaps the worst part of all this
is that without distraction
the smoke actually burns my lungs and
I can taste the poison.

I am a piece in progress
and hindsight is
a waste of
time.

I'm glad that no one reads this mess.

I stood over the street and rocking on my heels I
watched the celebration as everyone cheered for
America.

I found a different place to go
where people actually said hello to one another
and everyone had tattoos.

I wasn't going to write tonight
because I don't want this to turn into
what I did over summer vacation
or
I don't feel like going to work tomorrow.

...But seriously I don't.

I was born to be the boss.
I should be the beginning of it
and the end of it.
Punching timeclocks just doesn't work for me
and I always end up getting fired anyway
or going off the deep end and quitting in the morning
(Right Babe?)

I actually had the thought today that
if she wonders if I hate her
she can rest assured
that I most certainly
do.

I really wish I could just get it all together
and tear her and New York and the whole tainted thing
from my memory and heart
but at least once a day
I think about it
and end up cursing her name all over again.

Sour grapes.
I hope her world tastes like
rancid
sour
grapes.

Champagne taste with a shoestring budget.

I am back to square one.
Learning to crawl I sit in my own emissions
and wallow in my own filth.

I've forgotten how to be a man,
how to take it when its good
and drop it when its
so bad.

I spend too much time wondering
instead of just knocking down the wall
and letting the chips fall wherever
they may.

And the middle class shivers
and jingles their keys
and they toast their martinis
to their mediocre lives.
With 2.5 children and a fresh
green
American Express
with their name on it.

"Valued Customer"

I in my designer jeans
call them dillitantes
of luxury and life.

How clever I am -
but I cant stand the thought
of looking less than
polished.

I preach life in its rawest
but I don't like hotel rooms
without a refrigerator.

Is it so much more noble
to have a gut and a closet full
of irony?

Bukowski would spit on my grave.
But why should I care what he thinks?
After all he left a long time ago
and took all the good writing with him.

None of this matters.
I should probably just shut up
and find a career.

Or a better way to support my champagne habits.

Sometimes I wonder

If in the end any of what I've done will make sense.
Will I have ever truly needed to go through any of these things?
Were the deaths and disgrace all necessary to burn me into
some effigy which changed the world?
Did I need to be hardened by abandonment and poor decision making
to become some future version of myself?

Maybe.
Maybe I had to drink too much
and spend too much money.
Get arrested
or cry in front of too many women.
Have too many hangovers and days spent in bed
and bad health.
Make enough people despise me
and say unbelievably hurtful things.
I wonder if I'll hate Alice forever
or forgive her and cry at her funeral.

I don't know.
Another thing to add to the list of what I do not understand.
I just hope that I will be forgiven.
That I will not leave a stench in the Earth's nostrils
which makes the land groan and ache.

None of the past twenty-eight years has killed me
and only time will tell how much it has made me stronger.
If at all.

One day we'll see if it was all worth it or completely
unnecessary.
Until then I'll wonder
as I attempt to sleep off another
possible mistake.

Cliches

If you do what you've always done...

then you will still be up way too late
with no one to blame but
yourself.

You'll wake up with someone
you don't know and
probably don't
want to.

You're pockets will be lighter,
that's a plus,
unless they are so light that you
have to sell
your pants.

Use this as a reference.
Let this be a reminder.
No one ever got rich
off of being a
moron.

Silver lining.

Today is a good day.

I can walk.
I can still breathe (for now),
I can mix it up with the best of them.

No waiting,
just waiting on
dinner plans.

An old flame rang me up today
wants to get together.
I turned her down for the last one
and we all know how
that ended.

Combing over the past
righting all the wrongs.
Looking for a fresh start
from bitter ends.

Today is a good day.
In a long line
of bad ones.

What I did over summer vacation

Today I was feeling a little low
so I went on a walk and got high.
I sat in this gazebo thing and watched the sun set
behind the trees.
It was nice to sit there listening to music,
shutting my eyes,
and sinking into a warm, peaceful, personal oblivion.

Every day her voice gets further away.
I think that I can sometimes hear it just as I drift off
to sleep.
But then I realize that its just the sleeping pills talking
and they don't have much to say
at all.

Just:

"Forget it all tonight, you've been through enough for one day."

I silently thank them for their kindness and
sink into a warm, peaceful, medicated oblivion.

Life these days:
A series of lows followed by actions
which lead to a series of highs.
Some good, most not good, but all
mine.

When she quit me

I wept.

I cried over what I imagined I lost.

I loved her more than I could say or put into words.

Epic.

Lovestruck.

Lied to.

A waste of life and everything else.

I hope she has a terrible night.

Legs up.

No one should piss you off more than they get you off.

And if they do
send them packing.

The first time.

And stick with it.

It always seems so rosy
after the first glass
and the next makes it even
rosier.

But then you wake up in the morning and
they still hate you just as much as
they did before.

