An Aubade

you’ve heard me mention
is a poem written in the morning;
need it be about morning is a
fair question I won’t answer here;
critical thought ranges in opposing
directions. I will say this: it’s
a damn fine morning to
rise and shine.

Days We Never Rose

from your bed marked me;
wherever I went they would
say: there he goes.

Brain Damage

is not difficult to inflict
on you or I, by either of us.
That said, is there an apothecary
in the house? Your random
remedy will raise us armies,
which unthinking brutes
we may deploy as we wish,
in service of our rule.

Shadows From A Former Life

crossed my black heart and
were just reaching out their arms
toward the light; then
you swooped in.

In 1799, in Kursk, a mid-sized Russian
town for the time, three dalmations
spawned cod. I only report it because
I was there.

In the same vein, out the other
I always say when asked
for my bona fides, I’ll be here
when you get home.

I Used To Write Poems

in the dialect of the Assyrian,
who swarmed from the sea, only
to fall to the Spartans’ stout-
hearted defense which was
to burn the galleys and their man-slaves
to the waterline, but I gave it up.
It was too hard to get gigs.

I Made My Bones

being a wiseacre; but I have
my sensitive side; along these

ribs have grazed the nails
that trimmed the christ. Of

course I’m exaggerating, we’re
separated by a few more

degrees than that; I have his
profile however, in the right

light that he’s always so
careful about, we could be

brothers, not a hair of
difference between us;

MOMA tried.

I Write My Best Poems

about nature, but women keep horning in;
perhaps I should begin my opus “Women
of the Psychic Caucaucus—An Entry on
Insoluble Dialectical Differences
Encountered in Reproductive Interactions
Coupled by Love.” It will probably be a
tear-jerker, depending on your gender.

That Girl

never showed except in my dreams
extended auditions availing nothing;
the gift of gifted children by
difficult women kept me from
my long-time longing for you
please come to me then
go as I please

A Day Like Any Other

broke across my disappearing body
dawn was to my knees when I jumped
up and began waving my arms in the air
trying to raise the gaze
of that far off figure of
a man fading into the near distance.

This Is Serious

I’ve sprouted a head on my neck,
and toes on my feet already;
when do I get to rest?

Changing The Subject

to women in general; they will speak
for themselves, but I’ll say this:
across your back, their names were
not written, however, their initials
were penciled in.

Now I’ve Admitted

to being multiply eviscerated multiple times
by Irish Catholic Geminis, hell,
let’s broaden this to Geminis, one and all:
if any are listening, I just want one to
step up and make it right; if possible,
a redhead.

Irish Catholic Geminis

simply must be experienced;
mere text can neither simulate
the five G whip between
craven lust and disjoint fear
nor fathom the depths cored
from the soul every turn

Choose Life

what the hell. I wasn’t doing
anything better; and there isn’t,
anyway, anything else,
much less, anything better.

Johnny Too Bad

too bad about Johnny, too bad about his girl,
but I tried to warn them both. Mucking with
the monster never furthers. Lose a leg to
save the other, Leave the tracks of their
innocence where they lie.

I started collecting references to yesterday
this morning. I’ve got nine bags full already.
During the night, when today first came
slinking in, I was tempted to tell her where to go
but remembered how sensitive she is about

her low beginnings; which I for one never
considered in choosing her to queen
the festival of my lost heart;
who else ever could?

The St. James Hotel

historic digs, where Bobby D. penned Blind
Willie McTell, tell me a different story, one of
woe to come; your bustier over the lamp, the
open window, speak to me in a fractured voice,
of your lack of faith, your wild ambition for more,
as if there were.

There Weren’t Enough Clouds In The Sky

to hide you there, kneeling at the throne
of God, the piker, the favoritist, the cheat;
he had your black shifting Irish heart, I
couldn’t hold it but for fleeting hours,
and hard-fought was its regaining for
another bare few; your roseate cheek,
musk-bruised lips, and bright eye
tell him, beloved, where you’ve been.

Next

I took down her silver locket. I took down
her crew with one look. I took down her number.
See ya, sweets, I called to her as she disappeared

out of the Steak and into Carl Nelson’s ’63 Sattelite;
the roar of its straight pipes gunned the night
right down in its tracks.

New Day

no new way had presented itself,
so I continued meandering along
the deepened track, thinking that
it would come to me, what was
would come to me. And if I’d
forgotten my original instructions
I won’t ask directions.

