I remember those nights
when I’d put on
my shoes
and go for a walk
going nowhere at all
there was the black night
and the stars above me
and I felt at home
with the stray cats
and abandoned cars
I liked being alone
and I would do
random acts of
vandalism now and then
I’d look at my watch
and it would say 3:04 AM
and one of those nights
I realized
that I would always be alone
it was the only time
I could be myself
and so I said to myself
fuck, so be it.

all the things
people
say and do
pretentious
frauds.
all the things
I
say & do
bullshit
phony.
at my feet
a dog
without trying
finally
the
truth.

Is it too soon for this metaphor?
Should I wait until the day after
the next wildfire or hurricane?
Or were the tornados enough?

You see, the problem with earthquakes,
or should I say MY earthquakes,
is that the epicenter is always me.
The damage is entirely on my block,
because I live on the edge of my
own personal San Andreas fault.
Who knew my tectonic plates
constantly shift especially
after a long dinner with you?
Earthquakes can be disasters
like hurricanes, so they should be named,
and if they are mine, after a woman.
We have breaking news
an earthquake just hit Torrance.
The magnitude hasn’t been determined yet,
but we know of one condo
that has been leveled.
Aftershocks continue to rumble.
You see, the problem with earthquakes
is that no matter how many foreshocks
strike I never see them coming
and I’m never truly prepared.
A stockpile of canned food, water,
and batteries do nothing for me.
You see, the problem with earthquakes
is that the P-waves shake me in the same
and opposite direction that the waves are moving,
and I don’t know which way to run.

Is it too soon for this metaphor?
Should I wait until the day after
the next wildfire or hurricane?
Or were the tornados enough?

ripe goo glazed in dew
dirt cakes, sloughed skin flakes
organ shakes, gooey pig poo baked on
bacon crackers plastic-pasted, wasted
food drunk… fooey, 2nds & 3rds 4 slackers
spoons hay-cube-heaped w/ gelatin maroon
soups: tail & nail stewed blood bouillabaisses
plastic cases gases, dump the cartilage carts next
to the mercury-stuffed pig hearts, gnash & gulp
umpteenth eating spree

one man explodes forest fires. another dies licking
a piggy bank worth a
paranoid housewife. strawberry lips

giggling dust bunnies to the clouds-

he’s got forty dollars in his pocket
worth time with southern gentlemen.
ouzo. self-help books, too.

they
spread and whisper to themselves.

we’re on a
road to a dead end, to the

wildflower mating fields
making out with

question marks
so i sometimes worry
i’m going to smell like insects to

my sex life
a ship. a rooster? a furbee!
presents my reflection

to the sky as a sun-dial,
a tense game of transference-chairs
with ego, taking shit seriously,
around the patio

table

i want to rest in the 1800s
with fairy godmothers
as a crescendo of

leftover karma(
wooden cradle
stained neon-hot-glow-in-the-lambs-blood,

creak like
tiaras
stained
nail-salon, tacky like
congregated people stained sheep-herding.

and a
butterknife stained
pill-karate-chop
equals dysfunctional family all together.

)exlovers, exfriends, exfamily, magnetize yourselves

around a greeting card.
draw a flower, say you will.
ram into my bumper car with
negative energy weather.

throw leeches at my dumb ass.

There is the usual gallery
of wackos,
homeless men lugging army surplus fardel,
wild as sandpipers,
yellow-throats,
occasional hookers
laughing like kookaburras.
Life is a ziggurat
of coffee-guzzling nut-bags.
But,
there is a waitress named Araceli,
duchess of the diner,
with the curves of a calathus vase
and two yurts bivouaced
high in her shirt.
Her eyes are black sapote
and her figure is a hummocky
mirabile dictu
for which there is no inoculum.
Her Doppler approach to my table
corresponds with the poplar
of Demascus steel
moving down my thigh.
Her words are chryselephantine sculptures
smooth as banana oil
while I might as well
be speaking Upolu,
opening and closing
my mouth like a chub.
At the Gridiron Diner
it’s heaven on a muffin,
matches flare like fireflies
but words will not come
if you order them.
Araceli smiles. My heart jumps
into her hands.

Autopsy-Turvy

JFK postures on the corner gurney
his temple is laid open like a jelly doughnut
the pudgy coroner said he had died
at least, I think it was the coroner that said so

I have this mental image of JFK
it stays in my mind with his voice
so a moving picture mired in synapse
riding my brain everywhere I go
I can’t get him out
but he seems to enjoy the ride
he’s always smiling
always talking excitedly
except that one time he isn’t
then I wonder who was riding him
hard enough to escape through that hole

Then I wonder how hard he’ll ride my brain
before he can break free and get out
and what the coroner will say about me
once he licks his fingers clean

It’s not that I want to go out all scatterbrained
like Kurt Cobain when his barn burst open
but rather for fear that my brain is a docile pony
broken in by helpful children at the petting zoo
put down one day as mercy from embarrassment

In any afternoon there is the chance
of a nova
and you know how it looks
and how it sounds and how it tastes.

The ice cream and the light show
of the universe are yours
because you are a freak.

And the sunshine causes seizures
and the left eye fractures
into splintered light triangles,
painful little migraines
of creativity.

Don’t shoot, clutch memory
like a silk purse of stars,

there is the defiant chance
of a nova, the smack on your lips
of ice cream, the morning shot

of tequila, the light show.

Be brave, it is scary, it is you.

The thing that separates animals from people
is the single opposable digit.
What separates people from people
are callouses.
Pockets of love
desensitized
one heart working for another.

One night out of sheer boredom
I conjured Nietzsche’s spirit
from the grave,
he was a boring fellow,
kept his head tucked into his neck
he looked around sheepishly,
and immediately started
quoting himself
but I yelled,
STOP!
and asked him a series of questions,
such as,
Have you ever seen the moon turn blood red?
Have you ever done a swan dive into a vat of acid?
Do you know what happens to kittens born with three heads?
he had no answer of course,
not wanting to indict himself,
and with a sad look he vaporized
into my Vodka Collins