He Makes Me Smell Him
among the faceless
deodorized
masses on
the streetcar
i sit
inhaling
the
trash bag stuff
between
his
knees
the stink
that doesn't
care
that residentially
challenged
unwashed
ass
that is
a prophecy
of fallen
empires
Again
i
fell down
down the stairs
in a vodka black-out
black-out after punching
that russian russian
housepainter
in the
mouth
over an argument
about dosdoyevsky
who
who he claimed beat
horses and i said
you asshole
that was
just an image in
one of his books
and ilya swung
past my
nose my
nose
but i
connected
what a stupid
mess
pat drove him
to a clinic
with a red towel
crushed to
his face
i stayed behind
with the rusky's
old lady, vassa
who mounted me on
the sofa pouring vodka
down my throat laughing
'the victor gets the spoils'
which i got & yeah
it was good
then poured myself down stairs
back hurt bad, tea cold
and wallet empty,
so empty
and now i'm waiting
waiting for the break of my
life waiting
but getting
only broken
how much
must i
sit here
remembering
how much
suffering
does it take
to make
one
poem that will
make
you
understand?
the sky felt
up all the time
haunting rooms and bars
between hours spent
with her
and when we were
together
her nerves and bones
in the deepest corners
haunted
my impatient kiss
i had no feeling
i watched green smog
run down her face
like mascara
the red water
trembled with
desire
my eyes were
sewers filled
with shame
i don't want to remember this
in the east village, just arrived
hiding from a war
running from the marriages
we'd murdered
the bare flat didn't like us
yet we crowded it
with ghosts
let me tell you
when our bodies cried
i held her like a baby
in my arms
but
a broken chair
a damaged wall
the police began
to know us
and the neighbor's
eyes looked away
and one day i
woke screaming
called her father
in canada
to come get her
and he did
let me say here
she did nothing
wrong but to love
the soft look
our eyes believed
in, that was real
as i led
her down
she didn't
take her eyes
from mine
right to
the passenger
seat and with
a broken, un-
courageous smile
i said: "it's time,
baby, it's
time..."
not knowing
what i meant
the model
in the bathroom
hunched over the bowl
puked up her father
mother
sister
without a thought
flushed them
her fist banged the wall
she turned on
the laptop television
ringer on the telephone
she had swallowed
the moon's
pill
now she waited
nauseated
from a diet
of pink sky
lying
on a bed of dresses
that didn't
fit
War Of The Worlds
say nothing
every day
sit facing
the bowl
of
soup
the big
window
the bright
vicious
cars
hear nothing
hear it symphonic
mute moving
lips
my hand
waits waits waits
hey, you
up there
on venus, mars
pluto
down here
we're ready
for conquest
Time, The IRS
Nike
and Ophra
have done a
lot of the
spade work
bring down
your ships
we're beat
it's 11:20
a.m.
at night
it's worse
i've got
no plans
what's your
schedule
like?
It Will Let You Down
it will let you down
i mean: the world
run a train
over your legs
coax two drag queens
to piss on your face
open a cancer ward
in your spleen
hire the most
beautiful whore
on earth to break
your heart with
a gap-toothed smile
i know
all my baseball
card heroes
have fallen
still, i would rather
court dementia for
a wolf's eyefull of darkness
then turn into a
lizard scurrying up society's
white walls
the last
the blue truths crawl like
centipedes
from poison whispers
and a plate on the table
aches
no one sits down in
my house, meal over
the tyrant
rages
but i speak, i speak
i talk to the
soul's girl and together
we get up
and walk
to the garden
her smiles waltz me
and i think we
stand a chance
i help her back to the
house with her
buckets
from the well
filled with dead leaves and
furious birds
as the afternoon chill
creeps over my shadow
the heart of the room
grows cold...
and there is no one
but this page
these words
this life
or any noise
but death's
soundless roar
tenderloin
the brain weeps
a bad kind of weather
the moon
with blackened eye
looks about to go
home dirty, like
after a thrown
fight when torn
stubs litter the beer
floor and one by one
the believers file
out scowling at the pugs
who wasted their wives'
new fridges on phoney
swings in satin trunks
but for me that woman
who cut me off
as i crossed leavenworth
in her honda four door
skirt-hiked fat thighs
mapped the vericose
rivers of my sadness
for the little stuff, like
vietnamese b-boys gatting
my smile with scornful fallen
saigons yet so pathetically poor
in their cut rate hip hop threads
of false gold glitter, not even
remotely like their blood-plated
gangsta idols; or the old sod buying
up stale easter cakes this monday
morning from a tenderloin stall
self-realization
i see me in my flop
under the dripping lightbulb
fangs, chin soiled with crumbs
rubbing a fist into my pink
eye, screwing, screwing
away the itch. and farts.
life is in the dissapointing
details, the lousy hair-do'z,
the second-rate walkman,
the crossdresser who really
thinks that no one
knows, the security guard
who dreams of making
a bust, and i walk and i
eat and i live and i wait for
something golden & beautiful
to erupt from the naked
street
crossing home
on the cold beach with
my collar turned
waiting for the endless
freight train to pass
to cross to home
over the railroad tracks
and want you to see
me sniffle, place your
hand to my shoulder as
an angel might and let
the rolling tears
drop off
my chin
i have canned so much
sorrowful preservatives
to spread poor me
waif of the smudged sky
huddled with flashlight in a shed
asleep under dirty blankets
not a man, barely a child
orphaned by secrets
The Living Burn Out Before Their Deaths
....but keep walking
one more butt to smoke
another ten round fight
to throw; it's a mug's
game
feed squirrels wonder bread
in the sharkskin gray dusk
follow hot couples into bushes
near the lake and imitate what
they're doing
fuck yourself
run away when a cop comes
hide in the urinals
with face in hands
craving macdonalds
go to times square
for a little while
line-up for
a girlie flick
browse in the boob rags
semen beer
slush on the tile floor
your shoes contracting AIDS
and walk downtown down
down the town walk with steaming
manholes rising in ghosts
of the father who chained
you to a radiator
and beat you
with a pipe
because you were
bad bad
bad baby, a car would
be nice
but what's the use
in the city
you've got the sub-
way you've got the bus
you've got cabs
used to know a lot of people
but not anymore
and on delancey street give
up go home
union jack hotel
the neon blinks
the flea-bitten bed
on your back sucking
a beer remembering how once
you had the the hopeful ability
to make candy scratch
nothing but now sense has gotten
to you and you know it is not scratching
and you know that you are friendless
and that it is nothing, it is nothing
and don't even wonder at that
anymore....