Self Reflection with Oscar

Something wild told me sin is taking advice,
tainting my pure comfy cotton candy spirit-
a rather queer wild thing that one is-
If so, Dante didn't think big enough in his Inferno,
he hadn't met me.

Cut open my gut and you'll find yellowed pages,
reels of film, and a liver that drowned during an overdose
before I was of age.

But if there is no hope,
an autobiography of confession seems immoral,
then let me smoke my skin dry,
and at least I'll smile,
until these Cro-Magnon teeth of mine off themselves.

I'm a product of immigration and imagination,
with faith in faithlessness.
The wild things fester in civility, and I'm a victim.
At least I'm drunk.

Forgetful

Where in Arizona is Eliza's howling wolf?
She's forgotten the ditch where the moonlight looks over his half-eaten bones.
What if I wake up under her window?
What if I want her furniture burned?

The sky has some white streaks that laugh at me;
why don't they know about how a dig gets so dirty?
It's the condition that's giving me a rash, not your makeup.

Maybe the museum's door is closed for a reason.
Marble tiles wash away dirt real easy, my boots get forgot real quick.

And if some machinery wraps around a tree, does the irony go out the window
with your purse? Or with my dignity, at least?
If some afternoon dreams can step on the toes of faith,
what hope is there for a ticking clock lifestyle?

Let yourself drown in wet cigarettes, foggy and grey.

Nothing in life is free but the cheese in the trap, you told me.
Only it was across the bridge. The water might have muddied your intent.

Spend your time asking the fish rather than me, that's all good and well.
When the cinema's gone, where can you go? Not my home,
or ours.

Maybe it takes cold to the brain to be tranquil.

Creationist Musings

People, I’m told, were made perfect,
by God, his holy self.
And in his image he did make us,
pink and brown silly little elves.
And so if he and I are so similar,
then he must, like I
drop his pants once in a while
and let the brown ones slip by.
I shit in the morning,
sometimes the afternoon,
but God’s scale must be different
when he busts out his full moon.
Mine splash in the water,
and poof they’re gone.
His probably have more impact,
some bad Mexican, and you’ve got Armageddon.

Long Beach Island

My stomach’s turning with the changing of tides,
my eyes safe only because they’ve already burned away with salt water and suicide.
This island holds its chest high with hamburgers and sunsets
while dirty orgies of blondes rot the beaches.
Spirits run down my chin, my hair aflame with cigarettes,
and Holocaust survivors are crying at my music,
even the music in our voices,
and the voices in our mouths,
all like pangs of guilt at burning moths.

t.m.r

The fireworks sparkled and died,
and through a potsmoke cloud, my eyes saw opportunity.

Looking back,
I could have been a disappointing phoenix,
Aflame but without cause.
Maybe even running about, engulfed wings outstretched.
If I sat, then I’d be a petty burning protestor, like Buddhist Duc*,
for no cause but careless adolescence.

It’s a shame, really,
that my gasoline fingertips didn’t catch
the lighter’s warm tongue.
Or it just didn’t lap at the vodka
drying on my skin.

I’d have been a bad burning bush, anyway.




*Thich Quang Duc was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on June 11, 1963.

ramble

dog bark trumpet stutters
late night basement groove.
red district kitten meow
sliding desperate up and down.
tea smoke tea cup turkish blend,
ah ooo ah.
open hand open string
running water music slow.
future man running city eyes
foggy red eye watch alert.
distort electric china dao
fingers tap faster now.
static blend in wire pit
electro fire fuzz lit quick!
damp cement droplet drop
lamps forget when alice stopped.
mutter intrigue private life
at home collecting to make a wife.
linger left to see what's right.

Maine Musings

Teenage poet sitting in carpet recliner,
ghost town 400 miles north in a page forgotten in Maine.
Swig whiskey on golf course, dance with dancing singing
seven year old Russian niece.

Drive through hello/goodbye tiny towns,
neighboring rusted stopped trains on rustic grass-
overgrown tracks, passing through farm lands of family roots,
horse drawn carriages, and Kerouac cows, heads down.

inspired.

when i’m at work,
i feel like bukowski
sometimes.
instead of his cheap wine
and buckets of beer,
i have my grass,
burning, burning, burning.
instead of caps of mescaline,
only once in a while,
i shock my senses with
acid.
we both have a cigarette
between the lips,
to keep the brain breathing
amidst those damn people,
always.
and our nights,
oh the nights!
smoke drifting the air
and the fingers rush to
write.
always have to be quick
not to lose the thought.
but he’ll fuck a fury,
and fuck them all.
me, only life seems to want
to lay me. no.
to fuck me.
sometimes.

Town.

Some pick Jesus or Moe,
or bathtub gin,
But it's in warm music in a breeze in a car
where escape is.

It's almost alien
how mind cleansing it is.

No paper or job or person
can take away what the rolling
summer scented road through
local pancake house town is for a small joy.

Life is a small joy, so
I'll drive now, until
creeks are all forgotten.

untitled.

When I die, and go to heaven,
Freud will stand at the gates;
He'll dig up my love for mother,
if only

he could, And then he'd see where
my conscious sleeps on summer cigarette nights
such as

these. New York midnight traffic lights,
and bass guitars. Beer hall garage electric
concerts and Riverside at red
purple smokey
misty Dawn.