my head spins everyday
and I get carried away
off
and off
poem
it didn’t go as planned
nothing does, but still
it made my head explode
and filled my guts with drink
we held off the tide for days
but that only made it stronger
more angry
more sad
i never had the acumen
for this sort of thing
i never had the tenderness
to not injury my friends
I swear my house is moving down the street. I turn off the main road onto the one I live on, drive the distance I remember it being from the corner, and there’s still more houses left before mine. It’s not on a hill, it can’t be sliding further away from the turn. There’s no new house before that I’ve noticed. As soon as I get used to, re-used to, where the house is, it’s not there any longer. I’ll never figure it out.
poem
These paper years I’ve invested in
like a Ponzi scheme
they seem to crumble in my dirty, cracked hands
I was green to think it would end otherwise
The white pages stained with
black and blue
they all mean nothing
The cold wind blows my words away
like gossamer strands
dusty and discarded
spoken, never heard, forgotten
My vain vitriol
a minor league Dresden
a victory for no one
no strategic gains or benefit to the cause
Apathy’s crushing weight yokes me
and I till the field alone
straight lines plowed across the white field
Just to be ink-ruined and crumpled into a ball
thrown into the trash with the rest
bar logic
You know how much I fuckin’ love Jill, the one guy says to the bartender.
Yeah, yeah, I know, you guys are great together, the bartender says back.
Jill and you, the third guy says.
Jill was having these goddamn nightmares, the first says. Gimmie another one of the same, he goes on.
Sure, Mark, says the bartender. You want a new glass, he asks as he grabs Mark’s empty. Mark doesn’t respond and the bartender procures a new, clean glass from under the bar. Three shots of mid-level vodka, ice, and the tiniest splash of something clear from the soda gun go into the glass before it gets set back in front of Mark.
So, she’s having theses nightmares, just wrecking her and she can’t sleep at all, not a wink. Mark sips the new drink. Thanks, John, he says to the bartender.
Nightmares, the third one says.
What do you fellas need, John asks me.
We’ll take two shots of Dewar’s and two Highlifes, I tell him. He pours the shots and sets the cans in front of us. He walks back over to the conversation without telling us how much it is.
I ask her what she’s been drinking and she says whiskey, WHISKEY, I says to her, that’s why you can’t sleep and having those goddamn nightmares, the first man’s story goes on. You gotta stop that and start drinking vodka or gin at least, he continues.
Whiskey, every time, the third one says.
I care about her, I really do, Mark says.
We know you do, man, we can see that, John says to Mark as he wipes down the bar with a dirty towel.
Adventures in Freewriting
Essentially, electric Pig-boots knock along the hateful highway like torch eyed top-cops with guns drawn at the fine line horizon a million miles away. Angry vultures shout bible verses from the Joshua trees and know everyone by name. The sirens sang sad songs of longing and loss. Their voices were the screeching whines of the entitled, asshole youth of the big, quiet west. clouds formed soft pirate ships up in the sky and fired the big black cannons with low, booming beer burps. No one cried for the fallen because is was the future and everything is cold and different there.
The once and future stoner kings all cut their long and tangled hair. Their faces got printed on old west wanted posters and hung in bathroom stalls next to the “for a good time”s and toilet paper rolls. Ears still echoed and windows still wore purple heart cracks and bragged to their friends about the good, old rough and tumble days. But now, one beer and a cheeseburger and then get the hell out. No more leather and leave the boxer briefs in the popcorn machine. No more let back in one last time after getting kicked out for the last LAST time. It’s all eggs shells around the house now. But the heads are still hungry for memories to forget.
Disco lights blind the damn kids who don’t even care, just turn the music louder, that’s not music, fuck you, man. Almost-pretty girls act out to spite dads who hated their dads and moms who acted out to spite their moms. And the poverty-filled world turns at the same maddeningly steady pace because fuck you.
too much literal drama to create any literary drama tonight.
