An Invitation

I’m the kind of guy
who invites people to his own funeral-
it’ll be an upscale production, I assure you.
Am I dark? Hardly. Simply a realist.
(One who wants the proper crowd at his demise)
I tried to invite some acceptable guests to my birth,
but seeing as the doctor was a spiteful bastard-
we had met in a previous life-
the embossed cards never went out.
So give me control of this, at the least.

The Ballad of the New House

At first, a second house seemed exciting. There’d be boxes, moving trucks, and eyes for something new. Maybe I even thought it would be a roof that the puzzle-piece family would accept and collect under; a picture’s only whole under the right light, after all. There was a pool, a fireplace, a sauna built into the basement. A vacation house as a home, it seemed.

We would visit on weekends, admire the space that was lacking in our townhouse, and began furnishing the place. Leather couches, two big screen TVs – the pride of Japan – and a billiard table for drunken egotism to shine. But then we forgot about it. About it all. And five, six, seven years later, it remained “the new house.” A joke, I suppose, though we rarely laughed anymore. Any of us.

I began hating the place. Every layer of dust was a sign of neglect, to the house, to common sense, and to me. Ex-boyfriends of the former sleazy Russian inhabitants left violent, threatening voicemails, and once someone with half a thought noticed the lack of occupancy, the two televisions were stolen. The new house lost its charm and became a hassle, an annoyance, and a hollow reminder of failure.

Six years in, and six months into my friendship with Dennis, he caught mention of the place, “You’ve got a totally empty house?”

I hated even talking about the place, “Well, it’s furnished, but we just haven’t moved in yet.”

He was obviously struck by the concept, as a change in topic of conversation became impossible, “Let’s fucking go there, man! Party mansion!”

Exactly what I worked to avoid – word spreading that I had a deserted house, clearly a ticket to suburban underage drinking.

“Absolutely not,” I proclaimed, not looking up from rolling a Bugler cigarette, “I don’t need drunk bastards wrecking the place.” This was especially a concern as Dennis had a history of learning of his yesterdays tomorrow. “Find your own intoxicant palace.”

He was stubborn, “I did. Now let’s go.”

Max and Jake, brothers with whom I spent all my time, were on board with the plan immediately. The anti-Semitic Albanians I worked with bought me the beer and vodka.

And so began the culture, tradition, and romance of the new house. Alcohol, cigarettes, brotherhood, marijuana, teenage nihilism, LSD, amphetamine, and a strange understanding of the oasis that we lived in.

Sometimes we talked about love:

“I think, I think love is like some sort of massive…respect,” I’d say.

“Exactly. I’ll go with you on that. When me and Tina were together it was this naïve symbiotic…” Max would say, his mouth gnawing on itself, speed in his blood and in his eyes.

Jake and Dennis would dissect hip-hop for hours, both too drunk to admit it.

When Marcus from school would come by, we’d discuss politics, culture, and human nature:

“…And since it developed the way it did, isn’t that exactly how it had to be?” he would ask, eyes wide with anticipation of an answer.

I would follow, “But think of all the tiny trivial events, God knows which ones, that made it that way. Isn’t that just fucked up?”

And Max played the devil’s advocate sometimes, pondering impossible ideas, “But who says any of that happened? If we’re perceiving a certain event differently from our fucking history textbooks, then isn’t that reality, to me at least?”

Hours upon hours of conversation, lost to the walls of the house, thrown out in cigarette butts over the fence.

Silence carried its own beauty too. Waking up on the fifth morning of a five night drinking binge before anyone else, there would be that silent, grossly bright-sky cigarette on the deck, accepting the hangover I deserved. Lamentations of the past few days, all chemically fused into one, and pure bliss at the beauty of the nothingness of it all.

This continued for a summer. And then weekends of the new school year. Faces changed, came, stayed, went. It was all the same.

The new house is hardly new anymore, but despite all, I still can barely stand the place. I still remember the neglect, the house that was the punch-line to some cosmic joke. But these people here with me, restless brothers and sisters within these walls, laugh together.

I guess I’ve found the right light for this picture of mine.

Dances with Dead Presidents

Aristocratic arithmetic shoots through the Middle East
Holy lands morph their shrines, make way for the priest!

He'll feed you syringes, sex, and avian flu
His concubines will dance and leave your balls blue

Ballot cast, vote vote vote, John Smith must win
Careful though, these wolves would gladly eat their kin.

They'll get you to buy their loud safety rated car
Big Brother no longer only has to watch from afar.

Text books, Bibles, pamphlets of medical use
Lose them all! And add some rum to your child's juice

Lewis Carol giggled, and tripped through Wonderland
Now he can't buy anything that isn't government brand

This massive takeover, psychiatrists parade the street
Lobotomies for everyone, for a price you just can't beat!

Drinking my sewage, I need vitamins A and C
The Chinese give up, sip their pure green tea.

Advertised religion, on Costco's payroll since Jesus
Steve Jobs reads his sermon, makes sense of all of this.

There's a whole big world, where the all lemmings land
Science is at the scene, already taking command.

Space's frontier is bought up in international political greed
And for your health, mind and soul, please smoke some good weed.

Rumor spreads to Washington of Ohio hiding gas
Now Iraqis stake claim - irony up the ass.

Dead presidents rise, ask to ballroom dance
Terrorist housewives get lost within the trance.

The Russians, Church, and junk dealers hold hands and kiss
As society altogether dies deep in an abyss.

Living here, it's all moments, freaks, and words
You'll always step in shit but keep your head with the birds.