Two From the Broed

“Have you ever heard the expression ‘bro it on out’ before?”  Michael asks the waitress.  We are sitting in a Waffle House in West Texas, but to tell you the truth it doesn’t matter where we are because we’ve spent the last four weeks asking this exact same question to waitresses, Republican deligates and folk from various other walks of life all across the North American continent.  It is a question to which, of course, we expect no real answer.  At least, we don’t expect them to say “yes”.  If anyone said “yes” our mission would be over, for that would mean that there had been others forging the path of bro before us.  There would then be no reason for us to be out here at all.  That would certainly have punctured a hole in our brozone layer that we could never have repaired. 
Indeed, “yes” was not an option.
“No,” replies the waitress.  She is just as you expect a waitress in a West Texas Waffle House to look; overworked with a face weathered much like the dry flesh-colored landscape outside that stretches endlessly in all directions, only with make-up added.  She looks very tired and for a second I find myself beginning to feel sorry for her, but then I quickly bro that out.
“Well, we’re like prophets,” Michael continues, “missionaries.”
“Oh really,” replies the waitress, sounding none too convinced.  We hadn’t showered in quite some time, so we probably more so resembled, say, broed-out road trash than Missionaries. 
“Yes, we are spreading the word of bro,” I offer.
“The what?” replies the waitress.
“We have brought this hot new expression all the way from California,” says Michael, with mounting excitement, “and we are spreading it all across America.”
“Yeah, we’re like the Johnny Appleseed of bro it on out,” I add, as if this would somehow clear things up.
“Bro it on out?” asks the waitress.  Her name is Sue, says so right on her nametag.  “Now what in the dickens does that mean?” she asks, a smile finally creeping ‘cross the barren West Texas landscape.
“Ya know, bro it on out,” replies Michael.  “It kind of means like “chill out”, you know?  Actually, it means a lot of things.  Mostly people just say it like this..” at this point Michael adapts an absurd falsetto, sounding like a Muppet character, a very broed out Muppet character.  “YEEEEWWW JUS GOTTA BRO IT!  BRRRRRRO IT! BRRRRRRRRO IT ON OW-OOOOT!”
At this little outburst I briefly cover my face with my hands in something feeling suspiciously like shame or embarrassment.  I can feel all the decent, hard working Texan folks looking up from their decent, hardworking breakfasts to find out just what in the dickens is going on with those two weirdo’s with the tape recorder over there with Sue, but then the moment is gone, my hands go back down under the table and I am once again broing it.
“Wow!” says Sue, laughing a bit.  “Ya’ll certainly say it pretty loud!”
“Well,” replies Michael sheepishly, “we don’t always bro it out that loud.  It just depends how things are broin’, you know?”
“I think so,” she says.
There is suddenly an awkward pause, and so as to bro that pause the hell on out I say “so, bro it on out, what do ya think, Sue?”
“Well, California does something it’s like five years later that we get it.”
“So, were broin’ you out in advance” I reply. 
“Yeah, in like five years everyone will be out here broin’ it.” adds Michael.  “Wow,” he says in faux astonishment, turning to me with a religious expression on his face, “just think, D: everyone broin’.”
“It’s only a matter of time, bro,” I say, shaking my head,  “only a matter of time.”
“So ‘yall really spreadin’ it all across the country?”
“Bro yeah,” replies Michael.
“So, ‘yall taught people in like New York City and-“
“Bro yes!” I say. “New York, Milwaukee, uh....” suddenly my mind is too broed to remember anywhere else we had traveled.  ‘There must have something between California and New York’ I think   “..uh... Milwaukee.. and ...”
“We’re on a pilgrimage,” says Michael, bailing me out.
“For ‘Bro it on out’?” asks Sue.
“See?  See?  You’re broin’ it already!” yells Michael. 
“Yes,” I add, “we have enlightened yet another one!”  Michael and I slap hands over the table.
“Ya’ll are either real famous or just real weird” says Sue, laughing as she pulls out her ordering pad.  “Now, whaddayall wanna bro out for breakfast?”

*

“I swear to god, I saw these big signs, they all said “Welcome to Wisconsin” says Michael.
“You are fucking broed,” I reply.  “How can we be in Wisconsin already if it keeps sayin’ “Illinois Turnpike” all the time, man!?”
Michael and I were both fucking broed, in all actuality.  We were getting close to the end of the second of a series of all-nighters, and we were both getting broed constantly.    Michael and I would take turns driving about every hundred miles or so.  We would know that it was time to switch seats when the person behind the wheel begin to make video game sounds or speak at length about the invention of the zip lock bag.  These are both signs of heavy broin’; the kind of broin’ more appropriate to the passenger seat or a rest stop gift shop.
We had also discovered that not knowing what state we were driving through at any given time was another sign of one’s going dangerously over-broed.
“I swear to fucking god, D, it said Wisconsin!” We were both extremely exasperated.  We had been arguing over this one for about an hour and a half.  Michael was of course swearing up and down that he seen this big ol’ sign, a whole host of signs, actually, saying that we had finally broed it all the way to Wisconsin at the last toll booth.  I thought we were still in Illinois because I kept seeing these signs saying “Illinois Turnpike” all the time, but, then again, I couldn’t even remember going through the last toll booth whatsoever.  We were like two senile old men arguing over who took a crap last.
Michael then began making video game sounds over the Amon Tobin music we had playing on our new car stereo.  Our old one had broken back in Nebraska so we stopped at a Wal-Mart in Walnut, Iowa and purchased a new one on one of our credit cards.  Between Walnut and Des Moines, a distance of about 60 miles, Michael installed the thing while I drove.  We were very proud of ourselves. 
We celebrated by getting really broed out in the parking lot at the next rest stop.
Anyway, Michael’s Atarian outburst should have prompted me to evict him from the wheel but I saw, through the rain falling against our windshield, what looked to be the lights of a tollbooth looming up ahead through the night.  Impulsively, I ducked my head under the dashboard of the car and proceeded to get more broed out, just in case there was some sort of wait at the tollbooth.  One for the road, as they say.
Michael stopped his Space Invaders revival and said “oh shit, D! Another tollbooth!  Okay, maybe this is Wisconsin, man!”
I opened up my mouth to respond but all that came out was “a-wooba wooba, a loopable poophole loophole!” which was something that Michael and I had chanted over and over again across the entire state of Utah. I began to laugh uncontrollably.  
“D!” replied Michael with a broed little smile crossing his face, “you know what you are?”
“Hee, hee, hee....what?” I responded, trying to pass him the tool with which one usually bros oneself out. 
“You are broed.........to the heart!” yelled Michael, prompting us both to launch into the theme song of our cross-country tour, sung to the tune of  “You Give Love a Bad Name”.
“Broed to the heart, and you’re too broed, you bro love a broed name!”
After a few minutes of additonal hysterics, Michael got really serious, saying “Seriously D!  We gotta bro this shit, man.”
Michael did indeed sound serious, and suddenly it scared me.  I somehow climbed a few feet out of my bro hole by taking a deep breath.   Then I noticed something.  Our car smelled like the primate section at the zoo.  Then I noticed something else.
“What does that sign say?”
“Automatic Toll” is what it say,” replied Michael in a silly voice.
“So what does that mean, that there’s no one there to bro your money?”
“Probably, D” responded Michael, giving me a look that said, “did you break your brain?”
“Alright, man, we’ll figure this out.  There,” I noticed another sign, “it says 65 cents.  You got that?”
“Ohhh,.....” replied Michael, switching to some weird, diabolical evil guy voice, “oh, I certainly do, D! Ha ha ha ha!”  He held the three coins in his right hand, performing a little dance with them on the dashboard, like a very primitive marionettist.  “Bloop!  Bloop bloopie!  Bloopie Bloop!” came the soundtrack to the dance.  He had lost it completely.
“Okay man, bro yourself a bit.  We’re gettin' close.” 
A strange, broed out silence sat between us.  The tollbooth was quickly approaching.  It looked sinister, evil.  We had spent the last who-knows-how-many hours on one straight, endless road that cut up through Illinois or Wisconsin or whatever the hell; perhaps both. And now this, this interruption.  This clot of a tollbooth standing between us and our continuing flow through the arteries of America’s freeways. 
I looked over at Michael who was suddenly wearing an army helmet and camouflage gear.  His face was painted all green and black.  Then I looked down at his hands and noticed that they were not planted, as they should have been, on the smooth, black, steering wheel of the Acura, but instead were busy manhandling a complicated network of large, cumbersome rods and levers.  The window had shrunk down to a small rectangular port and there was a gatling gun sticking out of it.  From outside I heard and felt some sort of explosion during which the sky lit up a pale purple and then faded back down to night. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire.
I was really broed out.
“Are you ready for this?!” yelled Michael over the wind rushing through the vision port on the front of our tank.  Instinctively I grabbed some controls, I believe they were the ones to the gatling gun.  That tollbooth was only fifty feet away or so, and I knew we had to destroy it, or die trying.  We couldn’t let them take us alive.
“Alright man!  Slow down and I’ll let ‘em have it, motherfuckers!”  I yelled back to Michael.  My hands tightened on the controls.
“D, what the hell are you talkin’ about?  Bro it out, man!  I’ll put the money in, not you, you freak.” came Michael’s voice.  Suddenly it wasn’t so loud in the car anymore.  Then I looked down at my hands and they were clutching the handle right under the glove compartment of the Acura.  “And why are you yelling so loud?”
“Sorry man,” I mumbled, “broed to the heart I guess.........”
“Yeah, well, here we are.”
The tollbooth was right there.  There was only one spot to drive through.  To the right of the booth was a big sign saying “Welcome to Wisconsin” which proved that Michael had hallucinated all those other signs celebrating our triumphant arrival to the state, the place where the first show of the Scatter-Shot Theory “tour” was going to happen.  I was about to start calling him on this when I noticed that Michael wasn’t slowing down very much.
“Hey man, bro it down” I said. 
“Sure,” said Michael. 
That strange silence returned.  That thick broed-out silence, sitting between us like a fog bank of confusion.  We drove a few more feet and the tollbooth was upon us, or we were upon it.  I don’t think that either one of us could tell.  Motion is all relative, especially when one is broed on the road. 
I felt like we were about to land a plane through this tollbooth.  Michael was slowing her down, slowing her down, but I could feel something, some other unworldly force pulling us through the booth at 15 miles per hour.  The tollbooth was now a space ship, all aglow with lights and signs in foreign languages, and the Acura was being pulled in by some sort of energy beam.  A glowing black energy beam, twice as thick as our car, with yellow dashes cutting up through the middle of it.
I looked over at Michael again, and to my surprise he didn’t look afraid.  “Sure,” he replied, even though I hadn’t said anything new since he said “sure” the last time.  As the Acura was sucked into a short passage on the underside of the spaceship, he coolly rolled down the window.  There was a plastic receptacle, much like small plastic urinals that you see occasionally installed in some porto-potys, that you were supposed to throw change in.  In fact, there was a big red arrow pointing to the thing, with a symbol of coins underneath it.
 Michael hurled the coins out the window of the still moving car.  The sound of them hitting the ground and bouncing off of the wall was barely audible over the car’s engine.  Then he rolled the window back up.
A mile or so down the road I turned to Michael and asked,  “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know, D.  It sure was something, that’s for sure.”
“You missed all of the coins.  Technically we didn’t pay the damn toll.”
“Yes, well, technically,” replied Michael, turning to me, “you just gotta bro it on out.”
He was right.  What was done was done.  At least we had finally made it to Wisconsin.
“So, you saw the sign back there, right?” I asked Michael.  “The one that said, “Welcome to Wisconsin”?” 
“What sign?  I thought you said we were still in Illinois.”

