i am eight years old &

you seven
we play ping
pong on coffee-
table but
then the bending
gets us
middle-aged
again
guzzling vodka tonics
before sunset
on easter weekend
we want heroin
opium
hashish
we have a
list of wishes
then notice
such gray hair
such facial coagulation
& the body
hurts
the spine
muscles
& patti smith
is singing &
it's cloudy
& chilly
we rise
from our knees
laughing
aching .

---

the world was falling

a man slumbers, sniffles on a short couch.
it is daylight, really sunny, & the sky
is blue like wet blue. he's dreaming

but his dreams won't stick thru consciousness,
as if remembering dreams means a whole lot
beyond that awe of human recognition. animals,

awed, that's us on good days. conscious
in disturbing sunshine in modern
time. or if not conscious, dreamless.

diaphonous, edgeless.
meanwhile the soldiers posing on televisions
are youngsters -- & look at the cops:

kids.
computer geniuses:
kids.

enlightenment burns.
enlightenment kills.
o for dreamless consciousness poets!

20 year old soldiers.
middle-aged poets who
nap on a couch in this land of freedom,

& old, old
traditions & habits
of the human species:

this
stoned
curve on a face.

---

russian vodka

sixteen dollars & ninety-five cents
for original russian vodka. we decide
it quick, since a very drunk woman has
wandered into the liquor store

& the store employees have called
for help. she can't even stand,
is mumbling from the floor between
fallen bottles. it seems too strange

a scene & i have a twenty
so we choose original russian vodka.
at the counter we look out of the windows
& a huge erie fire truck is swooping into

the parkinglot. ann & i chuckle.
poor woman, we
whisper, smiling,
amazed at the human condition

& the response to this
human condition,
of all conditions,
so loaded & lost & the sober world

sends for
ladders & sirens
& lights in
the middle of the afternoon.

---

this is what i am doing

we haven't had the webcam operating
in quite a while.

when lance was here
looking all naturally seedy,

you cld have seen him
like 2 weeks ago -- last time

the webcam
ran. that party we had

with bill, ori, jellygun aka norm,
jazzbo, & cait, that party

was fun.
drunk on corona, yeah.

a little nudity
to prove my balloon of a belly.

drunk,
shameless, as you might know me;

live on the goddamn
internet.

sheepish,
i now smile. wave. click

the black
lighter.

look into
my eyes.

feel my
wrist, my pulse.

---

what am i doing?

quarter to six in the morning
reading the new THE HOLD

re-reading bill's interview
& cait's question

shaking my sleepy
smiling head

black lighter clicks
& clicks

& i'm holding
my breath

i'm letting smoke
filter thru my very mind

under this skin i
call me.

---

there is a mysterious energy

if you were working where i work
i wld not converse with you.

i wld not side with yr side,
strike a deal. i'd let the assholes

bushwhack you,
take you under their wings.

oh, you'd be pretty happy,
& you'd start miming what the assholes

whine, laugh
when the assholes laugh.

i'm glad
you're so sure of yrself

in this bleak, dark
environment. look

the fuck
around, bubby,

the scum
& the lowest of the scum

work
here, which is

why
as i see it,

amerika,
honestly,

is
doomed,

doomed,
doomed.

---

sunshine

one strange sunny nightmare this morning
after working all night looking at keyboards
at walmart's when usually i'd be

dead asleep off the effects of my little
trazadone pill each & every day with
lipitor -- middle age is medicinal adjustment,

when the mind is allowed time
by the grace of physical flesh repair
in this 21st century rendition of amerika.

it wasn't until around 11 i
dropped to sleep, exhausted, fed
on eggs & pancakes at pano's restaurant

where the framed glass art
was smeared by somebody's food,
where cockroaches are buried in the

pepper-shaker &
the waitresses are not yet
citizens of the u.s. of a., they

are baltic,
backwards,
innocent & sloppy by amerikan standards.

"it is so very,
very erie," you retort
when i point out the smeary glass art

on the wall above our dirty booth.
but the food tastes great.
i am baltic & dumb to cockroach ectoskeletal

crumbs in the spices
of erie eateries circa
nineteen fucking fifty before

we knew
sanitary
means more than pano's restaurant

even in
the future. but the food is
delicious -- pancakes sprinkled

with powder sugar,
sausage links,
bacon,

yellow eggs scrambled
into edible
texture. then we come home

& install this new keyboard.
then i drop to sleep
in rainy morning bed for 3 hours.

we have to pick doug
up from central high school
regardless how much sleep i've managed.

you wake me
jacking me,
i'm a middle-aged man

with a wonderful
lover suckling
on my cock in afternoon shadows,

& baby,
i burst,
i burst all over you.

---

no poem is required

no poem is required to evoke
the timbre of this exact, sensory moment
with my eyes on a 17 inch screen in a small
room plateau'd over the night expanse of lake
erie -- my fingers on the keyboard

banging.
laughter from downstairs.
ann knitting amerikan girl doll
clothes for addison. sound
of this computer hard-drive like
grinding automobile transmission
heard by a head on lsd.

hollow reader,

no poem is required
for anyone's real
benefit. nobody wants
the intensity of personal truth
blaring into human language.

it's too much
for a creature to
carry too many centuries into earth history.

look,
god
is dust.

somebody sd
jesus
then we atom-bomb'd hiroshima.

gray column
puffy gray cloud column
of human ignorance.

what
a
cock

man
really
is

a
piece
of hard shit

shit
from a
star,

a face,
a noble voice saying
"poetry..."