Untitled

Hearts beat
For as long as they want

Hearts belong
To no one but themselves

In Words

I remember the world as poetry.
it doesn't happen that way.

It's not until I sit down,
and scrape my pen against the page,
that I think of the way you smiled
the night I first met you, or

The way your lip gloss would
shimmer and shine,
the light reflecting
off my kitchen chandelier

or the feeling I get, looking back
at all the rainy nights spent together,
all the mattresses on the dining room floor,
all the curses that we screamed at each other
and the darkness of your cellar door.

You were always sweeter in words,
You were prettier in words, and
I loved you more in words
then I ever did in real life.

Jersey City Waterfront, 11/18/12, 2 AM

From this distance
you forget the noise,
the smell of piss
and desperation

You forget all the hustle,
the men begging
for change at the train station

Viewing Manhattan
from Jersey City

is Heaven on Earth;

Eden amongst the ashes

Carl Sagan said

we are stardust

we are the elements rocketed

in to outer space

after supernova

we are all of those

different atoms

carbon and hydrogen

we are specs of the universe

made whole

and we are small

but even the tiniest organisms

can be fascinating

because they are stardust

and I take comfort in that

because stars never die

they just become something else

I am the buffalo contemplating barbed wire

confused by the world that hands of men have built around me

but in awe of their ingenuity

the craftsmanship found in small objects

and the belief that they will live

forever.

Existence

It starts slowly

creeping up the back of my neck

until it's whispering in my ear

we are all riding an escalator

up up up

and at the top just darkness

or a guillotine

or a firing squad

whichever end you may find yourself choosing

but it's inevitable

you hit terminal velocity the day you were born

and it's somewhat unfair

because you didn't choose this for yourself

which begs the question

if given the choice

would you choose existing

knowing full well

that someday you would blink

back out of existence once again?

Godspeed and have a good death.

Tonight

If Betelegeuse goes supernova

and night turns to day

if the moon hides

behind the gamma ray burst

and starlight rules the sky

I will hold on to you

until darkness returns

My Thoughts As Microwaves

I write atleast 3 poems a day
most of them never make it to paper
but i like to think
the poems I wrote that perished
somewhere inside of my head
made it out alive and are floating
somewhere in outer space

Someday when I am gone
some future race
or one of my distant descendants
will discover some new frequency
beaming back from deep space
and they'll hear these thoughts and poems
the ones I've lost and assumed dead
and maybe it will start some sort of
renaissance or revolution or
atleast send them looking
farther than any man has gone before

and I'll be alive in their hearts and minds
and they will discuss me in university classrooms
and some will claim in the Devil
while others will say I'm God
children will be named after the men and women in my stories
people will wage war in my name
people will fight and die for me
my stories will be passed down from generation to generation
and they will write it all down and make it into a book
and leave it in nightstands at cheap motels
and I will be on the Best Sellers list for a thousand years

THAT

or
the white haired scientist
tinkering in their basement
that brilliant descendant of mine
will tune in to the frequency beaming back
to this planet from the outer edges of space
thousands of years from now
and pass right over it
unable to find any beauty within all the white noise

If You Want To Write Like I Do (I Doubt That You Do).

Take a memory,

pick it up and look at it.

Magnify it or

look at it through a loop,

like a diamond.

EVERY FLAW:

forget about it as if it never happened or

Exaggerate the shit out of it.

EVERY GOOD MEMORY:

exaggerate the fuck out of it.

Never mind the fine details,

paint the picture of that memory

like a dream

because thats what it is.

Never write about right now.

Never write about the woman your with.

Never show your girlfriend your poems

just spring them on her at open mics.

Don’t invite her to your featured readings.

Whenever you’re unhappy with your writing,

claim you’ve retired or that you’re done writing.

Write secretly at work or in your bedroom.

Drink but don’t write drunk.

Throw out every other poem.

Throw out all of your best poetry,

this will keep you always trying to best the memory of that poem.

Write about nature and things you love.

Write about people you hardly know

or strangers.

Treat your woman well

and she will give you endless amounts of inspiration.

The Smallest Thing

The smallest things remind me of you,

like driving home drunk in a rain storm.

I’m brought back to the night when

I let you drive my car

trying to find some road

that lead to Manhattan.

We spent two hours arguing about the best route,

driving aimlessly on back streets

as you ranted about bridges

and I complained about my bladder.

You finally pulled over in front of a burned down house

somewhere in Harrison.

I pissed on the front steps

while you changed the radio station.

And we ended up at a diner in New Jersey

sometime after that.

The smallest things remind me of you.

I don’t think of California

without hearing your name somewhere in the back room

of my mind.

Every time I think of LA, I want to throw up.

I remember writing countless poems

about your ride on an escalator in Newark Airport,

crying and begging me to come with you;

spending sleepless nights on the phone with you;

spending sleepless nights waiting up for your call;

spending sleepless nights worrying about why you were staying out so late;

spending sleepless nights wondering where we went wrong.

The smallest things remind me of you,

like the feeling I get when I think of you and

remember everything you were and then

that little thing that you’ve become.

It's Me Against the Moon Again

The human body

contains something like

78 percent water.

My son asks me

about the importance of the moon and

I explain the way tides work

Gravity pulling at the Earth;

Mountains holding on;

Humanity holding strong, but

water giving way,

pushed and pulled

between Sun and Moon;

between Earth and Stars.