God Damns the Barbecue Man

    “Goddamn it’s hot!” I thought as I went to my car.  I took off my white formal over shirt and fetched my wallet out of the trunk and slammed the lid down, hard.  I was on my “lunch break”, more accurately the endless daily temporal expanse between my split shifts at the Japanese restaurant where I waited on tables.  And goddamn, it was hot.
    I checked my pockets:  “Goddamn no cigarettes!”
    So, off I headed across the baking half-empty shopping center parking lot toward the “Cigarettes Cheaper”.   As I pushed through the doors I saw that there were three old guys languishing in line to buy expensive exotic cigars.  They each held the cigar packages in their fat old hands as they had probably had candy bars when they were children. 
    “Goddamn old-timers, so slow!” I thought to myself, captured behind them in line.  They stood there, all three pot-bellied and suspendered and baseball-capped.  Two of them were having a gravely voiced conversation about guns and landscaping.  One guy favored guns to pass his retirement, the other landscaping.
    “You should come over sometime, see my collection,” said one.
    “Yeah, and you should come over sometime and see my yard,” said the other.
    Eventually it became my turn.  I paid for my single pack of clove cigarettes, asked for a book of matches and left in a hurry as if I had somewhere to go.
    I headed back across the parking lot to the local market.  It was called “the Apple Market” and the theme there was one of unconditional friendliness toward its customers.  One aspect of this theme was their longtime policy of providing free little shot-glass-sized portions of coffee to customers.  Once inside I immediately filled up three of the little micro-sized styrofoam cups up with “French vanilla premium blend”, added a little cream and sugar to each one and, trying my best to ignore the disapproving stare of the woman in the green apron emblazoned with the cheery Apple Market logo, carried all three outside to a bench.
    I sat down.  It was hot, but at least it was in the shade.  And at least I wasn’t serving sushi.  I lined up the little cups underneath the bench.  I lit up a cigarette and had a long drag.  Then I picked up one of the cups and took a sip. One time a waitress that I had worked with had tried to convince me that it was preferable to drink hot beverages on hot days than cold ones, the theory being that with a cold beverage in your gut the body has to heat up more to bring the stomach contents up to normal body temperature.  This had always sounded like bullshit to me, but, alas, there were no free mini iced coffees at the Apple Market, so there I was, gingerly sipping a piping-hot beverage in the dull midday heat of August. 
    I had over an hour and a half to kill.  I took my notebook out of my bag and opened it to a blank page.  I stared blankly at the lines on the blank page and the lines stared blankly back up at me.  Silence.  It was obvious: we simply had absolutely nothing to say to each other. 
    “Goddamn blank page of a day,” I thought to myself, looking up to squint out at my surroundings.  The Petaluma Plaza Shopping Center: Radio Shack, Ross, K-Mart, Longs, JC Penny, Sizzler, goddamn Army/Navy recruiting office...
    Just as I closed my notebook along came my friend Billy.  He was a young, multiply pierced, yet clean-shaven lad who worked at the music supply shop next to “Fuji”, my Japanese place.  He had just moved into town and was thus very friendly to me, especially when he heard that I, like he, was a musician.  He was one of those flailing young artists caught between being the idealist guitar player who hadn’t quite gotten his material up and a burgeoning computer programmer with no in.  Yet another child of California caught between Bohemia and the Silicon Valley.
    “Hey Damian,” he said, sitting down next to me on the bench.  Then, “hey, could I bum a-“
    “Sure,” I interrupted, taking a clove from the pack and handing it to him.  I was only allowing myself one cigarette a day, for fear of falling into the realm of the full-blown nicotine addict, and cloves came in packs of twenty, so I was always very happy to give them away. 
    “Right on,” replied Billie as I lit up a match for him.  He leaned into the match, his face young and smooth and somehow not sweaty at all, regardless of the heat.  Kids like him always make me feel old; them with their whole pointless future to look forward to and me already living in mine.  Billy took a drag and I waved the flame from the match.
    We talked for some time about the vanguard of music computer software and such.  Young musicians always like talking about the newest music software.  They love comparing stories and technical stats.  I can always hold up my end, but, to be honest, when it comes down to it I don’t even know what kind of computer I have.  I’ve just ended up with a certain set up and that’s it.  Still, I had a lot of time to pass, and talking electronica with Billy seemed better than driving my car across hot-ass cross-town traffic to my apartment, just to have to fight my way back through in an hour or so. 
    The conversation seemed to be reaching the half-hour mark, with Billy doing most of the talking.  He was telling me of a hot new program called “Tracker” and how I had to have it or else perish in a technologically outdated wasteland when I noticed a sudden breeze picking up seemingly out of nowhere.  It appeared as if it had gathered up all of the leaves from the parking lot and was swirling them lazily about in front of us.  It coaxed one of my two empty styrofoam cups into it’s collection and then Billie and I watched, our conversation quelled, as it quickly began to pick up force, now resembling a mini-tornado as it headed away from us across the parking lot.
    Then, seemingly for no reason, the force of this mini-twister seemed to triple just as it reached a spot in the lot occupied by a small tent structure where a man employed by the market had been barbequing tri-tip steak sandwiches.  The tent was basically a shade structure, a white nylon roof supported by steal poles that ended in cement-filled tires for stability, under which the barbecue man was running four or five different coal grills.  There was also a heavy-looking folding table with condiments galore and other sundry items pertaining to the grilling and serving of tri-tip steak sandwiches. 
    The man stopped whatever he was doing as Petaluma’s first tornado began pelting him and his equipment with leaves and other parking lot debris.  He tried in vein to hold down his stuff, but napkins and styrofoam cups and cardboard boxes began to swirl about him with great force.  Then the strength of the thing stepped up another exponential notch, taking on the appearance of an angry outdoor poltergeist, tearing the roof from its poles and sending it flapping off into the sky like just another napkin.  The poles themselves swung around crazily on their round concrete-filled tire bases, one of them tipping over and landing with a crash against one of the steal barbecues.  A cloud of grease and napkins and bottles and raw meat and cooked meat and garbage formed, out of which leapt the barbecue man, his hands protecting his head from the violent swirling insanity, abandoning his post to the vicious elements, covered with grease and barbecue sauce, attempting now only to save his own life!
    “Goddamn!” I said aloud.
    All of this had taken place in only about thirty seconds.  It had been such a calm day!  No wind at all.  All of a sudden it was as if the tornado had realized this and stopped its merciless hazing of the barbecue man, first moving off about ten feet away and then factoring itself out mathematically to zero in thin air.  All that was left behind was a pile of garbage, the barbecues themselves (these were huge dark cast iron beasts, probably weighing hundreds of pounds each), a pale, shaken barbecue man and a hot calm Summer day.  A few seconds later the tent cloth fell from the sky like a deflated weather balloon, landing on the concrete about 15 feet from the rest of the wreckage. 
