i am a miniature version of god
i am bartok obsessed with the string quartet
i am the marlboro man
i am an icecube in a glass of sunrise
i am an octopus posing as the buddha
i am the surgeon general, red tie, blue suit
i am monoxide leaking from mouths
i am a blazing white arctic wall of of eternity
i am a painted orange rubber pylon
i am something that stands out in natural settings
i am a shrine or a fountain or a statue of a fallen deity
i am pertinent to the ongoing myth of god within the individual
i perform miracles daily to the amazement of nobody
i am without a job temporarily
i am certain that nothing will change
because nothing is capable of anything
and i am the archer among dead ravens
i am the mastodon bellowing atomic remission
i am a fool and my rain of tears omits eyelids
i am a band-aid a hairpin a rolling paper
i am a spool of red ribbon
i am an ant minus ecto-skeleton
i am the amber grain of panel, ornamenting walls
that refuse to close in on me
i am this evening of spirals and moons
i am an expletive beyond perversity
i am a bridge and my toll is rising
i am the manicured hands of the bank-teller
i am a miniature version of god
i have worked my way into the stomach of men universally
i am what hungers the petals of dawn
in an embracement of yellow morning,
monolithic,
microscopic,
radiant,
aflame.

This has been the shiniest week of my life she said to me
before she slit her wrists and died.
We're all pink on the inside.
This has been the shiniest week of my life she told me
just before she spilled her guts to me again.
What to do today she wondered to herself
before she cooked the shot that did her in.
Should I sit at home, and listen to the phone that never rings ?
All my friends are gone, perhaps forgotten. Everything stinks.
Should I watch TV because it makes me think,
or fix myself a drink because it makes me happy ?
Should I turn you on, naked on a lawn
that's freshly watered turning cartwheels ?
Until we get caught, we'll do what we were taught to do ...
I piss and moan about the golden showers of my yesterdays.

i thought i saw your eyes tonight
inviting, in a milky way
tracks forming constellations
icy and blue they split me in two
still warmer than the summer sun
in a dimly brightened tenement
we lay together for hours on ours
an old wood floor no more no less
no anything, no end
notice how the candles bend
the wax rolls gently to the table
there forming oily pools of eternity
i thought i saw your arms tonight
i thought i'd seen it all tonight
until i saw your eyes so full
like a different animal.

RIGHT THROUGH THE WRINGER
(SCRAPS OF COCKTAIL NAPKINS FOUND CRUMPLED IN POCKETS)
the tide's awash in neverland,
the smog is mixed with salty air,
she found his bones beneath the sand,
it could've happened anywhere.

strawberry lips, my hangover begins
so early in the morning, before the sun can rise.
morphine hands, the delirious lovers
late in the afternoon.
breaking, yet fixing me.

you are a monster, you are a liar,
your tail so shiny and curled.
your wedding veil, a mask of death.
i cover the underworld.

there's no time for mistakes
i thought that i was at a low
but the bottom fell out of it
sleep waits but never says anything
you say that you have lost your mind
while you hold it in your hands
smile just so then as you let it fall to earth
say "that's just the breaks kid"
my crooked smile answers
"it's not that way any more"

they were only stories. one is old, another is as fresh as the scratches. there will be more. i love those narcotic lesbians. i pack a jesus penis deathray. she kills with her cunt. she heals with her soft, warm lips. i have had her in my mouth for years. like a gold tooth in a pawnshop window, something precious under my tongue. she told me in her sleep that we were going somewhere, and that we were already on the road. perhaps half way there and broken down. she's having second thoughts about the booze, she's having second thoughts about her other women. she kills with her cunt, she carries that burden. her mother has cursed her brassieres, all of them impossible to remove. the skin beneath our fingernails is dead and rotting, we order double whiskeys and stir with our fingers. let's rob, murder, and maim. let's spindle, fold, and mutilate ... fuck 'em all. push your cold whiskey finger up me farther. surely i turn you on, that's what i want. i'll spare your life for now, i'll share you with her. it is time to awaken from this new drunken stupor. the sky is cloudy with the days remains, the clouds discard the sun like a used condom. the earth looks so small from up here. my god, what have i done ? i adore you, i adore you, i would die for you, i pack a jesus penis deathray. she keeps killing, her cunt is the hand of a killer. we fade back into sleep for the next bloodbath.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

All life is pain. I hate and reject those who love me.

I will never be good enough. Why even try? Draw me a hot bath and bring the razor.

My efforts are ridiculed and unrewarded. I drown in persecution as cruel laughter rises like water over my head.

I am hatred incarnate. Those I despise are tossed in the sickly yellow waves of my rich bile.

Everything I touch turns to lead and falls from my grasp. My palsied claws hang uselessly at my sides.

Wisdom is a lie, knowledge is unattainable. I beat my head to a bloodied lump against the concrete mantle of this barren planet.

Just for today, I will wallow in self-absorbed navel-gazing misery, and huddle in filthy blankets on the dirt floor of my hovel. Just for today, I will pick dead skin off the soles of my feet as I contemplate my utter lack of potential.

Every day I become less than what I was, as God and Time throttle me with irresistible hands, squeezing the vitality from my rapidly withering body. I will never be safe.

I cook and eat my inner child. The taste of its long-dead flesh stings like venom on my tongue.