He asks what else is important about it

and I think of the moon,

the way it pushes me

and pulls me

because I'm made up

of something like

78 percent water

so I must have an inner-tide

that urges all those

particles left over

from exploding nebulae

and neutron stars

to scatter every which way

and return home

like salmon do

when it's time to die

but instead, I think a little further

and tell him we might need it

to find our way home

should something happen to all of our

street lights, and cars and flashlight batteries.

I tell him it's important

because it makes people,

both children and adults,

look up and ask questions

just like he's doing now.

Just like I do every night.

Most People Don't Retire, They Just Stop Doing Things Full-Time

If words fall silent, they still fall. Words cannot be broken or unbroken, only bent; shaped like rivers shape rock; like glaciers shaped valleys. These words will echo. They will break and not break. Someday, these words might save a life or be the wind blowing against bare feet on the ledge of some unnamed bridge.

Untitled

The nights have been clear

and I’m sitting on my back porch

burning another cigarette

watching stars give off

just enough heat through the smoke.

And some great creator

is busying itself

with one chore or another

not caring much about

my fear of death,

my troubles with women,

or how much I have saved

for when my son goes to College.

And I’m not thinking much about

that creatures chores,

or it’s creations; or it’s dreams.

Because the stars are out, right now.

I got my woman right here,

and all the beauty is free.

Fuck You, Dylan Thomas.

And death shall have no dominion.

A poem stuck in my head for a month.

A fear that’s been wrapping itself

warmly around my bones.

The realization of my own mortality

making the veins in my neck

thump ... thump ... thump

pumping blood into my brain

like a fire-hose,

making me think about it,

making me visualize it,

keeping me up at night.

Death shall have no dominion

when I close my eyes

and I see yours,

singing me to sleep,

lulling me into darkness

where I find bliss, where

Death shall have no dominion.

Rita Hayworth

I have this picture of Rita Hayworth

on my desktop.

She’s chowing down on

a sandwich

much too big for her mouth.

I love this picture.

Gorgeous Rita caught

in an unattractive moment

reminds me that we’re all ugly sometimes,

and we’re all beautiful, too.

Because Rita, she’s still gorgeous

but now it’s because she’s human.

She’s not just a poster on my wall;

a beauty of the Silver Screen;

She’s sitting on the beach,

stuffing her face because

she’s hungry

and it makes me feel good ‘cause

I get really hungry sometimes, too.

Constant Motion

In constant movement,

we stop for awhile

to contemplate Jupiter,

or point out Orion,

his great belt of stars

sparkling in the night.

We stand silent,

only for a moment,

in awe of the heavens

in all their infinity.

And, here, I think of the vastness

of the world around us;

The universe, forever pushing outward,

expanding farther into nothingness;

Conquering the outer-space of

outer-space

in some holy search,

like Cortez, mad on greed,

exploring South America,

looking for Gold.

Us, too:

forever wandering,

searching for gold

at the bottom of

pints of beer.

Or in the pools

of a pretty girl’s eyes

on a winter night.

A Kid I Met at The Mug Once

Tommy came to the bar,

started ordering beers,

talkin’ about

how much money he “made”

begging at the boardwalk

in Atlantic City that day

He said it was real easy

“just tell ‘em

you got lost and

you need to get bus fare or

that your parents

kicked you out of the house

and you’re so hungry.

They’re all rich,

richer than me, at least.

Rich people love giving

their money away

if they think it’s charity.”

Soon,

he wanted to move on

to something stronger

“Give me the strongest

drink you got in the house”

he said.

I poured him a double

of Dewars, neat.

He coughed after one big gulp,

expecting something more

like Vodka, I imagine.

“Damn,” he said,

and I sat back and smiled,

knowing he was

now a Scotch man

and wondering

when the begging

would get boring

and he’d move on

to something stronger.

God's The Bartender

We’re all stumbling home

drunk in the dark

and God’s the bartender

kicking us out at 2 am.

Sometimes he lets us stay

until 3, but

that’s only

on weekends in the summer.

So we’re stumbling, drunk,

blind:

partly from the booze,

one eye only half-open,

the other one

completely fucking useless

and we’re pounding our

fists against cell phones

trying to call the girl

that always comes over

and heals our wounds

when we’re this drunk;

when we’re in this much pain.

and in the morning,

through the hangover,

she resembles an angel,

one of God’s

living, breathing, creatures...

just remember,

She works for that bastard.

Jacket Weather

This jacket has seen

sunrises;

exploding stars

and eclipses

of the moon

This jacket has seen

the coldest mornings;

women huddled in cars

and whiskey.

This jacket has seen

pre-dawn West Virginia;

plains and valleys

of Ontario;

Every mile

of the Northwest Corridor;

I-95 in at least

13 different states.

It’s seen love

help it on,

tear it off,

throw it on the floor and

walk all over it.

This jacket has seen

great poets spill beer and

great drinkers spill poetry

in late night bars

somewhere in South Florida.

This jacket has seen wounds,

the best and the worst of them;

heartbreaks,

the best and the worst of them;

This jacket has seen life;

the best and the worst of it.

Where's The Jazz?

They had names

for the sounds they would make

and a love for

all things alive, like

music, damp city streets

and the ocean.

They would lay their hands

on old piano keys

and make them sing again.

Breath new life

into old brass

and make it squeal

again

They had

SaltPeanuts. Salt

Pea-nuts.

They had soul.

They had music.

They had Bop

and what do we have?

Where is Charlie Parker?

Where is Dizzy?

Where is jazz?