    Billy and I just stared for some time, both of us totally speechless, wondering if the twister would return, and then, when it didn’t, got up and went to check on the barbecue man. As I got closer, I could see that he was middle aged, middleweight and halfway bald.  He wore a now filthy green apron.  He had a sizeable cut on his head and the hair he did have was stuck out comically in all directions.  Surrounded by the wreckage he resembled a mad-scientist barbecue cook in the aftermath of the violent backfiring of a recent experiment.  Perhaps he had been working on a new, more efficient way to fuel the grills, or maybe he had erroneously tried to combine pork and a beef to make “Bork”, a hybrid grilled cuisine of his own invention, but unfortunately the enzymes of the two animals had combined to form some new highly volatile compound.  
    Some of the other employees had heard the commotion and had already come out to see if he was alright.  All about him they stood in their green aprons, walking gingerly about the puddle of unknown liquid that was seeping all about under the piles of barbecue-related wreckage.  Some sort of grease was splattered on one of the surrounding cars in the lot, obscuring its windshields with an opaque haze. Another car had a hood freshly adorned with a smear of barbecue sauce. Only three of the original four tent poles remained standing.
 “It just blew the whole thing apart” the barbecue man was telling them.  Most of them were giving him weak looks of disbelief.  However, a few of them had seen the incident, or at least part of it, and were hesitantly beginning to come to the barbecue man’s aid in explaining what had happened. It really had just blown the whole thing apart.
    Although the man seemed like he had more than enough people concerned over his welfare, for some reason I still felt like I should say something.
“Are you okay man?” I asked.  “I saw the whole thing from over there,” I added, gesturing toward the bench. 
“Yeah,” he said, to which he added, “man, that was some strong shit!”
“Where did the ketchup and mustard jars go?” asked an employee.
“I don’t know, man...” replied the barbecue man in a far off, defeated manner.  Someone handed him a piece of cloth for the gash on his head.  It turned out that the injury had occurred when the giant folding table for the condiments and such had been lifted up and tossed about in the chaos.  It now laid upside-down in the muck.  Had the barbecues not been so steady and designed with covers that locked on tight the barbecue man would have probably ended up resembling a piece of medium-rare steak himself from the hot coals that probably would have taken flight.
Billy and I decided to stroll back to our bench.  Once there, we sat down just as we had been during the whole incident.
“Have you ever seen anything like that before?”  I asked him.
“Not here in California,” he replied.  “I’ve seen some pretty mean dust-devils back out in Arizona, but never one that cranked it up like that.  That was really something...” he trailed off as he reached into his backpack and took out a large sandwich that he had been saving.  It looked real good, some sort of barbecued meat surrounded by hearty French bread and wrapped in silver foil. 
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
Billie pointed at the barbecue tent mess as he began laughing through a mouthful of sandwich. 
“Hey, watch out man, that thing might be cursed!” I joked.  Billy continued chewing his mouthful.  “Well, that proves it, God’s a vegan!” I chortled.  Billy let out a snort of air from his nostrils.  Then I adopted what I thought would be God’s own booming tenor, saying, “Feel the wrath of God, meat man!” as I motioned toward a small spot on the bench with my pinky finger, then adding “this is what you get for cooking up my beautiful creatures!”  Billy covered up his mouth as if he was about to lose his lunch.    
Just then a middle-aged woman rode up on a gray vintage bicycle.  She stopped in front of us and quickly dismounted.
“Would you like a clove cigarette?” I asked enthusiastically.  The twister had lifted my spirits and plus the lady appeared to be holding her looks together pretty well, sporting little-girl pigtails and a tight baby-blue t-shirt.  The bike seemed playful as well, all retro with plastic red, white and blue tassels hanging from the handlebars.  
“No thanks!” she replied with a girlish grin.  Her voice was unbelievably raspy while still sounding like a five-year old’s.  I found myself perversely intrigued. 
“Hey,” I said, arching my eyebrows “there’s free coffee inside the market, you know.”
“Free?  Oh yeah?” she asked. 
“Right near the front.” I told her.
“Cool!” she replied.  She was looking more wrinkled to me than at first.  Still, I was interested.  She put the bike up on its kickstand.  
“Hey, you missed the tornado!” I exclaimed.
“The what?!” shouted Girlwoman with cartoonish disbelief.
Billy finally swallowed and substantiated my claim, “a huge whirlwind just took apart the barbecue man’s set-up over there,” he said.  Girlwoman followed Billy’s finger to the scene of the incident. 
“Wow......” she uttered.  She stood there, looking across the lot at the mess.
“And now I’m eating this here cursed sandwich,” added Billy.
“What?” asked Girlwoman, her gaze returning to us.
“Go in and get some coffee,” I said.
“Will you guys watch my bike?” she asked, shifting her weight and sucking on her little finger.
“Of course.”  I said. 
Girl woman looked at the both of us with a child-like distrust.  After all, we were strangers. 
“Okay!” she burst out suddenly with a spooky smile and ran into the market.  Billy and I looked at each other and both shrugged our shoulders simultaneously and then laughed at that.  A few seconds later she returned with her little styrofoam cup of free coffee.
“How many sugars did you put in your coffee?”  she asked me.
“One.” I replied, to which she burst out
“I put three!”
“Three?!” exclaimed Billy, adopting the same grown-up talking to a child tone that I had been using, “in that little cup?”
“Yeah!” replied Girlwoman triumphantly.  “I like sweet stuff!  Do you guys like sweet stuff?” she asked, somehow without a hint of sexuality.
“Not me,” said Billy, “I’m hyperglycemic.  Sugar gets me all hyper and then I just want to sleep.”
“Hey, that’s what coffee does to me without the sugar,” I said, mostly to Billy.
“Oh not me!” cried Girlwoman, eyes wide.  “I never feel anything!” She was shouting all of this without a trace of sarcasm.  “Hey!  How old are you guys?” she asked.
“25,” said I.
“18,” said Billy.
“Well I’m fifty!” she exclaimed with a strange pride.  Had she fifty fingers she would have no doubt been holding them up to show us.
“Are you serious?” I asked, somewhat facetiously.  I had thought her to be around 40. “I would have figured you to be around 35!” I told her.
“No.....I’m old!” she replied.  “Fifty!”  she repeated.  Then she got back on her bike.  She had finished her shot of coffee and had placed the cup neatly in the garbage can opposite us. 
“You’re not that old!” I said, playing along.  “You’re lying!” I called out to her as she began to ride away.
“No!  I’m old!” she said over her shoulder.  “But I’ve got a new boyfriend so that’s okay!” she added.
“Is he young? “ I called out to her.
“Oh yeah!” she yelled back.
“Well, there you go!” I shouted, not knowing what else to say.
She rode off into the parking lot. 
Why had she stopped to talk to us in the first place?  She didn’t want cigarettes, she bought nothing at the market and hadn’t had any idea about the free coffee.  Had she known about the coffee but not let on?  Had she thought we were older?  I thought she liked younger guys.  And had there actually been a tornado?  What was going on?
Billy and I discussed these mysteries briefly before Billy rose from the bench.
“Half-hour lunch-breaks suck dick.” he said.  It seemed to me that it had been a lot longer than half and hour since he had sat down to bum a smoke.  Billy gathered up his empty sandwich wrapper.  “I’ll catch ya later, man,” he said, extending his young smooth hand out for a slap of five.
“Hey, beware the wrath of God’s pinkie,” I said as we slapped palms, then I pointed mine at him; “you may be next!”  He laughed quietly as he headed back to work.
I sat there, alone once again.  I could feel the stale heat radiating off of the parking lot.  I looked at my watch: still 45 minutes left to kill before the dinner shift. I knew it was going to be a slow one, too, on account of the heat.  People didn’t seem to go for sushi as much during this type of weather.  Maybe it was the thought of all that hot sake and tea.  I guessed that would mean that they didn’t buy my co-worker’s “hot day/hot beverage” theory either.
I overheard a bit of conversation from over by the barbecue ruins.
“.....so where did the mustard go?”  said a woman’s voice.
“I told you before, I don’t know!” yelled back the barbecue man, to which he added, “Goddamn!”

