WARTIME SOB STORIES

This Time It's Real (Hopefully)

2011-03-29T00:43:00.003-04:00

I was born to find you
but will die still searching.

I've spent the better part
of four months in this room,
drawing the shades, ignoring phone calls,
and waiting for you
to come and fix me.
So stubborn,
you are.

I'll never figure you out.

I know,
I know.
It's time to move on.

Anywhere But Earth

2011-03-18T00:44:00.006-04:00

Now that I think about it,
she never offered any words to calm my nerves
after I confronted her about what I knew
she was going to do to me.

I hugged her outside of her house.
The house that her parents paid for.
I had four million words I needed to say
but all of them so useless.

She kissed my ear
and asked me if I'd call her in a couple hours.

I said I would.
I knew I wouldn't.

I never lied to her,
but what I didn't tell her
will send me to hell,
all alone.

For as long as I live
I'll never forget the feeling in my
gut when I knew that this
would be the last time I'd touch her skin.

I'd do anything to be anywhere
not feeling that feeling.

American Legion Post # Unknown.

2011-03-04T01:11:00.005-05:00

It seems more like a dream to me now, really.
Some one pulled the plug before I was done.

When I hugged you tonight, out of the corner of my eye
I saw such disappointment and frustration on the faces of
all of our 'friends'.

Imagine how I feel.
You can't.
I promise.

Dance With Me, Richie

2011-02-24T23:20:00.004-05:00

"Dance with me Richie
Dance with me Richie!
Dance with me Richie!!!"

She might have asked me a thousand times.
I was too busy thinking about you.

So I finally caved.
"I don't dance, but alright."

After a few minutes she began panting into my ear,
grabbing my arms and kissing my neck,
making it perfectly clear what she wanted from me.

And I thought of you.

My best friend played some of my favorite songs from across the empty bar.
The volume was staggering.
She panted more desperately now,
playfully digging her fingernails into my biceps,
Pulling me closer
and closer.
I could only smile and pretend to remember the words to the songs
that I once loved and the flesh of the ghost I can't just can't give up.

I was thinking of you.

December Fourth, 11:59pm

2011-02-07T02:14:00.004-05:00

The last cigarette I smoked tonight
tasted like the cold air of this past winter.
It tasted like both of our tears.
Or kind of like blood.

December fourth at 11:59pm,
that's all I could think about.

December fourth, right before midnight.
One minute before my twenty-fifth birthday.

Just sixty agonizingly slow seconds before it all
fell apart.

Or maybe that's when it all came together. . .

Either way,
I meant it when I told you,
"Everything will be O.K. baby"

95 North

2011-02-06T03:01:00.003-05:00

I used to hate the town I grew up in.
I ran away.
I buried my family, friends and a nightmare of a past
so
deep
in my head
when I convinced myself that
moving 700 miles away would make me
comfortable with my own flesh.

I see it all much clearer now.
While I did need to get away,
I don't hate anymore,
not like I used to.

I wish I could stop running into you
but this town is so god damned small.

My Hate Has Followed Me.
My Hate Has a New Name.

I wanna go home now.

Oral

2011-01-07T00:04:00.003-05:00

She used to beg me to go down on her in my car.
I would wait all week to see her and I'm sure she had no idea
just how much it meant to me.

We'd wait,
and wait,
and wait.

Then she'd look over to me with her half frozen eyes
and her half frozen smile and say,

"Do you wanna?"

And I'd play dumb.
Every single time.

"Wanna what?"
I would say back, knowing exactly what she wanted.

I swear to god that question stopped my heart
every single time.

Cheater

2010-12-26T03:32:00.003-05:00

It's been a long time since I've had the courage to pick up the pen,
or even think about picking it up.

I don't know.

Maybe it's having your insides ripped out,
maybe it's all the people you share nothing in common with,
maybe it's your small town closing in on you,
or maybe,
just
maybe
it's you.

I don't know.

No Division

2010-06-27T04:41:00.002-04:00

And I remember the sweetest of things.
Those sounds and those words that age has watered down.
Such a god damned shame.

Hot Water Music.

The winter of my sixteenth birthday
I got my first taste of blood.
That was the first time that I ever considered suicide.
I used stolen money from the laundromat to buy records
then convinced myself that punk rock could save me.

that's why I'm still here.

A Thousand Volts

2010-06-17T00:42:00.002-04:00

The homeless.
I wish I could say that they are a dying breed.

They're not.

They,
just like you and I,
are too scared to kill themselves.

I take mine in small doses.
Other, more fortunate souls,
take it all at once.
Either thru traumatic early years,
or failed adulthood.

They know just when to quit.
Perfection.
It's an art one could never hang
on any wall.
ever.

2010-04-30T01:00:00.002-04:00

...And here we are. .
You know, after so many years of pretending to be a writer
and a reader, I really have not gained much.

I'm still just as hopelessly lost
at 24
as I was
at 16.

8 years in a tomb.
. . . and counting.

Pony Pen

2009-12-15T23:55:00.002-05:00

I see no reason to sleep,
to rest.
After negotiating the wet streets
of a decaying southern ghost town
I've found my self back in my room.
I live with strangers.
They have no idea
that they live
with a murderer.

Day 1

2009-12-03T01:17:00.002-05:00

Once in a while,
between the fits of coughing
and choking,
you get a second to take a
deep deep breath of the world.

"Oh My God."
Is usually all I have time to say. . .

Then you wake up.
Then you go to work.
Then you sleep.

Then you forget what it's like
to want or care for anything.
And then you're no longer human.
It's so much easier
than I'd ever imagine it would be.

The Love of My Life

2009-09-22T00:20:00.002-04:00

So good to see you, Old Friend,
Old Boy.
Did you get anything done?
Did anything fall in to place for you?

No.
Not really.
I learned how to delay the hands
of a time bomb;
to give it a few more
undeserved clicks,
but that's about it.

Well,
then why'd you tell us
you were going to fix it?

The same reason I told my self I would;
I want it fixed.
But you gotta understand,
it's hard.
I'm trying,....

I am doing it
all by myself.

Health Insurance

2009-08-10T13:20:00.003-04:00

Johnny told me yesterday that,
"Steel is strong because it knew
the hammer
and white heat."

But so do I,
And I never once felt strong.
I was weened off the magic,
cold turkey on the day
I crawled out and have been
battling the withdraw symptoms
all alone in the dark.

You can convince yourself
of whatever reality you want,
if you know how to smile
and speak fast.

There's no such thing as a
necessary evil.

Run.

A Little More Proof

2009-08-10T12:59:00.003-04:00

6/23 1:29PM: I don't care, about anything, any of this. I should have know better than to have expected honesty.

6/23 1:36PM: Your doing this all to yourself. Jesus Fucking Christ Rich.

6/23 1:37PM: You're right. I honestly wish you well. Never see you again.

6/23 1:41PM: All of this proves you never loved me.

6/23 1:42PM: Love Is Not Possible.

6/23 1:44PM: You really have alot of balls to be such a flaming fucking asshole.

6/23 1:45PM: I learned from the best.