How It Works

this nice DNA water planet is just setting here. the alien intelligence (that's what it is) comes along, marries (like really integrating) with all this nature stuff and its power to proliferate, and together they are responsible for this production, this ever-breathing NOW that continually reproduces itself every instant! and so while it's shocking at first to find out about the alien invasion part (because something in us (our hearts, actually) still identifies strongly with the home planet nature part), despite that, one quickly realizes that one is, and has been all along, every moment of our lives already--half-alien. so, yeah, they're shockingly cold and thoughtless in their purpose (whatever that is), but we are it, too; we are a mix, a strange brew of each element. I think at least we can all agree, we are glad of their unholy union in us, which produces this vast Las Vegas of the soul. basically, DNA meets DMT.

Among All You Angels

there’s a hole. you should have been filled by Saint Agnes and Saint Joan.
As it stands, we have vacancies for our two top novitiates to be elevated

to host. I’m Charles Rattner, and I’m facing God right now. He’s right here.
He’s combing his hair. I can see a tattoo of a red devil and some tumbling

dice on his left arm, his right is hidden. Now he’s playing guitar.
He’s playing Stairway to Heaven with his nails.

I want to return to the coast. Only LA can rescue me.
I have stuff in Indiana, Texas, and Taiwan. I’m moving west,

but more slowly than that deathless sun.

Did I Say Re-Rock

I meant tearing it all up all over again,
as if space could be put back in time,
and time to beginning before Elvis
went in the army, before Don and Phil,
before Buddy died, before
Bobby Fuller even started;
spot that child before
he goes wrong, before
he’s heard the news;
and that radio all damn day.

I’ve Decided To Go For The Goblet

le Trompe de Reigne would look good
on my résumé. I always liked medals
commemorating service, I think

it’s something you just can’t have too much of;

so in that tradition, I’m now accepting
whatever damn thing is due to me. I can’t
possibly keep track what is owed

and to tell you the truth,
I’d just as soon call it even.

Frankly and Cher

had been there; they hooked up in Tulsa
before the fourth war, before the rocking
public was trussed and drawn up and sent
into the ozone, replacing Chuck Berry, which
people, can not be undone! What if
it had been Buddy Holly?!?

The Poetry Public

is easily handed a mackerel
masquerading as cod, and you
a limp fish for anybody but me

So I Said

is it alright to fight toward the light,
or do you have to relax? I hope not.
All my mares have foaled. I’ve not
the strength to get up and answer
the door; much less open it. If time
were a slide to hell, then dig in
your nails; they look smashing
with your car.

Not Love

You made it perfectly clear where you were going
with this, but I don’t think I’m ready for a long-term
commitment. How about ninety days?

My Long Distance Is Getting Turned Off

but I think of it as a lucky accident; one less to pay.
I’m trying to minimize my footprint on the American
debt market, something I was less drawn to in times past;

we would go along the boulevard, you in your shine,
me in mine, lord did we love and live
barely by our teeth; crazy for love.

The Getaway

I fathered three children by three women,
all better than I. I lived like a god. It seemed
at times to quite overcome my civility,
not to mention my aversion to heroics;

glad I made a splash when I didn’t know
any better; these days find me under a hole
somewhere out of sight, no more flaming
freakness dripping light from every finger.

My tests were these: eight weeks of hell week
in high school, for that thing; going
before the board of admirals; my MFA;
and my shodan test; and those three kids;

and their mothers. The truth is that it was the
romantic deaths that killed me beyond all recourse
a dozen times or more; desperate doomsday love
that can survive anything except a new girl.

But once you really get your teeth in it,
nothing beats living alone. I’ve got ten
good years now without being drawn around
by someone else’s predilections, The peace in

that solitude is not a woman
but it’s not too bad.

Jesus Said

lay your thin harvest at plenty’s door; strip
your garments from disease’s kiosk. And
before you die, be kind to an embittered tyrant
and/or spouse. Write your good deeds
on the back of a hand, or scrawl them on
an unlifted finger with the diamond stylus
at the bench. When you come before the post,
raise the left eyebrow if you will be keeping
your corporeal form; the right, if new, or
applying for reissue. The number for help with
totaling worldly credits is unpublished
in the paradisiacal general record, but,
for corporeal retainers, can be found, with
public assistance, tattooed subcutaneously
beneath the perineal seam, along with various
disclaimers and warranties that may or may not
apply. Let it be noted: the ethereal peasantry
may only petition His Lord of Wants and Needs
en masse and that by appointment only.

That’s Entertainment

I stole my looks from Montgomery Clift,
my mind from Aldous Huxley; from Albert
Schweitzer comes my oft-described kindness

to animals, and this despite my revulsion
at their paw to mouth existence, their drab
sexual practices and their uninteresting diets.

