My Best Drinking Buddies Have Joined AA
My best drinking buddies have joined AA,
given up the bottle, sobered up, gotten on the wagon
without falling off.
searching for something better, searching for somewhere to belong
They run away to escape a life in which it was beaten into them that they were nothing, less than nothing, and then they are taken in by the streets, where the last of their humanity is ripped from them.
Daylight Saving Time
I ask you — or anybody—
Why does it have to take 10 to make 1?
And even more puzzling —
Why bother?
I Don’t Forgive and I Don’t Forget
First time
I give benefit of the doubt
Taiga
There’s a reason why the flames lick higher and higher…
Weeping in the Dentist's Chair — Four Poems Featuring Teeth
In either case you’re pretty lucky. Your ache is not as bad as the ache-ache-bleed-bleed of some others who need constant medicine and other means to help ease and regulate the symptoms.
God Makes an Omelet
Morning has broken.
First me, then you, then the country
strewn left and right, spoiled
The News and My Feelings
I know the news is not about my feelings.
5 Short Poems
Poetry Test & Fluxus Jokes
Congratulations. This letter is your official notice that you have received an adequate amount of credits to graduate, having earned a degree in POETRY, from the Dana M. Jerman School for Obnoxionist Arts.
Not Easy
It’s not easy for someone like me to be happy
Always second guessing every decision
Finding something to criticize in every situation
I know others don’t find everything crappy
No irony when they state their mission
But to me their words sound sappy
…
Cal Embraces the Death Penalty
“You know what I want to get her, I mean, if I don't break up with her?
I want to get her one of those stun guns you can get at Walmart—”
Heat of Summer
jailbait skating
rebel looking
for a cause
new ways to be
illegal seducing
sweat from thighs…
A Rescue Call Despite the Odds
What’s the matter, why don’t you know who you are? Wake up, America,
it’s me shaking you by the shoulders like Jim shakes any given guest star
out on the Final Frontier:
My Old Man and the Sea, and Me
A blackened city looms ahead
With foreboding consequences obvious in the darkness.
Behind us, a bright sky and calm waters and the time I feel we used wisely.
“We would have been home if you hadn’t been so anal,” my old man says.
“It’s better to fix and fully prep your vessel in port,” I reply. “Helps us avoid trouble at sea.”
The wind arrives in furious fashion.
The knots speed up — they tighten and strengthen.
We’re under motor but that don’t matter none.
The tiny and mighty storm has found our little vessel.
We might as well throw the wheel overboard
For all the good it’s doing.
The Sinking of Uncle Joe
And, Hey! Uncle Joe worked with Barack Obama!
He’s got black friends. He’s not a racist. Just ask him.
And he’s not a close-talker or a personal space-invader.
Just ask him.
He’ll put his hands on your shoulders and whisper:
“Hey, now… I’m your Uncle Joe. Remember Obama?”
Then, sadly, and unexpectedly, before you can answer or squirm away
He’ll say mostly to himself with disappointment, “Yeah… me, too.”
Headlong
When resistance is futile, but you have to resist….
Hey, Girl, Hey, It's the Month of May — Three Poems
Buying luck with soft licks of cash
Exhilaration alone empties your stash.
Planes cruise overhead, the planet turns
Palm tress sway, but no one learns
It’s all about love in these years.
So, how about love in these years?
Dialog on Survival
5G? Ah, me!
I need my tree.
It cannot be.
But why? I ask.
It blocks the task.
A Mother’s Day Ode to MILFs
Make no mistake, mothers,
you’re doing great.
You’re better than you think.
So try not to get yourself down
Because what you’re doing isn’t easy
but you’re the best person for the job.
And, um, that ass!
Those boobies!
Kids who had race car beds probably grew up to work in finance with an inflated ego, a coke habit, and wildly premature ejaculation issues. But for that moment in third grade, they were gods.