Anchored In

2009-06-25T13:01:00.003-04:00

He had to have weighed at least five hundred pounds.
I despised him but he sold me my first hits of acid and didn't try to make small talk.
The dusty television atop a stack of orange milk crates provided the only light source in his father's dank cellar. He was watching sports highlights and refused to look at me when I said hello so I tossed a bill on the makeshift coffee table between the fifteen empty, half gallon iced tea cartons. He slid a small piece of paper toward me, keeping his attention on the television. I told him to double up on the blotter tab for free and extended my hand with an blank face.
Two for the price of one.
He complied nervously placing the drugs in my sweaty palm and let out a hideous grunt while struggling to lift his mammoth frame up from the couch. He wanted to say something, I felt it, but wisely kept his mouth shut. A wash machine somewhere in a dark corner of the basement rattled. I wondered how long he'd be able put up with himself down there in his drug dungeon.
With a fist closed firmly around the drugs, I bolted out of the house and left the the slumped over dope pig to his misery and sports bloopers.
It was night before a holiday, I don't remember which one, maybe Thanksgiving. I still lived in that shithole town that I still bare scars from.
Stoic.
The Hopeless
Land of Consumer Opportunity.
The rush hour, traffic jam, heartburn, capital of the great Northeast.
On my way back to my empty apartment I dropped the acid at a red light, the same light where I was once sprayed the face with gasoline and then hit by a car many years before.
Destroy.
Move on.
Forget.
While chewing on the LSD soaked blotter paper like a finger nail, I walked into my apartment and took a seat on the my broken chair, the only one I owned, to stare out the window until the poison took effect. The hundreds of overfed and ungrateful mothers, fathers and children in all adjacent apartments where by this time fast asleep and completley oblivious to the vile plotting of their neighbor, the young anarchist.
Resting before yet another day of playing those god damned Rat Games.
The perilous pursuit of 'happiness'.
Piss on it all.
If you've ever been tortured
or left for dead
you'd know to never make the tragic mistake
of believing in safety and order.
Sleep well.
Debt awaits.
But not me. I woefully wandered through my disgusting one bedroom second floor home like some widower's ghost; picking up dirty clothes and rearranging garbage and junkmail and books and whatever I had the strength to pick up until a knock at at my front door nearly stopped my heart. I'd drunkenly invited a couple of friends of friends whom I barely knew back to my place to drop acid earlier that night and somehow completely forgot.
"How you feelin' man?" One of them, a known psychopathic drug addict, asked me while entering the apartment. I paused for a second to find out if the shit had kicked in yet.
"Normal. I don't like it. Let's get some air."
We stood in silence on the balcony staring at the moon with the orchestra of insects and foxes bellowing from the forest. One of the guys jokingly pretended to jump from the banister and interrupted my deep concentration. I was thinking about high school and mass burials, praying for forgiveness, praying for the drugs to fix me.
Then all at once, with no warning or remorse, it stuck me like lightening. Boom.
I let go.
My mouth and eyes opened as wide as possible and I lost my sense of sound. The crickets stopped, the moon sprinted across the sky and disappeared, and I was resurrected.
The evil hands of LSD clutched my throat with a murderess grip and catapulted my body into the deep space.
Cannonball into oblivion.
"Are you alright, dude?" is what I think someone said.
"Have you ever wanted to write a song in the sand on the surface of the moon?"
I mumbled to the audience. I knew at that point to keep my mouth shut.
Lucy grabbed me and cradled me like a newborn. She sung softly into my bleeding ear:
"Burn away.
Burn away.
Bombs away.
Come with me.
Ride the wings of the Blacks Swans
of poison pond.
Purple and
White dust
"We're here for your heart"
Zero Gravity Love
Free Fall Romance
It's OK if you can't dance.
No Reality
No Words
No God;
Just Drugs."

The sirens had stopped. Someone out on Pluto or Saturn had called of the manhunt. I was free and terrified at what freedom implied. For twelve straight hours I stared at a yellow wall in penance, giving thanks. I don't remember when or why my guests left. I didn't care, couldn't have even if I wanted to.
I left my chains and shackles in the bath tub with the rest of my clothes and danced nude to the sound snoring neighbors and house pets throughout the rest of the night.
"Do you self a favor, become your own savior" it read on a poster above the broken television.
It pays to have friends in high places.

Rust & Roses

2009-06-25T11:49:00.001-04:00

I tasted the blood on my lips.
She fed me more of her hot beer breath,
panting like a bloodhound after the hunt.
Force fed lust.
It couldn't have been more than thirty degrees that night but that back of the car felt like the a furnace. We went over a bump and she bit me again, this time harder, letting out another fiendish giggle.
I tasted iron. Unbearable.
"Whoa, chill out with that, it fuckin' sucks." I warned. I don't think it phased her at all.
The highway roared by beneath our drunken bodies.One my my favorite songs blared from a speaker that held up my head but all I could think about was her smell and the horrible taste of an other human's blood.
Rust and Roses.
It cloaked the night, suffocated me into submission. The rubber roar from below the car's floor-pan lured us to down, down, down, to the narrow space between the front and back seats were empty bottles and god knows what else dug into my spine.
I laid paralyzed, with a beautiful young woman on top of me, eclipsing my view of the new year's moon. Just a couple of hours before this I watched her piss between two parked cars, stand up, then huddle close to me against a brick wall outside a crowded bar and helped me drink my 40 of Olde English to rid another year's worth of leaches and let downs.
I had just met her.
The fangs seep so criminally slow sometimes.

Apprehensive Hugs

2009-06-19T15:48:00.003-04:00

She patted me on the back.
That's when I knew I had lost.
Nothing I could say, I'd already said it all.
Patted me on the back.
No longer in love,
no more ambition.

Her mother stood listening in the living room.
I don't think she heard
my flesh burning
or the thud of her
daughters boot against my chest.

Thank god for that.

Halftime

2009-06-12T12:22:00.004-04:00

Still not quite there.
I know it's out there though;
probably looming in a cemetery field on sore feet,
or maybe,
hiding under some parked car in a city I've never been to.
We'll someday cross paths-
but not yet.
I'll ride it to the edge of the universe.
To the black land
where the non-gods sit in flimsy plastic chairs,
screaming and howling in laughter
at such an upside down world
eating itself alive.
I will never stop till it's found.

The highs leave me burnt.
The
lows
leave
me
for dead.
I've gained no ground on the ghost.

The Queen Of Warsaw

2009-02-25T11:48:00.032-05:00

The Queen Of Warsaw
By Richard Krauss

The door crept open like a grin on the old woman.
She stood at the threshold of her apartment watching me with her sad, glassy vulture eyes through an uneasy fluorescent glow of the overhead pendant light affixed to the hallway ceiling. She didn't move though, just glared at me intently from her doorway, her clothing and head-dress blending in perfectly with the cobwebs and dark patterned wallpaper behind her.
The hallway smelled as it usually did: a diabolic mixture of fast food, coleslaw, stagnant water and shitty diapers. That shameful odor carried with me for so many months.
God Damn.
I placed my laundry basket on the floor in front of my apartment door so as to make room for the woman to go about her business, offering a nod of, ‘hello’ with a tenuous smile.
Still, she didn't move.
“Hi, how are you?" I asked, eagerly unlocking my door.
"I mees my husband." She responded in an unfamiliar Polish accent. I had lived next to her for almost a year but this was the first time I'd actually heard her voice. I turned my head towards the wrinkled old woman. A cold, vacant face pleading to be consoled greeted my gaze with eyes the color of volcanic ash.
"Oh...well what time does he get home? Is he at work?"
"Oh, no!" She yelled, sending an echo throughout the entire apartment building and out into the parking lot. My nerves rattled and I felt my jaw begin to lock in panic.
"He not come for me...O’no…
He no comes!
He is died...twulve yees ago."
She curled her tiny hands into fists, raised them to chest level and began to slowly convulse.
"I hate it...
I hate it!"
The woman screamed at me, sinking her head towards the floor, sobbing and babbling in an incoherent stream of misery. The hallway strip lighting cast its hideous yellow ray like a monsoon of piss up and down the narrow corridor.
When you've locked horns with such a debilitating force,
it can suck the marrow from your bones
if you don't
Run
Like
Hell.
I knew that there was nothing I could do or say to comfort her.
"Aw..."
I interrupted, suppressing my tears,
“I’m really sorry to hear.”

And I truly was.

I opened the door to my stifling apartment, walked in, and took a seat on the edge of my stained futon where I found a pen and piece of paper. Trough the wall that separated our living rooms I observed the woman's retreat back into her empty home; maneuvering with cautious footsteps around dusty furniture and countless stacks of yellowed newspaper and grocery receipts. The springs of her couch let out a rusty screech as she flopped down, exhaled loudly, turned the on the television, and waited.
My Polish Princess.
Slumped over in post-war agony.
Still honing the dull daggers of reality.
It won’t be long, lady. I said to myself in a nervous whisper.

He was coming, we both knew it.
On her heels like a stampede of brainsick rats from a sewer fire.
Finally, a solution.
Rest for a tired widow.
The crushing anger of 4,380 empty-handed twilights and lonely meals spent peering out of a second floor apartment window at the shadows of absolutely nothing at all.
The holidays in funeral parlor silence, the birthdays in bed.
All these god damned hells to be whisked away by his gangly arms.