The Enemy As Usual

Yuck
I’m poisoning the pen
with all these cute plans
for a small leaflet
of my bullshit thought ramblings-
they’re even trying to cut a neon green
varicose lightning bolt
through this
seemingly innocent effort-
it’s just the enemy as usual
wearing its clothes
the color of maps
to cover it’s skeleton
of hollow drafting plans
for buildings
the perfect shape
and size
and location
yet no one wants
to live in them,
especially not me,
I would rather shiver in the street
emitting a strange foggy breath
the shape
of this poem.

Rerun

ha ha
I suppose everyone reaches
reaches the bottom at
at one
one time or
or another
yet I feel
feel like I’ve been here
here before
before and I
I have.

Time-Share Demons

Life has lent me
a large expanse
within which
to fight demons

how nice of life.

I fight these demons
in the name of life
and love and hate
and all that other shit

which I attempt to hold so dear.

People in this restaurant
stare at me
and in their eyes
I see the reflections of
their demons

and I sweat
as our large expanses

coincide.

Your Ceramic Lips

Tonight
I kissed
a hot
cup of tea,
being careful
at all times not to
push myself too hard
so as to
burn my lips.

The Past Does Not Exist

What a week:
romping
grinning
using logic
wearing hats
composing
strolling through
flowers
and past
the chained-up barking dogs
laughing
all the way
sending subliminal love letters
to long lost
sweet souls
debating theology
over hamburgers and fries
sand grinding in between my toes
the glow of creation
fresh in my eyes
scratch pad
beaming with jumbled
seedling madness
mind talking
and world listening?
was it possible?
could it have been?

I should have pinched myself
now
I’ll never know.

Upon offending...

My mind
has been fragmented
into beautiful
crystalline
shards of
thoughts
deeds and
actions

with razor-sharp edges,
look
you’re already bleeding.

Haunted Cobwebbed Filmstrip Beauties

Today the female entity
seems to exist
only in the form of
dusty movie clips;

haunted cobwebbed film strip
beauties kneeling down
and kissing technicolor flowers,
finally having found something
more beautiful than
themselves
and blessing it
with cherished cinematic love.

Throw Me In

Throw me in,
Pop.
I want to roll around in the mud
with all the other metal-clad boys
and dent up my sides
and twist my axles
until my body
is interesting enough looking
that I can stand myself,
Pop.

Bottom Line

There is no woman
in my bed tonight.

The Swing Dance Craze Part 2

I think that I would
feel out of place
in Heaven:
everyone would be
swing dancing
and I wouldn’t know
any of the steps.

The Swing Dance Craze

Sweaty young bodies enslaved by
complex foot diagrams
with faces beaming forth
in electric neon happiness.....
but from the hidden corners of the room
and from within the folds of
antique dresses fanning out
as slender female frames are spun
by grinning wasteland hipsters
squirts the unexpected

BLOOD OF CHRIST

and if you turn your head correctly
these buzzing cheerful swing dancers
will morph into strange, flexible crosses
dancing all about
like Walt Disney’s animated brooms,
and the correctly tilted ear
will reveal that
Cab Calloway
is quoting bible verses
over his 1930’s Big Band
with nothing but heroin
pumping smoothly through their veins-
they’d rather leave all that messy uptight blood
back at the church.

The Last Page

It’s the last page-
but it’s never the last page
really
there is no last page
because when you do reach
the last page
you won’t think
“this is it,
this is the last page”

or

maybe you will
but you won’t ever
be able to find out
if you were right

so

just turn the page
and
get on with
things.

Temporary Dances Behind Time

Some days are like this one
with music creeping from everywhere,
every tilt of your head
revealing vivid
cinematographic
splendor
and you’re dancing
right behind time,
studying its habits,
catching coolly its limitations
the careful ebb and flow
of its endless walk.

But somewhere
deep within
you feel that iron-cold pacemaker
ticking
just like a bomb
as you
sink
to once again realize
that soon
time will turn around
and it will yet again
release those tiny sets of iron jaws
to nip at the heels
of your endless walk,
and that’s when the dancing
stops.

Talking to Michael

Talking to Michael
the other day
we realized that
as far as time goes
you’re dead
99.999999----> infinity
percent of the time
and only alive
0.0000000----> infinity (there is a “1”, but you’ll never get to it)
%.
There is obviously so much more
death
than
there is life
that I wonder if life really
exists
at all.

Such a Tragedy it Was

Such a tragedy it was
this youth spent
with slow-motion foggy
shots
of distorted realities
and my pocked grinning
face
the clown paint is still fresh
on my hands it seems
and stains my accomplishments
one
by
one.

Sports Injury

My mental
slide guitar echoes
its hollow sentiment
and the TVs are sizzling
like everyone’s giant electric pet cricket,
with images unnoticed by mind
yet entrancing to the eyes,
a neighborhoods worth of eyes,
distracting them away from the
approaching line of the
golf course
just peeking over the horizon
like some reverse disease
cursing the body of the land
with an impossibly perfect skin,
turning it into a mannequin,
and all in the name of sport.

Spaces Between the Words

Laying beside
an injured angel
quivering with
self-hatred overdose
my silly fingers
walk themselves
in circles
and my speech
spins lamely into
itself as well
the ends swallowing beginnings
until they are the same thing,
and I realize that
I could probably
simply
hum to her
and achieve the same effect;
I guess that
sometimes words are only sounds,
yet sounds can still carry messages
to those waiting
to receive them.

Chips and Salsa

As I devour
chips and salsa
I think of pleasures past
in a Spanish sort of way
and recall this morning
as I drove my car
through a hole in
the clouds,
and as my wheels touched that
small sun-soaked bit of
blessed (two syllables)
freeway I felt like the proverbial camel
who finally walks through
the eye of the needle
as I thread myself
through your life
and my life
and the lives of all I know
and love
and hate
and despise
and love again,
and there’s hardly any chicken
in this burrito
but that’s okay, I should have ordered
the veggie
anyway.

Impotence

Sorry
one poem is just not enough-
I would need to write
17 poems
simultaneously
at least
to give this thing
justice.
One word describes this poem:
“impotence”,
as I flail lamely
against paper walls
with this
now flaccid pen.

Sometimes Winter Wears Tennis Shoes

I turn my back for just
two seconds
and Christmas trees spring up?
and the streets run slick with rain?
and everyone retreats to their homes?
with sweater armor?
and I catch a cold?
and gloom steals the upper hand?
and we enter the season of thought instead of action?

just two seconds
mind you
barely enough time
to
think about sneezing

and then to do it.

Sometimes, Like Tonight

Sometimes, like tonight
I dream that my bed is a cocoon
and that when my alarm clock goes off
I’ll be a butterfly
and be free of my
larvae
ways.

Sleeping Girl 2

You’re emitting
other-world gravity
sleeping girl
with soft simple skin
singing pale-perfect silence
and meditation winds
spilling back and forth
forth and back
like the tides and seasons
and everything else.

You’re emitting
other-world gravity
sleeping girl,
a suspended
warm
photograph of yourself
that you will never see.

My thoughts want me to touch you
to fall a little
into that other-world gravity
that pulls gently at my body
with the caress of a thousand angelic fingers
but that’s like wishing for heaven
and only fools
do that.