I’ve bent way over to accommodate these habits,
even stopping on the street to help would-be
faunic procreators find and mount a mate.

I’m strictly an amateur, sure,
but I know my work.

Baudelaire Didn’t Hit It Off With Haag

which relieved me somewhat, even with
half his face gone, he outshown me,
a poor servant boy with hidden quills,

trothed at three to Haag, Great and Glorious
Never-Ending and Far Seeing Queen of
the Giant Black Dung Beetles. At the

awesome hinging of her knee, always;
she pampered me into submission
with the soft down beneath her forques,

lay me beside fountains of nectar, and
watched me come to age, come to know
her treachery and her lies. Baudelaire

didn’t care, no, he did not. Not a whit.
I tried to tell you.

The Way We Used To Be

we’d rather steal than buy, rather
run than hide; rather call out all night
our love, and whisper into the hours.

You grew away; some day
will return you on silks
and cashmere, feathers

against your bare skin; your lips
still cherry. These are the days of
recollection; the nights of dreams.

My Bike

seems like it has a hairline crack on the impact bar
of the frame. It’s likely been there since I was jumping
but I never noticed. Spring’s fresh eyes still
turn up a thing or two still at the edge of field,
a smudge against the wind, hair swept into air,

I could see you recognized me.

So, I Could See Where This Was Going

all create made Jack a dull boy
in the end. He just had to get off
those tracks imprinting the known world;
the unknown, or unsubstantiated,
was fresh as, well, blood

There Ought To Be A Law

against people making rules.
It should be illegal to
restrain the will
of a fellow beingthing.

In The Weeds

is all manner of foul found; just
the other day I came across

a queen being ravaged by birds
who when put to flight

encircled my head briefly,
long enough to hear one say,

we’ll be back

It’s An Aubade

if it’s written in the morning.
probably an Etude if in evening.

In any case, it’s a poem about
dismemberment and death. All

hell breaks loose upon
the protagonist, in the end,

it drives him into dirt.

I Can’t Draw

my heart is wound so tight;
I don’t hit stride till night.

I start to settle when daylight goes
and quits its infernal calling;

evening settling in around,
each thief seeking to gain

the other; there it stands.

The Light Of The Moon

beneath these vaults of glory
sports a cheating coward

we go hand in hand
up the golden stairs

People Take Themselves So Seriously

it’s hard to break through; everything means
exactly what it says, but that’s not

the native tongue,
apparently

I Wrote A Poem Once

it concerned a certain female person,
I won’t name; but its intent was

unresolved. It ended with
a kiss.

Facing The Page

coldbloodedly; you sucker,
your ass is mine. All I can say is

sayonara, my imprint goes here
on your face.

Anyway, Where’s The Meat

in this thin salad? Do I have to do everything myself?
Take this one word: elegy; write it in letters that

mount to the sky. Come with me where our hands
find purchase in each other; where I can claw from

these simple ways some big song, some aria to
go with the storm of our days. Remember when

you called my name out of hell’s dry foundry,
and met me with your lips. All I could say

was caught on the sticks we brought under cover,
and crushed so with our young and pliant flesh.

A Last Shot At Glory

aiming at something close; just beyond
my sight; there where the forks lay down

with the spoons, the cutlery carves
my name in without a date; nothing else

says I was here; your unmentionables
still burn in my barn of cares.

Take This Goddamn Summer Day

and send it back where the sun don’t shine;
give me rain; give me a long hauling of the

winter’s ashes; give me grace; give me punk,
the hard way; give me a going over,

and spit me back along the river, where
we pulled nothing from something;

this cursed heat had me blinded then, too,
and full with the last faith I could find;

you looked at our makings with
eyes wet with heedless love.

Almighty God

rain down on me
thy bounty
your tread
crossed mine
and wroth
wath god
wathafu
man

Some Stuff Just Writes Itself

some pulls scab onto the page;
either way, I’m down. I was noticing where
the other day went skipping. I was seeing
how delighted a man could be.

It was just an experiment, but I’d like
to report its findings. It says here that
when all that’s written happens again, we
will step free

I Should Take This Seriously

I’m starting a career; avocations are a dime a dozen.
So, for a nickel a pop you can have
a poem dedicated to you. Although I fully
support all worthy causes, this one is strictly about
the one cheese.

Still And All I Have To Say

life is a fucking grand piano.
And, on that you may count;

lifting unto the usual stratuses
where we spread our cloth and fare,

my brothers and sisters, we ride
a great galleon, whereunto

we are all set