The Queen Of Warsaw Vs. Death in Boots

I wrote on the paper with a shaky hand, still listening to this dying woman’s breath behind the wall. My heart pounded in my chest. He was just down the hall by now and would in a few hours kick down her door, shut out the lights, and go to work on an old soul one more time. Into oblivion.

Piss on all the wasted years.
Two decades of dried blood
and mystery scars.
A million heartbeats
for nothing.
A hundred thousand drinks
of cold sweat and bleach
to stiffen the insides.
That rat bandit motherfucker,
Death.
Humanity’s outlaw.
You’ll never take me.
I walked backwards,
covered in battery acid
through the mine fields.
I won’t do it anymore.
Do your worst.

Sugar Moms

2009-02-01T15:16:00.005-05:00

She called me just to tell me she'd snorted some pills.
Fuck.
"Just be safe with whatever it is you do." I said.
My brain had been set on fire.
After a week of not eating
and receiving absolutely nothing but bad news
from what seemed like everyone I knew,
I was feeling the starved jaws of a Nervous Breakdown
seep deep into my spine.
She was drunk out of her mind
in some guys apartment and I was stone sober,
walking all alone through the city trying
with such a depleted strength to keep it together.
I wont write them down,
but I had some truly evil thoughts
pounding on the inside of my skull.
Who can I call?
Where can I go? I thought
All of my friends had packed up and moved south for the winter.
Fuck it all.
I stepped into a bar,
that same bar that so many of these sad stories come from.
I took a piss and tried to decipher
the raunchy codes and sad farewells
in the countless inscriptions in the wall above the toilet.
"I can't wait to get new tits."
Storm of leeches.
The bullshit flows.
Some young, well dressed kid saw it necessary
to give me shit as I zipped up and opened the narrow bathroom door.
"hey you ain't gonna wash your hands?"
He barked as I left the bathroom.
I kicked in the door and saw him step back
and cower his eyes away from mine.
Spastic visions of ripping him apart
and eating his flesh
flashed like lightening in my war-torn mind.
"Is there a problem?... The fuck?... You got a problem with germs or something?"
Foaming at the mouth like a rabid hound.
"Yea." the terrified white kid replied.
"O yea? Well fuck you." I yelled before spitting in his face
and slamming the door behind myself.
Not today motherfucker.
Not now.

Nails

2009-01-13T14:36:00.009-05:00

Sore.
Cold.
A heap of dirty socks and underwear
serve as a perfect bed
after 80 ounces of high octane
malt liquor
and
40 hours
of singing that
same old skull splitting tune.

This is it young man.
Whipe that bewildered look from your face.

The emergency exit.

The split-tongued
good riddance speech
To another town
another year
another home.

No time to rehearse.

This world is yours.

For better or worse.

DopeSick

2009-01-06T12:08:00.002-05:00

I waltz with wrecking balls.
I'm Tigers in Heat.
I'm the floor
of the firestorm jungle.
Annihilation in my bloodline.
I'm the tar in your lungs.
I'm the son of a butcher.

The pre-dawn
junkie march
down the avenues
of Cold Slum Babylon.

This is our New Year
and there's no cure
for these

deep

deep

blues.

They'll bare no flowers.

Just 365 more
ways to lose.

Those Ten Miles

2009-01-05T11:33:00.005-05:00

Through the wild weekend
and then back to it all.

These poisonous
soul-leeching monday mornings.
The deadbolt panic.
The mutiny of the mind.
Still dodging those
hellbound freight trains
of delusion.

You can't laugh it off
when your covered in bruises.

My heart stopped
at the red light
on my way back to work.
That's the last thing
I want to remember.

It Always Comes Back

2009-01-02T11:01:00.005-05:00

She's been tattooed to my brain.

pumped through a rusty syringe
into my bloodstream
while while we slept together
in my subzero
furniture-less bedroom.

I didn't ask for any of this.
It finds me.
I cursed these feelings
and banished these trapdoors
a long time ago.
They came back.
They re-conquered

Falling in love with a ghost.
Deep throating hacksaws for peanuts.
Gnawing on a barbed wire reality.
Blaming everyone but my self.

Here we go again.

61 Seconds

2008-12-31T10:49:00.004-05:00

Quick!
Close the door.
I want to love you on this hardwood floor.

Paraplegic.
Lovesick.

Que the fog machine.
Lets us dance,
belly-up
like sunburned earthworms.

We'll spend our honeymoon
behind iron bars
with oxygen tanks strapped
to our mouths.

We'll fuck on the bathroom sink;
like that night
I found you
wrapped around the toilet
after a few too many
glasses of glycerin
and port wine.

Turn off all the lights.
Break out the rusty chains.

No sunlight.

I've got a time bomb
for a heart.
I need you to lay close
and count backwards
to zero with me.

Fredericksburg

2008-12-30T14:25:00.005-05:00

I was trying to fall asleep in the van
in a sultry truck stop of a town in Virgina.
The power at the club inexplicably went out
and we were told that we
might not be able to play.
I wandered aimlessly
between shopping centers
and parked cars
like any other bum.

America.
Birth place of Anxious Boredom,
and the Atomic Bomb.

I met a girl,
I don't remember how or why.
She said she liked my band
and that she was 17.
I didn't care and didn't pretend to.
I small-talked then snaked my way back to the van,
half-hoping that she was following me
in my nervous pace through
the gathering of hopeless shit-talking teenagers
huddled in sporadic clans throughout the lot.

She did.
I sat on the rear bumper
picking at the rust
and stared her directly in the eyes.
She had nothing to say.
No good to offer.

Between the morose symphonic roar
of highway traffic,
the churning of my empty stomach and
the awful monotone wail of generators,
I quickly lost the urge
to swoon the girl into a
sweaty cargo van conjugal visit.
I climbed to the back of the stifling
88' GMC Conversion Van
after exchanging contact info with
the young woman and politely
sending her on her way.

I don't remember much more after that.
I woke up, we played,
I signed my autograph for a couple of kids
(a different sad story in and of itself)
and then I crossed that town
off of my
"Places I'd Want to Live"
list.

A couple of days later,
I received an alarming email from
the girl.

She wrote about how much she'd been
thinking about me and how
felt hopeless and alone.
She claimed she was 'in love' and implored me
to move in with her and her grandmother.

She also included nude pictures of herself.
It looked as if they were taken in a dungeon
or cave and many were slightly out of focus.
I perused slowly through the photos
in an attempt
to digest every incriminating detail.

The bathtub and mirror and unmade bed.
The mascara and swamp brown eyes looking
into the lens, into my skull.
My name written backwards across her naked chest
in blood-red lipstick.
The unholy desperation.

I stared at them for a few moments
contemplating a possible response
before I decided there wouldn't be one.

I scrolled down to the bottom of the
message and below the pictures she concluded:

"P.S.

I'm actually 15, not 17.
Sorry for lying

XOXOXOX "

Defrost

2008-12-17T12:57:00.003-05:00

December, Philadelphia.
Warm jugs of turpentine
in the back of the
basement.
The nooses.
They sway
from steel beams
and storm clouds.

Lets take a ride.
We're losing daylight, honey.

Chipped Fangs

2008-11-23T13:28:00.004-05:00

numb fingers.
chipped fangs.
sewer mold skull
of a wilting
old soul.

I share my
maggots with the
heatwave
dropouts.
The up and comers
of the down and out scene.
The impulse buyers
of the
back-against-the wall
blackmarket supermall.
The fiends,
scarecrows,
dingy barbedwire parking lot prophets.
Break Bread.
Drag your toes
Daddy's gonna buy you diamonds.

One day we get our place on the map
but we'll have to win this crippled man's war.

I was baptized
in crude oil
just a couple of
days after
the house burnt down.

We were there.
We were kids
in the streets
with
the red glow
of ambulance
and police car strobes
prying our eyes open.

'Goodbye bed.
Goodbye mom's secret pill stash.
Sleep tight my pets,
my malnourished friends.'

It wasn't hard to swallow.
I knew at a young age
how little you really need
to get by.
One of the few things
I still carry with me.