Sleeping Girl

You're asleep beside me
and there's a wind
rumbling beneath your eyelids
and your fallen body
receives shocks
from unknown
complex thought movies
that fuel the slide-show
carousel
presently spinning in your mind.

and I lay here
back at earth
and there's simple rain outside
as you turn over.

She’s Got the Dirt on the Stinky Guy

The stinky guy
has just entered Copperfield’s.
He approaches the counter to get a
refill
and is told by the girl behind the counter
that he should probably go outside
because the boss is here and
-OH LORD-
my face twists up,
the stinky guy’s stink
has washed over me like a
yellow urine cloud.
I try to fight the question
“does he sleep in public bathrooms?”
when,
contrast of all contrast,
here comes Sommer
in all her natural born
corn-stalkness,
with my sandwich,
and we may talk later
because she’s got the
dirt
on the
stinky guy.

She Had a Boyfriend

Oh-
to let the heart vibrate
in simple automatic
appreciation
that there is good in
absolutely everything.

That’s what I’m doing
right now
and there is a girl
to the right of me
that is so
perfectly
beautiful
that my insides
are getting ready
to well up
and leap from me
in an explosion
of bloody cupid flame.

Karen

Karen
I’ve seen your form somewhere before-
lingering on the edge of daydreams,
curving up against cathedral walls,
rolling down European streets and
arching delicately toward sunlight
from soil.

and
I’ve felt your will before-
effortless, easy and with a grace,
like this very sheet of paper
dropped
from 30 stories,
slicing lazily through the atmosphere,
creatively performing
it’s goodbye dance;
taking it’s own goddamn sweet time
on it’s single flight
down.

(A recent realization:
every time you speak with someone
you are saying goodbye
to that version of that person.)

Goodbye Karen,
again and again
goodbye.

Runner’s High

I’ve been-
carving out a technicolor
overexposed
rock-video
long-shot
of Petaluma neighborhoods
with iron-cool
air being sucked in and
               pumped out
of my chest
like the steam of some menthol dragon
-yes-
in other words,
“jogging”.

Robots on Drugs

Okay, okay, okay
so- there is no such thing as
“pure”
experience.
The passing swarthy lustful urge seems so vivid,
the induced frustration so complete,
but
we’re all just robots on drugs,
hopped up on
temper, mood and sexdrive.
Hopeless junkies,
with rehab only
a lobotomy
away.

Logical Rain Falls Straight Down

Listen:
outside
logical rain falls straight down,
slicing deftly through winds
and wasting no time attempting to be anything but
rain.

and my family today,
gathered here my grandparents'
kitchen table
on one of Grandma Peach's last days at home
(her mind is finally surrendering to the infinities of time, and the rest home awaits her, hungry as usual for those tragic finish-line souls with landslides in their heads...)
creates a perfect circle
of logical raindrops,
falling straight down
the organic pipes of time,
while chiming the wisdom of laughter music.

and as my grandmother
violently raps her 83-year-old,
grapevined knuckles
HARD
against the kitchen table,
she howls through the chambers of her deafness
for us to "sing Father Abraham!"
and we do,
slicing deftly through the wind,
wasting no time attempting to be anything but
rain.

Role Reversal

It’s so hot in this room,
but I’m alright.
She hasn’t called


-wow,
the phone rang
while I was
writing the word “called” above

how disappointed I was
when the female voice
on the other end was
my mother

for a second there
I thought my poem
was writing
me.

Plantlife

Filling up my notebooks
using up my pens
mixing down my tapes
filling up my space
look at me I’m Ivy
crawling around
the random place I’ve ended up

Hell
Ivy looks nice
anywhere.

Nothing is Free in This Land

The sky outside
shrieks a luminous blue-
I feel well oiled
and steady,
yet this poem
seems composed of
nervously twitching toothpicks
and rusty springs-
as I hold my breath,
overthinking its fate
in well-oiled and steady
stupidity,
it crumbles before
my eyes,
a miniature Burning Man, 
and the sky outside
shrieks laughter
now.

Most People

allergies
coffee
Mondays
gas prices
The 10:00 news
Jay Leno
the weather
last night’s party

Miniature Relationship Tombstone

She had that
strange beauty
that I will always ache for
even when I have
it
held fast in my arms.

Her body was like
ghost milk;
I reached out and grasped
and kissed
and drank of it all,
paralyzed with trust
and disbelief.

Her eyes were of course wounded
and her speech confused me
as I was left skidding
through the damaged labyrinth of her mind
never knowing quite
where to turn.

Finally Spying on the Framework of Useless Prayers

One more sip of coffee
     and the inspiration will finally come home to stay
     and I will be a free soul, burning logic for fuel
     and the world as my inspiration.

One more hurdling light-speed jaunt to the Holy Ocean
     and the inspiration will finally come home to stay
     and I will be a free soul, burning logic for fuel
     and the world as my inspiration.

(The Question begs the Answer, yet the Answer refuses the Question’s advances, feeling way too crowded by the Question in the first place, declining to loosen even a single stitch of it’s elegant clothing, all the while keeping a cautious eye on this desperate and irrational Question.)

One more line written
     and the inspiration will finally come home to stay
     and I will be a free soul, burning logic for fuel
     and the world as my inspiration.

Pre-Coffee Orgy Battle-Cry

Oh gods
what are you giving me?
This lifeless body
that constantly wilts
and a whole arcade
of laughter responsibilities
dancing before my
drooping eyes?
Fuck you!
You stinking pieces of shit!
I’ll drink and consume myself
full of evil chemical
for ever
always
rather than give in
to your bland gray
wilting death!
I will not wilt!
I will
burn!

Mid-Coffee Orgy Battlecry

HA HA!
OH YES!
filled to the brim
with lovely
mechanical
artificial
energy fire!
Yes!
now that my
balls
are strapped
to the
caffeine electrode
I snap my jaws
and brains
with hollow lightning bolts
and two dimensional thunder
in all directions
till this possessive demon
flees for it’s life
and leaves me
once again
empty.

Meanwhile on D’s Nose

I’m just a chancre sore
festering
on your nose
irritating- aren’t I?
But that’s okay,
it doesn’t bother me that you feel this way
in fact-
I laugh at your hideous predicament.
I’m stuck in your face
I ooze away happily
while you stress all day
over life’s petty concerns.
I’m a greedy nasal parasite.
I laugh metaphorically
all the way to the bank.

The only problem is

I hate it

when you

sneeze

Matches Are Not Toys

Like a rare geyser
these explosions of hyper-electric
creative flash forest fire
only ravage my
usually dormant
mind-eye-time
machine
when they damn well want to,
and this one has been
drinking and driving me
all over the fuck
all day
and now deep into the night.
At this point I feel that
creativity itself
is abusing me
and setting its own fires
underneath me
to keep me in constant transition
between anticipated
hallucinatory
rest-stops;
why else
would I be giving
poor Smoky the Bear
the finger
and running through
these dry
dry hills
with my brain on fire?

8:00AMSaterdayMorningLongsDrugs

8:00AMSaterdayMorningLongsDrugs
a video camera paints a ghost green pixilated version of me
and shoves it rudely in my face
the instant I walk in.
Some young girl
asks a cashier
“do you have any Silly String?’”
and the question
sounds like a clown’s bicycle horn,
ship-wrecking sadly against this whole pathetic
8:00AMSaterdayMorningLongsDrugs
scene
as I pour over and over in my mind-
the notebook options:
“What the hell is going on here?  These are $.99 for 70 pages, and these are $1.99 for 100 pages.  Who prices this shit?  Do I want a thicker notebook?; The 100 page $1.99 option seems to hold itself rigid more, so there’s that advantage.  Yet, the 70 pager, besides being the more efficient buy, would be lighter in my satchel.  Plus they don’t have the 100 pagers in this cute green color.  Oh wait, they do!  Hmm. Perhaps I should go for 140 pages for $1.98, one cent cheaper than 100 pages (in one book).  Oh!  Hey!  Wait a second; all the 100 pagers are wide ruled and these 70 pagers are “college ruled” which I prefer!  Whew, saved by the “ruled/not ruled” distinction.  Oh, come to daddy you beautiful little greenish 70 page bastard you!”
sorry
8:00A.M.SaterdayMorningLongsDrugs
can bring out this sort of
ludicrous mental behavior,
especially while throwing in a hangover
for good measure.
Ambling up to the counter now,
reveling in hollow notebook victory,
the Globe
boasts the beautiful headline
“Who’s Gay and Who’s Not on TV”
in large
patriotic letters
and while I’m thinking about how much
less I would have liked that headline if they
had used a comma in the proper place
I discover that
“$.59 is my change”
(I bought a pen, too).
Exiting Longs Drugs, 8:19AM:
“I wonder what sort of pointless crap I’m going to start with on my new green notebook”.

