Mar 17
CHET BAKER’S EMBOUCHURE No longer able to hit notes without a set of natural teeth— but he kept at it, didn’t let it silence the golden sound within him, and, in spite of his demons, he learned how to play again. Music elevated him above a self-imposed gutter, who left wrinkled valleys across his dented …
Mar 17
Valentine’s Day 2024 The only company I had on Valentine’s Day was a pack of cigarette with a dead baby on it. The lifeless body lies still, a blotch of blood, brown, and beige, with black boxes on its dead eyes and unformed genitals, and big bold letters above its dead, bulbous baby head. As …
Mar 16
keeping the peace i’m doing my laundry listening to mp3 music through my earphones as i try to lessen the dull pain of wasting 90 minutes of my life i’ll never get back i notice a middle aged black couple nearby doing the dance couples do when they fold the sheets always a sexy combo …
Mar 15
Motor Oil Through the Lemonade There is motor oil through the lemonade, razor invasion piranhas enter my field of vision, the floodlight metropolis and payola queens atop the charts – Francis Bacon spectres streaking down a treacherous canvas, that red-eyed seagull flock of swarm. Two rings of twine for a tail-eaten snake. There are craters …
Mar 14
Crackhead with Saxophone There’s a crackhead saxophonist at the hotel for indigents now we’ve never had a jazz musician on or off crack on the block I hear him at 3 a.m. playing Ornette Coleman then he mimics an ambulance that passes and goes into Taps Up and down the street he carries his golden, …
Mar 14
Devoured You ate everything I lay before you, Plucked my eyes, licked your fingers, and waited for me to give you more. As I smelled your musky scent, you played games and stole my nose, refusing to give it back, choosing instead to nibble on it while I slept dreaming of you. Next you devoured …
Mar 13
Raindrop The wolf has tamed its hunger and the hour unfolds its tapestry. Winter is devolving, the forest muted, the same raindrop falling again and again, making the sound of seven whispers, a six-fingered rain among velleities, rummaging through the vagaries, in the thrall and throes of gravity, swirling among uncertainties . . . See …
Mar 13
Goodbye, John Your funeral was tender…An Irish Sing-song of tears, beer and wishes of being in heaven a half hour before the devil knew you were dead. But we haven’t talked in three years, a steep decline in our friendship was evident to the mourners when asked if I have visited you recently. Dreams, like …
Mar 12
No Peace Prize for Bullshit Artists Treat them as they are Remember the man behind the resolute desk who will be referred to in this poem as Sweet Potato Sundown is still a tenth-rate slumlord A man who bankrupted four casinos A man who failed at selling steak, water, and vodka A man who is …
Mar 11
Scream For Me, Long Beach!! The carnie had three teeth in his head. They peeked out from behind his thin lips like shit-dipped Tic-Tacs every time he talked around the unfiltered Camel smoldering in the corner of his mouth. “It’s a dollar a dart, kid. Dollar a dart. Bust any balloon, you pick a poster.” …