Putting the Wolves Back Together

2008-11-21T11:23:00.007-05:00

The archives don't lie my friend,
This is not the time
for cautious observation.

It's just too bad that
we never had a back up plan.

Sure, we can peddle our snake oil
to these greased-over
mean streets,
but come Monday
we're still garbage men.
Sifting through
bio hazardous bins of doom,
gloom
and death before bloom.
Dead on Arrival.
Burried at Birth.

No, we never really did
have a chance did we?

Here's the cold serving of Today
for us, the sheep.
Huddled
guilty
livestock.
Backs
and
hearts broken
as the devil
cycles the moon
and the sun
like puppets.

Say it with me now.
SAY IT!
Beat it to death.

All those lines
you promised yourself
you'd never forget...

SAY IT!
beat it like
burning pinata
in Heaven's
"Going out of Business"
farewell party.

Upside Down Crosses

2008-11-13T14:02:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry I missed your call, baby.
I was busy-
busy juggling chainsaws
on the
Jet-Black Tightrope.

I'm also sorry for missing your birthday.
And Christmas.
And the entire last year for that matter.
I got a little tied up babe.
I was staking those homemade upside down crosses-
you know; the ones that you love-
to the ground and lost track of time.
I think I got lost,
probably on purpose.
On that desperate, dim corner
in the meat packing district,
where I once watched you nearly choke
to death on the morbid
pale fumes of subway steam,
malt liquor
and stale bum-piss.
That's where I met the neon God of the Nile.
It was his fault babe.
He helped me hammer my crosses into
the rotten soil for a few,
begged me for my last dollar,
then lurched back to the river with his rodents.
That's where I was.

I thought I'd caught a glimpse
of your face through the
rain beads on your driver side window.
It was raining acid gasoline that night
and I was drunk and terrified,
so I don't know...

Just don't ever forget about me
alright?

I'm sorry. I mean it.

Yours from the bottom,

Hilltop Drive

2008-11-10T14:27:00.004-05:00

It took her only a two years to unravel the dusty threads.
730 days to uncoil the dry flesh
of the great King Snake.
I watched and antagonized
like a stone cold coward.
She knew,
I knew,
we both said nothing.
Like a couple of disgruntled retirees.

I over ate,
over drank
and overslept,
and then one day
she was gone.
Just
like
that.

It's a horrible pain.
Still.

The Ghost of Center City

2008-11-07T13:48:00.004-05:00

Hoarding seconds, minutes and hours.
Stacking them like poker chips,
higher and higher
to the leaking roof.
I'm a pack rat for these
junkyard memories,
I'm an avid collector
of half-empty glasses.
I always have been.

Poor in every sense of the word.

Gliding into the ice age.
On bare feet.
On fire.
Veins of concrete.
Wallet full of faded receipts.
This pocket stuffed with punched out teeth.
This long lost gutter treasure.
These aching arms,
dog-tired soul
and empty
pleading hands.

I can't give
what I don't
have.

But I'm here now.
For better or worse.
I'm all yours
on all fours.

Carcass Hustler; The Story of the Dead Fish

2008-11-04T17:20:00.005-05:00

Pounding Grime
through Slime holes.

"Toss it in,
eyes and ears shut,
Don't talk.

I've got mouths to feed.

fuck to sleep.
pay me.
leave.

lay with me,
convulse
cup my diseased reproductive organs.
I'll let you take them home with you
if you finish quickly
and tip well.

I was supposed to be mayor of paradise.
I could have been a sun Queen.
I got lost though.
Somewhere in the middle
of all those dirty stories
that I'm sure we've all read about;
the truck stop brothels,
the highway underpass crimes of passion,
jagged love triangles,
homemade abortion,
coke mirror romance,
dead hooker landfills,
mail order brides,
and choke-sex that 'went a little too far.'

I can't complain
if I'm no longer hungry.
As long as they will want it,
it's mine to give."

Nightmares of the Slug Swallower

2008-11-03T13:36:00.005-05:00

The opposite of 'up'
The opposite of 'in'
Dead
sleep
doldrums

1 million months
...........of climbing.
................these stairs.
..........These god damned
.................................stairs

Your in great shape.
You train with crocodiles.

"Stop it! come down from the steps-
Stop running away.
Come,
ease yourself
into the creek of eels,
into marriage,
into complacency,
into heart failure,
television, alcoholism, bills,
killing your children,
blaming God
and the inevitable
.22 caliber nightcap."

Nightmares of the Slug Swallower.
Cold and bitter confessionals
in the backyard cemetery.
Grasping at the ankles
of your fleeting glory days
and could-have-been's.
You've watch them float
away like clouds over a mountain.

choke.
sputter.
fall to your knees.
Brittle, liver spotted hands
to the pavement.
no more climbing.
no more apologizing.
the reptiles can sleep.

Oil For Heat

2008-10-14T14:52:00.004-04:00

We are all the same.
The sled dogs to entropy
on foot through the cold highway marathon.
To the avenues to the edge of the universe
panting,
huffing smog,
then finally retiring
our poor skulls
somewhere
on some road
or
back alley dumpster.

freezing and terrified.

one

last

mile.

Please,
just one more wholesome sunset
over the slums.
Give us a few good years,
a little oil for heat,
we won't lie about who we are.
Nothing to Nobody.
Nobody's Nothing.

Choking on Chains

2008-10-09T17:40:00.004-04:00

The eyes on the bedroom ceiling.
The bolts in the wall.
Full steam ahead at zero miles per.
All talk.
No action.
All thoughts.
No follow-through.
Sulk like paleface passengers
trapped in a sweltering rush hour traffic Jam.
It rains
and
it rains
and
it rains.
The roads to the South
and the West
call your name.
What's it gonna be?

27 Steps On the Steel Tightrope

2008-10-08T12:26:00.005-04:00

Dirty and bearded.
Surviving.
Defying the legions of antagonists.
Drinking malt liquor
down by the river
and train tracks,
next to the fire.
An old friend from out of town
had come back for a break,
'just to settle the nerves'.
We talked of lost loves
over the chatter
of the ancient freight train.
I thought about its engine
and how it had plowed through more miles
and nondescript towns
than either of us would ever get the chance to.
what a shame.
what a shame.
It was a Tuesday and we
both said that we would give anything
for it to be a Thursday,
or a weekend,
or anything
but what it really was.
I had to work in the morning.
The curtain of graveyard mist in front of the moon
swayed in the early October air.
It was still Tuesday.
I drank the last of my beer
and tossed it into the shallow water
before finding my best friend asleep on a bench.
what a shame.
"I feel like it's 1964." I said to my friends,
eating soup from a tin can.
I couldn't believe how cold the nights were becoming.
And right there,
right before our eyes
The summer gave up on us.

The Oddsmakers and Their Cardboard Homes

2008-10-07T12:09:00.010-04:00

Sitting in a field in the Northeast ventricle of a sinking country.
Just drifting like dead weight
through the capillaries of the American suburbs.
Capsizing in the dead of Autumn.
A million sad square miles falling into the sea.
Plates shift and its belly growls.
It grumbles like a beggar's belly.

I'm not afraid to go under.
I don't fear what's below,
that's where I come from.

When your will to live
and your tattered sense of optimism
finally do seize and atrophy,
don't just let them fall off
into the black eternity.
Smash the motherfuckers under your boot.
Snuff them.
Right then and there.
Drag them to the river
and wave goodbye as the current
carries them off to the furnace
behind the mountains.

Time to set the world on fire.

I sit with the vibrations-
they rattle my organs to sludge.

Just a few silent minutes to my thoughts.
The sun explodes,
sending jagged slivers of blood-orange
across the sky.
Like used daggers or envious bolts of lightening.
The clouds have turned to white coals;
dense billows of death-carbon bleeding from
massive gut wounds
like stuck pigs.
Napalm showers obliterate the treeline,
hillsides and small mountains.
Tidal waves black oil
and gasoline bury the coasts.
Wolves and snakes lap it up.
The locals wait with buckets to collect their fortunes.
Payday never comes.
Not this time.