Listening to “Giant Steps”
take #5
Trane could be said
to be attempting
human exploration
of
a happy fury
and that just so happens
to be right where I’m at
right now
and godammit
if the happiness runs out
I’ll just attack it with some
of that
good old fury
that burning
holy anger
that is life itself
pushing its way
right on through my skin.

Laundry Lesson

Readying
my dirty laundry for washing
(a seemingly innocent task)
I came upon a tiny white sock
that obviously wasn’t mine.
(much smaller, and.....)
I realized that it must have been yours
and like a
FOOL
I decided to smell it
just to make sure
and sure enough
this damp, sordid little sock
eloquently spoke
delicate female backdrops
like roses
swimming is sweet buttermilk
and for a second I perceived the outline
of your tiny ankle
from within the sock
and like a
FOOL
I tried to pull it back
for a kiss
but
of course
there was nothing there.

I’ve always rooted for the
wind
and the storms
and the floods
sitting in stale classrooms
the teacher droning
like an incessant low speed siren,
the clammy
corners of the classroom
with abstract dust-encrusted
cobwebs
trickling over the basketball,
on it’s recess
in between recesses
calling my attention
instead.

Let's Not Go Bowling

It’s funny:
right now I can imagine
practicing my saxophone
just as much as I can imagine
sucking a bowling ball
into my nose
and shooting it out of my ass
like some sort of
human ball return.

I Wonder What She Did With My Number

I wonder what she did
with my number
-not agonizing
just intellectually theorizing:

she gets it
puts it in her pocket
forgets about it
it goes through
the wash
and the ink from my nervous pen
stains her graceful laundry
(revenge!)

or

she puts it on her
dresser and it fades in the
passing sun
and years later,
she looks at it
and remembers that weird night
and some sax player
(immortality!)

or

she leaves it
on the table
in the cafe
next to a crumpled
napkin
the two objects
befriending each other as equals
(failure!)

The Enemy as Usual pt. 2

Hey you!
Skinny silly fool
clutching your notebook
like a girl does her favorite doll
you pansy!
Whirling through your only time
unattached;
wise and useless.
You can’t make love to a notebook!
Mirrors are empty feedback loops
best avoided,
and your notebook is
nothing
but a glorified version
of a purse’s vanity mirror
you moron!
Oh yes-
begin innocently
with one hand
caressing your other hand
and sooner than you think
you’ll be gagging for eternity
on your own flesh
like some
retarded snake!

(Who wrote this poem?)

“Gotta Go To Work Gotta Have a Job” -Modest Mouse

Rest time is over-
time to go out and
march in time with the soldiers
to cut my hair
and manicure my smile
and lubricate my walk
and pacify my yearnings
by replacing them
with money.
Just like everyone else.

A Tight, White-Knuckling Grasp on Air

Goddamn-
a tight
white-knuckling grasp
on air;
trying to regrow some shoes
and reattach my
brain,
trying to re-establish my root system
and suck in some clean water
through all this
dirt
-cheap
death
that strikes
with electric daggers
sliding down
rusted alleys
and then along up
my back,
sizzling through
veins
like telephone
wires
communicating nothing but
911
desperation
in the ever-evolving
paranoid midnight
neighborhood-watch
committee
of my soul.

Girl in a Box

The other night
she lay before me,
her will held in a capsule,
shivering discretely
against white nylon cords,
a delicate butterfly
with pins piercing her wings,
and eyes probably piercing infinity
under a blindfold's care,
a fragile trembling gift
crucified before me
that I could never deserve.

Friends

just another addiction?

just another crutch?

or a vital stepping stone
     to becoming human?

For Glenda the Good Witch of the Office (Something She Shall Never Read)

-At another time in my history
I would be on the floor
nipping at your
cool
white
heels,
twisting in gangrenous
agony
upon your departures,
and all my daydreams
would be superimposed by your
cool
white
body
and the ghostly romantic intangibles
of your
cool
white
mind
-but it seems that nowadays
I’m too
cool white
myself
to get down on my hands and knees
for no reason.

Fluorescent Light Warehouse Culture

These people
these poor, unfortunate
warehouse working bastards
live a life of
7-11 meals
and cigarettes at break
smoke drink eat shit
work work work.
The bare necessities.

and in their daily
tombs 
the fluorescent lights glare on
harsh, naked
uncaring and
of course
utterly efficient.

Eye Contact

She was talking to her friend
when I,
walking across campus,
made eye contact with her,
a very
FIERCE
eye contact;
she was
“in my scope”
ZAP,
she was mine for a
moment.
A tender young beauty;
dark eyes,
slender body,
cropped jet-black hair,
fair skin,
ZAP.
I passed brusquely by to hear her utter a tiny laugh and say to her friend
“Uh, wow, I forgot what I was talking about......”

Tin Wisdom

We’re all very tired in this
nearly empty Chinese restaurant
so late on a Sunday night,
me and the balding, grunting man
awaiting his food to go.
There is no
music
and the silence is
golden,
like tiny tin dragons
on a string
choosing not to clink in
a closed
Chinatown department store-
as the waitress brings my hot food
and looks down at this page
and then at my face and asks
“study?”
and I say
“Yes.”

“Effortless”

Hey, lets over-think the word “effortless”!
What is so beautiful and seductive about this word to me?
When I say it or think about it
it takes the sugarcoated shape
of all the golden-orangy carrots
which I dangle in front of myself daily
so as to avoid the
cruel clockwork logic and petrified branches
of stone-minded all encompassing
wisdom.

This word
“effortless”,
is a succulent female voice
powering a cotton-candy staircase;
my floating passage
toward a tragic
toothache shrine of tang.

Dunce

Dunce

Yes
my nervous buzzing entity
screams always for
phantom discipline
and the
cruel delicious freedom
of confinement
as I scour this globe
for women who can
paint themselves schoolteachers
in my mind
and sooth
my jangly form
into meditation
with
gifts the shape
of
slavery.

Dumb Mechanical Luck

Dumb Mechanical Luck

There are insidious insects
burrowing electric tunnels
in place of my arteries

a purple/blue gasoline flame
flashes on and off like a carnival sign
in place of my brain

and soon my bones will be replaced
with rusty automobile parts
that would be better left in fields

and I will be a walking talking
hillbilly garage sale
a mechanical ghost
held together by cobwebs
and fueled
by dumb mechanical luck alone.

The Evolutionary Dominatrix

The Evolutionary Dominatrix

Us men we're rabid dogs,
frothing forth in red-eyed hopeless
endless
desire
to hunt, rape and pillage.
Momentarily this pen is a phallus,
and I wish to spear,
spear, spear, and then
to be covered in mint leaves,
naked and perfect
and emptied of cum,
tasting the fresh calmness and satisfaction
of pure dewy plantlife around and throughout my exhausted limbs,
finally rid
of this electric
buzzing nuisance,
this cartoon-orange
jagged desire engine,
controlling the roll of the eye,
the movements of the hands,
and the pull of time,
the evolutionary dominatrix,
whipping us all out of
untraveled imperfect meaningless paths
and back onto the big meaningless
libidous
reproductive highway,
forever humping the clock
with no weekend
in sight.

Do I Smell Muffins?

Do I Smell Muffins?

Yeah!
The doctor’s receptionist
wriggles her body
to the “Pointer Sisters Live”
album,
she especially likes the “rap parts”
and
the numerous soprano sax solos.
“ooh ooh!”
Ah, yeah!
Rockin’ the office!

right now
waiting for my elderly landlord
to leave the wound specialist
(I gave him a ride here)
detesting and laughing at the receptionist
with her JC Pennys professional
career suit
and face caked with
working woman’s paint.

however, her assistant
is young
and cute
and young
and she just gave me the “shy/becoming eye”
but I see
by random turn of her
head
and a professionally cold
flash of her eyes
that all she has going for her
is her age
and soon
she will be baked into a little
office muffin
just like all the others.

Death is Unavoidable

Death is Unavoidable

She’s pretty,
and she’s pretty,
but none of them
are worth dying for.
I know one that is-
she lives in San Francisco
in a cool little flat
with another one
but no one
should die for someone
that they don’t know
and I doubt I would know her anymore
(the dying for one that is),
and anyway,
I say
die for none of them;
let them die for you.