Words don't mean anything
and history repeats itself.
Whores don't change to princesses
and you can't spit-shine a turd.

If you don't sleep together
for weeks at a time its
over.
If you see it this way and
they see it that then
its over.

Find someone else
who makes you smile every now and again.

If anyone pisses you off more than
they get you off?

Send them packing.
Or take your jeans and your records
and get
out.

sighs.

And tonight I found my Jacket...

and thought about how her hands were the last to touch it

and her shoulders were the last

to bear its weight.

And how now my shoulders

are left

bearing everything,

and now at night my hands

touch nothing

but Jacket.

Every time you think you're getting better...

You find yourself wishing it wasn't so bad.

I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if the first thought
of every single endless day
wasn't about how much you wished that they would
die.

There are so many empty things in life.
Empty eyes, empty conversations, empty kisses,
empty glass.

I live in a virtual barren land.
Where are my subways? Where are my starry-eyed
wanderers?
Where is anything that I loved for the past
year of absolute hell?

I used to be able to walk out the door
and the streets would carry me forward.
Toward something, the promise of anything,
streets alive with people and promise.

Now all I see are young families
and mortgages and endless petroleum
consumptioooooonnn oh kill me now.

My life has become so damn boring I wish
that something would explode.
Friends are married and what is there to do
anyway.
I miss the strangers:
The endless sea of strangers.
Even when you were alone you were never
alone.

Now its the same silence all the time
and the false self-assurances
and I still wish the bitch had just
spared me the ache.

Four months later and I still
don't understand.
Why are we so hell-bent on destroying each other?

I spent hours inside of her
but I never managed to reach her heart.

She had me at hello.
Another one to add to the list.

And now I sit in the half-light
half-alive
writing this crap to no one.

In a constant New York state of mind.

As I laid alone in our bed just about all the time.

I swore that I would stop writing but
in light of recent events I felt the need
to lay it down.
Lay it down somewhere.

I miss the flesh the most.
You could keep her empty promises
and broken word.
But leave me the flesh.

Waking up every morning to all that
meat.
That soft, soft, soft, pink and delicate.
I always awoke with filth on the brain.
I would creep out of covers and,
like a panther stalking prey,
wait until I
could open my mouth
and dive down upon my obsession.

Like taking a bite from a fresh
nectarine. Swollen, juicy,
and always warm.

I never knew,
no I never knew,
that inside she vomited
and eyes shut so tight
played scenes of other times
hoping to induce release
and just get the whole garrish thing
over with.

In the throws of the day
I miss the flesh the most.
But the rest is an abomination
and will crumble in ruin.

Almost two years later...picking up the pieces

I love a cigarette.

I have smoked them in cars, on windowsills, on chairs,
off chairs, in houses, out of doors, after fighting,

after making love,


during arguments, first thing in the morning, after eating
a delicious dish, after being ridden and put away wet.

Breathe in, melt the anguish. Breathe out, remember. The smoke curls
and writhes in the air and you remember every nuance of the way it was.
How it felt so...gut wrenchingly perfect.

---

She was a blonde ball of combustible fire. The first time I saw her
I claimed her.
The next in a long line

of nexts. She had a way son. Bad as sin, hard as nails,
with a paradoxical softness of sheer linen.

Those eyes. Spear you like a marlin in deep waters. She had it,
that thing that drives men wild like animals. A ring on the finger?
I paid no mind, and in the end I got what was coming to me.

Got me all the way to New York City, Brooklyn bound. Like the two
train racing through 34th, past 14th street into the bourough I
began to call
home.
Sweet sanctuary, on the corner of Court and Schermerhorn
I bled for that little girl.

"Bright lights, big city" hooks in my atrium I was a goner.

When it started we did it up against the wall with bites and scratches.
When it ended we did it like an old married couple, bored with life, and each
other.

I used to get drunk in the West Village and blend into the endless cast of
characters.
Shaking and rocking on our heels, pounding the pavement like poets.Gin-soaked and beer-bred we had the swagger, know what I'm saying?

Alice, my Alice.
His Alice.
And his Alice.

Little did I know.

One time I let another little blonde girl take me home.
Told me, "You have a face for tv."

Marlin caught.

We went home and I saw her in the Brooklyn moonlight. All silouhette
and soft.

The next day the original gangster dropped me like a bad habit.

Sent me packing, still drunk, sobbing, begging.
No idea that I had done a thing; didn't care.

-----

She used to dress up and tell me it was for her.
I'm sure it was for a him.
I found the condom wrappers in the trash that day
pointing and laughing and kicking my ass.

Slut. Whore. These were the words du jour.
I wept. Hard. Hard weeping, like a child.

They don't teach you about these things, they don't prepare you.
Pits of despair were never mentioned in preparatory.

So here I am. Rain falling, cat crouching, heart healing
slower than grass will grow.

Feel bad for me?