I sit alone in my field
like a disheveled maniac
ripping blades of dead grass with my fingers
and
whistling my favorite song.

I am still so in love with my time
and my experiences
and what I have learned.
They can't touch me.
Never.
Not even at the
dwindling twilight of our worldly existence.

Meursault and the Sea

2008-10-02T14:08:00.007-04:00

And then he lifted her by her thin waist above his head, offering her silky flesh to the sun. The ocean swayed their young bodies with the current but was no match. saltwater trickled down her abdomen and onto his face just below her suspended body.
Golden, muscular flesh of youth put to work by nature.
I was much younger, probably about 17 or 18. I sat on a New Jersey beach and watched them express their love with out speaking. Smiles and laughter and a pure white innocence; it was as wholesome as a photograph in some summer fashion catalog. Their devotion was not swayed by immature malicious jokes. Looking back now, I realize that I was making fun of them out of jealousy.
I knew it back then, I just didn't have the capacity to put it into words.
I was born to live alone.
I would never get the chance stand in the ocean and offer my beautiful concubine to the sky.
Those pleasures are reserved for a subtitle conscience; the direct opposite of mine. My head and the words it puts together will put more and more miles between myself and true love with every week.
The day I find someone to truly care for is the day I find a woman with a stronger back than mine.
Stay away from me, or you too will lug my burdens like an iron halo.
To be alone is sparing another soul the death march.
That's the least I can do for humanity.

The Bulls and Bear Necessities

2008-09-29T16:44:00.004-04:00

778 points down at the bell.
The damage done,
the smoke has cleared.
The buyers and sellers scramble
for solutions with ruined nerves
and chattering teeth.

The stock market crashed and burned today.
A new record.
An all new Low.
Good.
Fuck em'.
Their is no truth to our humanity anymore.
The poetry of fighting to live has been lost.
It's perverse fantasy that will end in failure.
I wish there was a way to inform them;
The Players,
The Believers:
Your killing your self for nothing.

The photos of weary eyed investors,
head in hands
and the American Flag waiving ominously in the background.
Perfect.

Belly up to reality you fucking swine.
Patriots to the dollar.
It's all make-believe!
Your forgetting that you too are an animal.
Income Junkies
who value credit points
over the simple pleasures
of a short-term existence.
May you forever chip your teeth
and bleed your gums
when you choke on another
god damned budget bailout scheme.

It's your fault for building your banks on sinkholes.
I won't pony up for your mistakes;
For your faith in paper promises.

I don't know what I am worth.
When they asked me to set up a 401k
I kindly declined.
I don't worry about retirement funds
or social security.
I was born poor
I live poor
and I will die from being poor.
There's a visceral honesty in that.

We're not gods
We're no superior deity.
We are not the final result of evolution.
We're born to let our bodies enrich the soil.

We're the humble pigs
trembling in the shadows of the slaughterhouse.

Security

2008-09-26T11:29:00.002-04:00

Autumn in Pennsylvania.
What a sneaky motherfucker.
It blindsides me every time.
Give me back my year!
My summer!
nope.
you wont.
It's my fault for caring.

Que the dead winds.
Bring on the sorrow.

95% Fucked

2008-09-25T12:55:00.003-04:00

Right between the highs and lows,
that's where I'd like to rest.
Count to ten,
take deep breaths,
cry into a pillow,
or just drink at it...
No one loves you.
Be a fucking man about it.

Mattress On the Floor

2008-09-24T13:59:00.003-04:00

I don't step out of bed.
I pull my self up from the floor.
The aches and pains never stop.
Misery doesn't take breaks.
Not even at 8:30am.

Fire Road

2008-09-12T10:48:00.003-04:00

Truth is ugly and cumbersome
and tastes like rusting metal
and melted down tires.
I scrupulously avoid truth.
At any cost.

Empty words and dead love can kill a man.

You can eat your insides away
if your starving and dedicated.
A little will power can go a long way
in the game of self-destruction.
I'm too full of shit to be hungry.

I'm not angry.
I promise.
Im just a little sore
from sleeping in the bloody gutters
of the streets to Armageddon.

Weekender Part II: Placid Rain

2008-09-08T11:23:00.019-04:00

The hurricane rains threatened to ruin our weekend and our spirits.
Not my spirits actually, but those of the three friends I was with.
I went into it looking for trouble,
I always do.
It takes more than a little rain to slow me down.
The more hopelessly lost you become in the swamps,
the more scars and bruises acquired in the fight against burning out; the better.
You can't live a good life and expect emerge from the sewage unscathed.
At least not by my definition of a good life.

We piled into the car with a case of beer and drove north.
The big apple.
I've done that drive many times but it will forever remind me of that glorious weekend.
We arrived at the city rather quickly
but only to be informed that baseball game had been rained-out and postponed until the next day,
Sunday.
I was not surprised and silently relished in excitement.
Time to Hunt.
We would stay and watch the game tomorrow;
that was the verdict.
24 hours to kill in a killing city.
That's what I live for;
panic and uncertainly
and running from the showers of bullets and slugs.
A hungry warrior of a weak generation.
I am a king in my own way.
I had almost no money, but was rich in imagination and will.

The two-door car protected us from the rain and savage Puerto Ricans as we sat in a gas station parking lot racking our brains for the 'what's next'.
I remembered an ex-girlfriend,
the headhunter,
who had moved to New York.
One night a few months prior, she had told me how much she loved her new life in the big city and to get in touch if I was ever in town;
a kind of half-hearted gesture that I thought I would never have the need to accept.
At face value we were polar opposites, but to me there has always some sort mutual connection between us after we had lost our virginity to each other at sixteen.
An unspoken allegiance of hearts
or a dormant affection . .
I am not sure what to call it, I just know it's there.
We had a lot in common though, at least more so than most of my subsequent girlfriends let lead me astray. I had been with at least fifteen girls since she and I had disbanded in high school but I'd often thought of her as the most loving and nurturing one of them all. She was passionate and outspoken and much like me; was an acquired taste for most. She would enter my mind once in a while-particularly after a break up-and remind me of a distant time and place wherein I was able to care about someone more than my self.
The days when I could love and live despite the pollution.
It makes a little more sense after you've outgrown your dreams;
unconditional love.
I've lost much more than I've gained since then
but at least I have what I have.
She was kind towards me and was owed far more than I ever could have offered.
I appreciated her more than most.
This is something I should have told her, but probably never will.

We had spoken maybe once or twice within the past five years, but my mind was made up:
we would try to find her.
I was able to get her number from a friend.
Naturally a pessimist, I was not expecting her to answer.
She did.
After exchanging coordinates the boys and I found ourselves hopelessly lost.
Since we couldn't afford to rent a hotel room, we offered to help her move her furniture and belongings into her new apartment in exchange for a floor to sleep on.
The drive from Queens to Brooklyn was a drunken mess, made worse by an incessant downpour. The inside of the car smelled like a warehouse full of homeless men; like crushed dreams.
In that vast metropolis of workers
and beautiful people we stood out like the greasy criminals.

302 1st St.
Brooklyn, New York

That's where she stood. Outside of a friend's house waiting for us in the damp street despite fighting a cold.
We picked her up and drove through Bushwick, or Greenpoint or whatever neighborhood it was hiding behind the buckets of rain. The day was unfolding just as I had hoped, and morale was high among my companions.
You have many more options as a poor or broke man with an open mind and strong will than you do as a rich man. I' never be rich.
It's a beautiful feeling to have to pick from a slim list of slight chances.
Luxury and comfort will always be the enemy.

65 Roebling St.
Brooklyn, New York

We reached her new apartment building, greeted by the violent gusts of the storm.
After climbing a few flights of stairs she led us four drunks through the massive doors and into her new home. It was the most surreal five bedroom space I'd ever been in, the kind of place one would see on some mind numbing 'reality' television show. I was instantly in love and knew that leaving was not going to be easy on my soul. The guys and I galloped through the empty apartment like hyenas under a full moon. When she informed us that we would be going to a party in midtown later in the evening we became almost ecstatic. But as per our collective agreement to 'sport-drink' through the weekend, we refused to let "later in the evening" impede our progress. We walked through the monsoon to buy more beer, trudging slowly like escaped creatures of the amazon jungle.
What are men to do with vacant hours away from home?
The answer is beer.
Always.
When we arrived back at the apartment I laid my head on the hardwood platform in the living area and drank and sang songs to the roof under its off-beat-rain-rhythm. I felt like a rugged king. The rain refused to let up,
so did I.
When I stood up to grab a beer from the fridge I saw what I thought was a multicolored sun spot in the corner of my eye. I quickly focused.
It was a human; her roommate.
"My one roommate is a fashion designer." Was the first coherent thought to echo between my ears.
This must be our fashion designer, was the second.