But the one across the way
who was one of the two in this cafe
that I dismissed
as not being worth dying for
just turned her head
at a perfect angle
and I felt a little part of me
die.

D Laments Youth!

D Laments Youth!

Goddamn
beauty
so temporary
withering before me
sliding slowly from the mirror
oh-
I despise my reflection
because it’s so
goddamn
beautiful.

Crying Through a Funnel

Crying through a funnel
funeral time
bring out the dead
place flowers on their heads
the savage turn of the screw
the twisting reality of deed
with evil accents
on graceful dark
contorting violent
violet
riveting nightmares
brilliant in their ability to
trap the mind in a soft pastel cage
and communicate
without the use of language.
What is a word
what is a note
one as meaningless as the other
both as meaningless
as this
“poem”.

Rant # ?

Rant # ?


I don’t take Prozac,
sorry.
I guess I fear the tasteless frosting
that coats most people.

“-ooh look!  It’s somebody’s
   birthday!”
 “-did you color your
   hair?
   I really like it!”
“-hee hee hee!  No rest for the
   wicked!”

All these pleasant plump
T.G.I.F.ers,
who spend Sundays with their noses
buried in Maya Angelou books,
gad!
with their fat free cookies
and JC Pennysâ Career Suitsãâ,
all these women
band together in the office
dependent on their daily ring of hollow muzak compliments,
constantly getting older
and fatter,
while eating more and more
fat-free cookies
and decaffeinated coffee
and diet soda,
but they are not the type to watch soap operas.
-oh, no!-
but their books are like soap operas:
“Clan of the Cavebear”
“Beloved”
I’m sure you’ve seen these
War and Peace-sized monstrosities,
they ramble on and on
so that these pleasant
pleasant middle-aged women
can temporarily exit
their flat worlds
and smother
their gray KZST minds
with fat-free stories
and cinematic walls and door and ceilings
so that they will never have to leave the movie house.  The orchestra drones on and on, playing music that stirs your heart to glory and your stomach to nausea, yet somehow you actually never really notice that it’s there, and you forget, in the sickness/euphoria, how expensive the popcorn is , and how the guy next to you laughs like an elephant at all the wrong parts, and there is always a banal, politically correct, positive and placid ending to every tale, and these women (yes, the office women, who two pages ago spread their plump sweaty legs in my mind and gave birth to this disgusting red scream of a rant) never want to leave this movie house.  For these women every day is a new scene in some audience tested, mass-marketed, shitty film and they all pray to die
before the credits roll
and it’s time to actually
GET UP
and do that high-dive leap
into the searing realities
and the beautifully
perfect imperfection
of life’s parking lots.

Chinese Restaurants Are Often White Trash Dives

Chinese Restaurants Are Often White Trash Dives


Fat Europeans wander
sweating
into Chinese restaurants
and gobble pork
and drink Bud
as they envision themselves
devouring an exotic piece
of the orient
complete with cliche’
gong crash
and out of sync
overdubbed vocals.

Cheap Travelling

When I am in my room
and my shades are drawn
or I am lying in my bed
and can only see the skyline
then I could be anywhere.
New York.
Paris.
Montana.
Big Sur.
Salmon Creek.
Tahiti.
Well, maybe not Tahiti.
Anyway,
you get my
point.

Cartoon Headless Roasted Chicken Island Fantasies

Cartoon Headless Roasted Chicken Island Fantasies

This day has
chewed me up
and spit out my bones
and then ground up the bones
and then snorted up the powder
and gotten high off of me.

I am this day's
vice.
Today is addicted to me.

Its gone to meetings
with yesterday
and the day before that
and talked about it's
hopeless addiction
to me;
about how it dreams of the powder potential
of  my bones,
and how whenever it looks at anything white
it hallucinates about
my white goodness,
like when Elmer Fudd is starving
and stranded on an island,
staring at Bugs Bunny,
causing his mind to suffer those damn  
cartoon headless roasted chicken island fantasies.

Chapter 666

Chapter 666

Chapter
six hundred
and sixty six

keep head balanced
another week of fury
eating hot death
every minute

feeling sorry
for the ghosts
who serve
breakfast every morning
to “the regular”

awkward in that slot
awkward in many slots

flying down life’s highway
in an unregistered vehicle

a drifter

sans the slick theme song
and
snappy dialogue.

Upon Talking with Cameron, Age 2

Upon Talking with Cameron, Age 2

A child
possesses wisdom
WELL
beyond its years,
like senility in advance.
Talking with a child
makes so much more sense
to me than with all these
mad mad
adults,
walking around with their heads full
of opinions
and attitudes
and numbers and letters,
all hopped-up
on experience
and "wisdom",
the more you know
the less you know
for sure,
and the less you know for sure
the more mad you become
and the cycle is enough
to
KILL
those who actually think and observe
as children
all they have learned
as adults,
as it is presently trying to
KILL me.

Talking to a child
can be not unlike
the primal soothing nurturing touch of a lover,
calling up the same senseless beautiful
white-noise clouds,
like the gentle arising from a childhood's dream:
-worlds in dust particles-
-galaxies of reason in soap bubbles-
-momentous meanings in seasons-
-imagination and reality sleeping together in the same bed-
you can have all of this
when you get older too-
but imagination and reality
won't just sleep,
they will fuck;
imagination will rape reality
and then
reality will gain the upper hand,
brutally and violently
violating the imagination,
the bed is soaked in blood,
and the mind screams
sending electricity
along ice-blue veins
to bloodshot eyeballs
staring blindly,
awake
at a grown-up's world.

Brooding

Brooding

“Brooding” now
seems to be the only formula I know,
sitting alone
in crowds of people
knives and daggers aimed at my heart
and my actions are
cheesy
and selfish
and immature
and typical
and lame
and male
and stupid
and self-serving
and completely
utterly
and totally
unavoidable
as far as I can see
right now
with my petty crummy little
formula
called “brooding”.

Bitter?

Bitter?

I am
Goddamn tired
of licking the heels
of these
star-eyed maidens-
tired of hitch-hiking
aboard want-powered
automobiles
with these cool careless drivers
dropping me off at
empty locations
where there is nothing to do
but scratch at the wall
and perform countless careful
obligatory acts
of
self-denial.

Beyond Depression

Beyond Depression

I’m beyond depression,
which is not to say
that I’m
really fuckin’ depressed-

it's just to say that I
don’t believe in it anymore.

(depression’s just a bearded fat man fantastically stuffing himself down my chimney)

My house is empty,
which is not to say
that I feel empty
in some overwrought
metaphorical way-

it’s just to say that I’m
in between room mates
right now
and my landlord’s probably asleep
in front of the
buzzing yuletide
satellite god.

(cats lick themselves, paint peels from walls)

My madness is
BURNING,
and is my beacon of hope-

which is to say
that my madness is
BURNING
and is my beacon of hope.

(madness burns and is seen as “beacon of hope”)

Behind
spectacles,
her sternness
my magnet,
her silk scarf
my noose,
as I daffy duck it
all the way through
her yellow brick road.

Uninhabitable Romantic Beach Midnights

At midnight
beach grass still sways
violently
whispering all the
uninhabitable romantic
beach midnights
that have been given away
by smooth fingers and flushed faces
searching for warmth and acceptance
where there is mostly
only deep deep wind chill factors
and one million possible
species of frozen plantlife
denying death
to frozen waves.

Ashlee

Ashlee-
the two e’s on the end
remind me of e.e. cummings
or perhaps your two
eyes
as they pierce the quick
and mire of my soul
with a light
too graceful
for even cathedrals
to afford
and your laughter
shooting out
in the shape of small birds
building tiny nests,
underneath all the cold
logical
structures of my
belabored form
until I am finally ticklish everywhere
and buzzing
with the energy of
thousands of sets of tiny wings
carrying me
in every direction at once,

forever,

or,
until you take
your laughter back.

Girl

girl

Anxiety Nursery Rhyme

Anxiety Nursery Rhyme

That tension
is green
and electric
it trickles from
dark corners
a head’s turn
away
at all times

and before you can
meet it eye to eye

it pains your stomach
regions by and by.

Another Breakfast Poem (for Michelle Anna Jordan)

Another Breakfast Poem (for Michelle Anna Jordan)

Yes,
please place logs in my stomach,
slow
burning
logs
with my morning stomach acid
as hungry as fire,
and please jolt my rat-caged brain
with electricity
from the cup
so that my efforts and
musings and sideways glances
will all ring iron
with sharp edges-well defined,
against odds,
on Sunday mornings.