He strutted into the apartment with the confidence and vigor of a black woman on a shopping spree. His collar-less, zebra-print, button-up blouse clung to frail shoulders and flailed behind him like a silk flag.
A timid ghost-man floating into sight with colors more offensive to the eye than the sun.
He entrance, so dramatic and calculated, almost seemed to be in slow motion. We honed our drunken attention and salivated like starving predators waiting for him to try to escape.
One of my more narrow-minded friends looked him over in shock when he introduced himself to us and our barrage of questions and remarks. I watched them force fed him beers despite his numerous refusals and apprehension. I was surprised to see him warming up to us, and even more so when he began to talk almost condescendingly about his motley outfit and fashion sense. We gawked and laughed and traded insults but began to accept and embrace the absurdity. Then, with almost no transition from the harmless conversation between us, the room suddenly exploded into obnoxiously bright colors and laughter and trash bags, boxes and racks stuffed with clothing. We had somehow sparked an impromptu fashion show. My friends, the unscrupulous consumers of drug and drink, snatched one shirt after another from the piles of clothing and giggled like school girls while stretching them over their beer bloated bodies. The mild mannered roommate was obviously now in his element and fully comfortable with our incoherence. He spoke with an excited lisp when unveiling us his latest projects, thrift store gems and homemade banana-colored pants. We were sucked in and for a brief moment I felt the room spin.
A mutiny of pigs in the slaughter house.
To witness the most criminally insane person I know, one of my best friends, stumble proudly through the room in a woman-sized clothing so lavish in color and design was a frightening experience.

I'd had just about all I could take of the fashion show. It was time to hit the bars and parties. My hopes were to see the gritty watering holes and dives of the New York streets but our host had other plans. The details of the first two checkpoints are no longer familiar to me. Beer will do that. I do recall meeting and talking to a co-star of a television show called "Flight Of the Concords", and him being genuinely polite.
The subway and cab rides to the party passed in a blur of lights and unapologetic faces. The rain had finally stopped. I could hear my heart pounding as we approached the club. Pretty, important people in expensive clothing smoked and laughed by the entrance.
We entered.
Single file; ready for war.
The place was packed wall to wall with exotic young people. The Red lights hung from the roof and cooked the dance floor, bar and mile-long bathroom line. The eyes of a thousand strangers packed into a heat chamber greeted mine with disinterest. An overwhelmingly homosexual putridity about the air had me apprehensive at first, but then dissipated when the mens room door swung open; releasing the toxic-hot-piss-stench.
From the ceiling hung cages.
In the cages were men.
Pretty men, wearing only briefs, dancing to the depraved music with their stone faces.
A sight that on a normal night back home would have sent jolts of anger and discomfort through me was shockingly soothing. You don't have time for your anger when your a scared mammal in a foreign jungle, and when you don't have time for anger your a free man.
My comrades soaked in the scene, wide-eyed, confused and secretly terrified.
I felt like a holiest of virgins that had been thrown to the hungry lions of a bloodbath orgy.
The boys and I stared down at the floor so as to deny the gay and red heat from boring into our flesh.
Someone handed me a Vodka.
I don't drink vodka.
I took nervous sips till it was empty and felt swim through my veins. Everything outside of 10 feet from me was lost in the hazy cloud of homo-erotic white mist but I could only sense what sinister, secular acts were being performed in the invisible pockets of the club.
Boyish girls and girlish boys clutching and writhing to the beat on the sweat-soaked dance floor.
A pulsating unison of young hearts in defiance.
Morbid curiosity was slowly transformed into infatuation. I felt the Floor bellow and try to suck me in.
The heat lamps swayed from their chains, setting the uneasiness of our closed minds afire, pleading for our participation . . . for us to lay down our weekday wars and let the night cauterize our wounds.
I was in love with the world again.
In love with a scene;
a movement;
a savage underbelly of which I had nothing to do with, but could not be denied or dismissed as anything but pure and honest. My internal organs soaked up the twelve hours worth of sport drink.
We baked under the red lights.
Together
and to the beat.

When the music dulled and the floor's epic vibrations calmed, the freaks began piling out toward the night. We picked up, dusted off, and headed out for the damp streets yet again.

It was another impossible maze of lights, cars, and derelict subway tunnels and then back in Williamsburg.

She was obviously worn out and had expressed the importance of getting to bed. Lord knows what time of night it was by now. I had to concentrate on the edge of the wet curb to make sure I was walking in a straight line. Soft, post-storm winds brushed my skin nearing the apartment building.
"Your going to sleep with me tonight, OK?" she asked me.
I didn't object.
Our sore legs climbed the steps yet again.
Against my better judgment I drank two more beers in the shower.
Half beer, half soapy water.
They went down smooth and geared my mind for sleep.
In her bed, the familiar sound of the air-conditioner in the dark room had me drifting to sleep when she pulled my arm around her body and beckoned for me to come closer. This came a surprise to me. My body, four times the size of hers, was switched back on.
Seek-and-destroy-mode.
This was not my intent, honestly. But couldn't control my self and practically choked on the pheromones lingering throughout the room.
It was her smell.
That smell that had driven me out of my mind, causing me to fall in love for the first time when we were in seventh grade. How could it have survived throughout all these years and all these wars?
My muscles tensed. The vodka and soap-beers churned in my guts.
She was wild for it but I was so full of toxins that I couldn't keep it up. I tried for what felt like an hour, but collapsed on the bed like an ape in defeat. Shame and embarrassment forced me to cower towards the wall away from her.
This is something that I am sure most men have fallen victim too, but it's almost impossible to laugh at the irony of such a depressing situation. You, as a man, spend almost every waking second in search of these moments and to be forced by nature to give it up is a kick in the balls unlike any other.
She laid closer to me. Her soft kisses and hands over my skin put me to sleep despite my despondence. I fell into a trance to the hum of electric behind the walls.
I was alive and well in a new territory.
In peace with myself and humanity.
Rest is a rare commodity for the soul, take it where you can get it.
The New York night swooped down and took me to its bowels without warning. Pitch black winds of freedom and solace whirled and cooled the bedroom.
The snipers had fallen asleep.
The Gatling had exhausted its last cartridge of ammunition into the sky and I was finally free to roam. If your able to catch your breath and reflect fo only one second, at least you've won something: you're still alive.
The police, with their god damned warrants, didn't know where I was. I didn't have a job or its headaches from sensory deprivation. There were no soul-crushing debt collectors to call with death threats. I didn't live in Pennsylvania, on the third floor of my one-thousandth home.
Nothing to run from, nothing reason to hide.
A naked ignorance of the fucking poachers and peddlers of what little happiness is left on this earth.
We leaned into one another.
She slept until ten AM while I spent the night's hours sleepless; staring at the ceiling and
giving thanks.

She rushed off quickly in the morning after getting dressed. My brothers and I had survived with all limbs attached. From the roof of the apartment building we drank breakfast beers and laughed while trying to piece it all together under the morning sun. The skyscrapers stood frozen in the distance. The wind gusts were sporadic but comforting. The rain was now one hundred miles north, blanketing some helpless small town, forcing its people indoors to face each other. One hundred miles south awaited our homes, jobs, failures and a bleak reality. We stood on the roof between the two cities like triumphant soldiers of hell, drinking cold beers and counting our scars in silence.

A Cave Dweller's New Year

2008-09-04T11:39:00.004-04:00

spine fires
they're at me again.
I sleep like a dying old man.
third floor misery.
dislocated neck bones
from the fall that
could have killed me.
the most dishonest silence
ever cast in a roomful of
me and the guilt.
the mattress on the floor
next to the dirty laundry.
the light bulb hanging
from a chain from the ceiling.
the dormant, dust-covered television.
The pile of books;
some read, some not.
I made it a point to
leave the walls blank
when I moved in last winter
just so I would have more space
to talk to.

Carcinogen and Tonic

2008-08-27T11:55:00.003-04:00

dreaming of gold
while working for copper.
The heroes laugh
in their dead sleeps
at what little I have to offer.
"Here's the shovel," they say,
"Now bury your self."

this isn't character building.
this isn't an accident or mistake
that you learn from and move on.
That which doesn't kill you
will only cripple and maim
with sickle and cane.

I collect jars of dust on the windowsill in my room.
every morning I put the jar to my mouth
and inhale.
I've learned how to not choke
on the the dirt and dead flies...
Just enough gas to get to work, I say.

I've lost thirty pounds in four lonely months
spent talking to my self like this.
A steady diet of cigarette butts and dumpster juice,
and sleeping next to exhaust pipes.
I eat well.
the daily doses self mutilation by the river,
the strict regimen of stillborn hopes,
I can't remember the last time I've gone hungry.
It's a good life in vault.

The Proud Hunter

2008-08-18T11:57:00.006-04:00

It hasn't rained here in a while.
It's a sign.
there are signs everywhere,
but only with age have I been able
to read them.
In my mind I have left weeks ago:

I'm in the Southwest corner of America,
sleeping in my car;
the cool desert wind blowing
tiny grains of sand over my skin.
I am dreaming of life back home
in the Northeast.
They aren't happy dreams,
but they aren't sad either.
I awake to the sound and rhythm of my pulse
and and take a massive breath of America.
The desert hills, worthy of a Bob Ross painting,
jump at the sky like lines on a polygraph chart.
This land doesn't detect my lies,
and it doesn't want my money.
It welcomes me with open arms and a warm heart
and then I forget about what I gave up,
or where I am going,
or how I will get there.

I put the car in drive
and stare down the two lane stretch
of road leading straight into the sun.
I make amends with myself again
and check the odometer.
The proud hunter hones his sights
on the big prize yet again,
with nothing but a few miles
between him and the kill of a lifetime.

To grab and shake the world with the fury
of a million widows.

To cut the jugular of your oppressor wide enough
to steal it's heart.

To build you own home and life
with your bare hands,
despite the backaches and shortage of supplies.

Landfill Love Stories

2008-08-14T11:50:00.004-04:00

It's drive time in the valley.
low heat simmer.
long exhale, in deep thought.
I watch them,
the strangers in peril.
good for them.

Time off.
Time alone.
The moon howlers love chants.
The swelling crowd of lunatics
pacing our narrow streets.
I like to watch them on weekdays
from up above.
The view from the holy mountain;
constructed of skulls and Styrofoam.
A billion light bulbs hum
above the tree line;
just below gods great black out.
Pleas of the common folk
rise from bedrooms and are lost with the dust.
No answers for the hungry deadbeats
and the pride swallowing sore throats.

The rivers and streams
are the only ones to leave town.
We'll stay here to bicker and rust:
stubborn ghost kings on splintering thrones.
We smile with cracked lips.
We pay bills with borrowed money, and pocket lint.
We board up the windows when the hardships amass.
That's not a hole in the side of the earth;
it's our starving but grateful town.
Come look for us under the heaps
of burning tires and crushed furniture.
We'll welcome you, and teach you our ways.
It's so easy to fall in love
when you have nothing.

Go Ahead, Bang Your Fucking Drum

2008-08-12T10:53:00.003-04:00

The march of the condemned.
Twice a week if your lucky.
A few hours to take the boots off
and sleep on the hardwood floor,
or under a table in the kitchen.
A couple of sad nights of wine
to relive the worst years
and the lunch-breaks spent in the car,
choking on tears and self pity.
A vacation to the sewer for a
lousy laborer.

You get 7 days in a week.
5 to work,
1 to live,
and another to gather your armor,
and ready your mind
for the impending 40 hour silent march
through the foggy foothills of the battlefield.
The strange and unforgiving territories
that will always seem so foreign no matter
how many weeks or months are lost to
your delusions.
I have seen the dangers of keeping a
closed mouth, and settling into a comfortable life.
I see it in the grocery stores,
in they eyes of the young mothers
who grit their teeth, and shout in whispers
at their children; their desperate refrains
from letting the hideous truths
echo up and down the meat isle.
I have seen in it the faceless hoards
of commuters who learned at an early age
how to build a coffin;
another highway mile,
another nail into the pine.

Have a Hate Party and Invite My Face

2008-08-06T10:15:00.003-04:00

I don't want it anymore.
I gave it up, and I'm proud.
I'll leave you to the hate parties,
and the hours wasted in front of a television.
They've aged me so quickly.
I used to get scared when I was alone.
I used to think that I needed the pain.
My days were my failures,
and my nights where their excuses.
I made good of the quite time.
I was ready to dissect the monster.
I rolled up my sleeves,
plunged into it's rusty insides,
and extracted the beating heart
with my bare hands.
I crushed it in my fist,
and raised the bloody handful of tissue
to the sky; offering my apologizes
to the heavens.
That's when became a man.
I would live the rest of my life
in love and in fear of the world.
I know where I come from,
and I remember how many times
I almost died while climbing out.
I know where I got comfortable,
I know where I gave up,
and I know exactly where I was reborn.
God help us all if I ever forget.

I Don't Miss It

2008-08-01T11:25:00.008-04:00

You were on the porch,
your back against the dirty brick wall;
hiding from the rain.
It was Summer and you were tired.
Tired of the plans and the gossip
and fake friends.
You knew to keep your mouth shut
and listen to the rain.

Wherever we go,
we are still who we are.
There is no greener grass;
just poachers with horns
waiting for us to crack a smile.
They'll laugh and reminisce as they
share our organs and bones.
I dare you to find love in this world.
I dare you to find the edge fire fields,
and come back with your guts.
Then you can come talk to me.

Weekender With American Speedway

2008-07-29T16:06:00.005-04:00

July 24, 2008-10:30pm: Got into Pittsburgh a little while ago. I had to duck out to some dark alley stoop to get away from the madness. The people who's steps I am sitting on are blasting Slayer from the third floor and it is echoing throughout the alley and setting the mood perfectly.
We rolled into town about about an hour ago. I was sitting in the van on the way here, and while reading it suddenly occurred to me how strange we probably look in the van. I am by far the youngest dude on the trip, and I pretty much don't know anything about the people I am going to be with for the next few days. I guess it doesn't matter. Pittsburgh is exactly how I pictured it just smaller and more hectic. The Club looks kind of depressing and smells like shit. The Smiling Moose. What a terrible name. I didn't see one attractive girl in the bar while we were loading in. The people actually looked kind of angry. I suppose I would be angry too if I had to live here.
After load-in Mike got me a beer. I swear to god the nu-metal bartender filled it half way with water. I havn't eaten anything all day and it's really messed my stomach up. I feel like I am dying, and I can't even fathom being around a crowd of people right now. However, this mission and my objective will not be compromised. This is my god-damned weekend; make way.
I just finished taking a walk down this street we are playing on. Carson Street. Trying to let this place soak into my bones. I have never seen such a strange variety of bars and people. There are a ton of both. The streets are crowded with college kids, bums and gutter punks and although it is slightly unnerving and and chaotic; it's fun to watch. Within the past half hour I have witnessed the following:
-An obese woman inhale a gigantic slice of pizza while sitting on the ground like a toddler.
-A crust punk and a homeless man beg me for money, which is only ironic because tonight I look worse off than both of them.
-A police officer having a heated argument with 3 Guidos on crotch rockets.
-An old man pushing a gallon of milk in a wheelchair
-One hundred thousand girls I want to bang
-2 fat kids playing the banjo and accordion singing a John Denver song.
Also, in adhering to this weekend's policy of doing whatever I want, whenever I want; I just laid. Well not exactly: I was standing on the a corner trying to decide which way to explore and I saw a beautiful babe across the street smoking a cigarette outside of a bank. I went over to "ask for directions to the Smiling Moose", and for whatever reason the conversation found us talking about Her and my favorite band; Hot Water Music. We talked for a while and I think she was drunk, but she gave me her number and told me to call her when the show is over so we can go back to her house and "party". . . we will see how that goes. Either way, the Smiling Moose has $1 PBRs, and they're calling my name. Speedway should be playing soon. Back to work.
Later: In the van. Drunk. writing with a night light and everyone is passed out. we have a 10 hour drive to Chicago, and I can't sleep in moving automobiles. This is going to be torture. Bring it on.
Speedway played like gods. So god damned loud and seamless. I sold some merch and talked to some chick for a while and found my self getting far too drunk to function. I was standing against the wall trying to not kill the lead singer of the headlining band when mike grabbed me and said, "Holy shit! have you been upstairs? Its fucking insane." By that point I had just about had all I could of the place, but going upstairs totally redeemed Pittsburgh for me. I know that I will never be able to accurately describe the the ensuing events, but I will never-for as long as I live-be able to forget the upstairs of the Smiling Moose. The 4th dimension. As soon I got up there, I felt like I was in a dream. It was a roomful of dark men in cut off denim, and the darkest and most unholy drug music was blaring so loud that it began to alter my perception of reality. Mike and I found chairs directly in front of the massive speakers and let the droned-out drug riffs vibrate our bodies. The walls were covered in old horror film posters, and the TV above the bar was showing some 70's gore/horror film, and I got the feeling that we were not supposed to make eye contact with anyone. We sat there for what felt like an eternity and I didn't want to leave. I still can't get over it. It was so surreal that I almost vomited from laughing. Holy shit. I think I know where I am going to go when I die.