Old

Am I really this old?
Perhaps that’s why
I am now growing mad-
all this early growth
piled onto
this young frame,
a heavy load
(too heavy!),
all this forbidden perspective
crucifies me
and the blood just gets
everywhere;
on the friends
and the walls
and in my walk
and on any woman unfortunate enough
to crash into me
on randumb drunken freeways
(and alleys!)
and other meaningless
excursions.

(sorry,
space has been explored.
everyone just go home.)

Curse the Puppet Show

Ah Karen-
fictitious ghost
haunting a beautiful
idea
in my mind,
you can feel the falsity
of all this
yearning
of all this
anticipation,
you come from a clan
which fights this nonsense
with razor sarcasm
and a bitter, bitter love,
all of you
with your poor caged hearts,
growing tenderer by the minute;
overprotected,
yes, your smothered heart
and my naked infant one,
bouncing off each other now
with a sound louder than fate
and much louder than tendency
and much more painful than both.

Ah Karen,
we suffer the bondage
of slot car tracks
and curse the puppet strings
that we actually hold
ourselves.

Aching For Some Sort Of

Aching for some sort of
beauty or grace
in this barren land
as my blood rusts
and I turn to stone
and watch the vultures
tear away flesh and cackle
and spin
fueled by final knowledge
of death
being the only truth
and life being that
meaningless
void
/////////////in between/////////////.

11:35

11:35

Here at the Petaluma Center for the SRJC
the clock is stuck at
11:35
it has been
11:35
for two weeks now
here at the Petaluma Center for the SRJC
my educated
guess
is that tomorrow will be an
11:35er
as well.
Probably the day after that
too.
Oh how
I wish it were possible to climb up that
clock tower and
twist those hands up
making them say some impossible time
like 57:65PM
or even something cute like
12:34 or
the old traditional
4:20

anything
but
11:35
11:35
11:35
11:35
11:35
11:35
11:35
11:35
11:35
however
soon
on another humdrum day here at
the Petaluma Center for the SRJC
some computer science major
will lift up his
standard issue head
and see the holiest of sights-

11:36!

and he will pass the word and
announcements will be made
and plans planned
and there will be an 11:36
celebration
and all the administrative assistants
and career path hopefuls alike
will bask and roll
in the glory of this monumentous development
called
11:36
and a plaque will be cast
and awards handed out
(the first one to the famed computer science major who first caught the sight,
it will be called the Amerigo Vespuci Award)
and pictures taken of the clock
with all the administration
including one wacky photo of the dean
pretending to pull the minute
hand one more minute
in order to prompt another day of celebration
so that he can get out of his office
and into the fresh California air....
...........
so perhaps 11:35 is okay with me.
At least it keeps things
quiet
around
here
for now.

The Chinese Mafia

Eat with your left hand
write with your right
in this Chinese dive,
the Chinese mafia
watch me eat,
check my progress
(or am I just paranoid?).
More water from an old Gator-aid bottle?
certainly,
heavy on the MSG
please.
THAT GUY
from the kitchen
never takes his eye off me
for too long,
its as if he suspects me
of getting up
and assassinating the cook
with my fork.
I think I'm in an experiment
of some sort:
"will he eat it?"
"I think he's eating it!"
as the young Chinese daughter
sits in the first pew (church-like)-like table,
in the strange silence of
of this Chinese sanctuary,
quietly doing her homework,

and that kitchen guy
continues to stare.

Wolverine Clarity

My mind bends
with wolverine
clarity
as I claw at myself
and dream of setting
everything I've ever thought,
said
or done
on fire.

"..you've gotta smash your brain-cells, you know?.. ..crack 'em.." --Geets Romo

Ahh yes, we laugh
at the silly hipster's
stereotypical
cartoon mental meanderings
and esoterical
abstrakt nonsensicals,
but
(please believe me)
there can be invaluable experience
in the subjecting of yourself
to the nightmare rivers of
singeing everclear mornings,
to the echoing heartbeat of despair,
ringing truths of soltude's
unchangeable eternal reality,
and to the absurd stupid
howling winds of general
chaotic nature/man madness-
all scraping black dry branches
of wisdom
against your naked sides,
signing their names illegibly,
in random red ink
on pale human parchment.

Yet Another Mood Splinter Snap-Shot

Oh fuck
shit
innerexplosions
some feelings
cannot
be written down
her jawbone is so perfect
salsa dripping
Mel laughing
violins playing
Mexican violins
the chicken burrito has arrived
the chicken burrito is being eaten
“Honey, I think that man is staring at us.”
“Just ignore him.”
She has the most pleasantly slight of figures.
rice-rice-rice
chicken
notes-wrong ones
out of tune
misplaced
even worse: hesitant
ungraceful
my horn is a pacifier only
no other value
rusted
bent
her smile
so graceful
beans rice
chicken.

Who Can Resist the Sky?

Like usual
the vaulted blue skys
scream escape,
sending down their
cloud-shaped wings
to lift my mind
straight on up
through
their vaulted sweet eternity.

The Music

When the music is bad
it’s real bad.

But when the music is good
it becomes a bird
released
finally
by the hands
of all things
earthly.

Just Another Final Goodbye

Well folks
the closing music
is being cranked up
as I ink
so farewell
listeners
and may all your
days be
filled
with a graceful
brutality.

Typical Emo Bullshit Yields Truth

I’m using half a pen
     and half my brain.

I’m wearing used clothes
     and thinking used ideas.

It’s raining outside and
     I’m raining inside.

I’m being ignored
     and I’m ignoring.

Ahh-

everything makes sense.

Overturned Big Rig on 101

Truth is not supreme
this I have learned
truth is the interstate highway
and is backed up with
traffic
style is the opposite of truth
and is the
rarely used picturesque
back road.

Trans-Sobriety Communication

I can do anything
anything
this isn’t because I’m stoned
this is real:
Inner-Smart-Logical-Enlightened-Only-Element-Visible-When-Stoned-Damian
stretches a graceful
wing
forward to tap
Everyday-Angst-Yet-More-Capable-Of-Coordination-And-Action-Damian
on the back
and tells him it’s alright.

The Naked Truth

Tonight the naked truth of the
moonlight
shattering through my window
exposes my lonely existence
like a boy caught stealing.

Tired of All These Looming Shadows

Tired of all these looming shadows,
my friend’s junk collections intermingling with my own-
all of our wires are tangled
and nobody wants to unplug anything.

The Swing Dance Craze Part 3 (This Pen is Possessed by the Devil!)

Jazz begun in
whorehouses
and I kind of wish that this
(Ernie Small’s Big Band Concert at “Cub Rumors”)
was a whorehouse
because I wouldn’t mind
buying one of these
angelic little lobotomized Christ-cadets
for an evening
to take home and crucify
with ropes instead of nails
in my bedroom
perhaps that would help them
feel closer to their
dead husband
the carpenter
and I could get my kicks
to boot!

The Queen Takes Control

I’m entrenched in splendor
ascending from my throne
Mr. Tenor in hand
we compliment each other
job well done
and then
I glance down from my
rainbow
and see a small
fawn
who effortlessly
strips me of my royalty
and assumes command
of my entire
kingdom.

The Problem

Christ
she looks like
Tinkerbell
that aqua blue blouse
sends my mind underwater
she floats
she burns neon across my eyes
she’s made of strawberries
she’s unaware that I am
trying to write a poem about her
right now

so’s her boyfriend


yeah.

The Horn Sections of the Big Bands of the 20s and 30s

The horn sections
of big bands
of the 20s and 30s
still scream
and etch their
tensions
through five dollar speakers
in dives across
this great expanse.

Through some old
dust covered
Philco radio
Harry James’
whimpering trumpet still
needles through the
veins
of indifferent patrons
with a cobwebbed
sentimentality.

Those old songs.
“The Glory Days”.
Marilyn Monroe
shaking her dumb ass
all over mankind.

Harry James’
on his break at the Flamingo
with Marilyn in his dressing room,
he loses himself
inside Marilyn’s
commercially invaluable body

and his trumpet is miles away.

The End

Coastal beginnings,
sand through
sand through
sand
a see-through
chiffon
blouse
with flowers on it
just left there
five feet in front
agony in the garden
part two
me on my knees
dropping to my knees
forever dropping
the scent of perfume
the scent of burned wood
the clouds open up
my riffs pass before me
eyes upturned
I
fall
in-
to
it.