July 25, 2008-11:45Pm: At some Bar in Chicago. PBR tastes good this morning. It's an unreal here. Mike and the guys are at some record store, and I took a walk and ended up here. This bar is too fancy for me, but whatever. We are trying to kill time before the radio interview at "Fearless Radio" on the other side of town. I think I will take a walk down to Wrigley Field after this breakfast beer. After the interview we are going to a suburb called Hillside to get a hotel room and get some rest before tonight's show. Although its literally 12 hours away, I am really looking forward to passing out and getting some solid sleep after the show.
Chicago is unbelievably clean, I really like it here. We rolled into the city at around 8:30 after driving straight through the night. It was funny to see everyone scrambling to work on the highway when we were arriving. We probably look like animals to these people. After we found a spot in the city we walked around, got some food, found a goat's skull on the edge of a river, and then sat in a beautiful park to kill time before the interview which isn't until 1:00pm. The park was full of young mothers and toddlers, but somehow everyone except me managed to fall asleep on the grass in the middle of their party. I was sitting on a ledge listening to them snore and while groups of people where trying to enjoy their mornings in the park. It was a pretty hilarious scene, but couldn't stick around for a 'bum nap'. I walked around by my self, got some writing done, looked for an open bar, called andrew, and then we drove to this side of town where I am currently sitting alone in a bar.
Hopefully today rules as much as yesterday. I am so grateful to be here. Pittsburgh is a god forsaken place. I feel bad for its occupants and hockey fans.
This bar sucks. The homosexual bartender wont leave me alone and I think its time for another walk before we head to the radio studio for the interview. I need to see more of this city.
Later-1:30pm:I didn't plan on writing again until tonight, but if I don't do something to get my mind off of these mother-fucks at this radio station, I'm gonna kill everyone. This is a pretty serious place. I feel like I am on Howard Stern or something. The host of "Mid day Debauchery" is the most outwardly dishonest pig of all time. Her questions and fake enthusiasm are making my stomach hurt. I can't imagine having to be such a shitty person for a living. Jesus. She just referred to the bands record as a collector's item, and said that the live photos on the back of the "packaging" are a "great selling point." Another dude just walked out of a door and gave me the 'hang-loose' gesture and said, "Yeaaaa, Rockers!!" He was dead serious. I am all out of words.

July 26-2:59pm: Happy birthday Mom! We are currently barreling through Indiana as 75 miles per hour. Last night was complete mayhem. After the Fearless Radio bullshit, we drove 20 miles west of Chicago to Hillside and got a hotel room. When we got there everyone passed out, but I refused to let fatigue slow me down. I took another walk alone while they rested. I ended up at the bar, and I drank with some crazy fucking Norwegians that were on tour. Due the language barrier, I have no idea what was said but at least I got to watch them completely destroy a pool table and cues. What strange people.
I went back to the hotel and ate the worst pizza know to man, and it killed me on the inside. We showed up at the BrauerHouse at 8 O'Clock only to be informed that we didn't have to play until 12. waiting around was pretty terrible so I jammed out on Mike's guitar and drank one million beers and chilled out with Billy K. I met a couple of girls and hung out. They were pretty dumb but were really easy to get along with. Nick from the mighty Bongripper came out to see the band and drink. Mike Nick and myself got loaded and talked for a while. I can't help but think that he eats human organs, but He's a great dude. I look forward to hanging out with him again when I come back.
I was being force fed free drinks and at one point I though i was going to pull a Slash and A Hendrix in the same night. I know that more cool shit happened but I honestly can't remember.
We have another 4 hours on the road and I wish it would never end. Its ungodly beautiful out today. I feel like so lucky. My head hurts when I think about Southeastern Pennsylvania. I am learning to love my life, but part of me feels guilty for getting comfortable.
Later: 8:18pm-Cleveland, OH: Just arrived at the club. The Jigsaw. This place is really fucking awesome and the sound dude knows what he is doing. Also, not only do we get free beer tonight, but they have the elusive and endangered 24oz PBRs! I wish we had a place like this in Philly.
I kind of feel bad for Speedway because the turn outs have been so terrible. Last night in Chicago there were 3 people watching them. They are true veterans though, and play amazingly tight despite the turn out.
The ride from Chicago to here was long, but I got a lot of reading done. I am reading Hunter S. Thompson"s, "Hells Angels". What a beautiful man he was.
My body does not want beers at all, but this is our last night out so I will butt-chug if I have to. I am gonna grab some beers and hang out in the sweet "backstage" area, then maybe go for a walk to see more of "Cleveland". Bottoms up.

July 27, 1:40pm: On the road back to philly. Last night was one of the most amazing times of my life. I don't even know where to begin.
Speedway played to 1 paying customer, but played like kings. I have so much respect for those guys. By the time we loaded out, everyone was already far to drunk to live. We ended up at the house of Jeremy and Lisa, who are friends of the band. They had 2 cases of beer and food waiting for us, and I knew it was going to get out of hand. Billy K (passed out in a garage), Cali, and Johnny couldn't stay up, but Bill Angry, Mike, Jeremy, Lisa and I drank, and sang songs, and listened to music through the night and into this morning. When the sun came up Bill and I sat outside on the porch and talked about his experiences in the Gulph war. I have never talked to a veteran, and I am glad that he was so open to talk about it. That dude deserves nothing but respect.
I chopped a telephone pole with a massive sword, bonged a beer out of a skeleton, drew dicks on Cali, and played slide guitar with a bottle opener loud enough to wake the dead. I watched Mike cover himself in beer while the sun came up over Cleveland. He was so out of hand, I can't believe he lived through it. I will never get that image out of my head: Him wavering on the porch trying to shot-gun his beer at 7am and not getting one ounce of it in his mouth. By the time we left in the morning he wasn't speaking English. I can't sayenough about Jeremy and Lisa. They sure know how to show a couple of assholes a good time, and were two of the most hospitable people I've ever met. I look forward to doing it again with them.
I think we are getting closer to PA. Back to reality. As much as my body needs the rest, I can't even think about going home right now. This weekend has kicked my ass up and down, and I just want to keep going. I know for sure that I will be back. I am gonna work on myself in the meantime, but will be counting the days until I can do it all over again. What a god-damned weekend it's been. . .

The Pope

2008-07-22T13:44:00.006-04:00

We could barely understand each other.
His spouted slurred sentence after slurred sentence with such a thick Irish accent, that it was almost as if he was speaking in a different language altogether. I had to read his lips and violent hand gestures to try to piece together the story he was trying to convey.
His teeth were all but rotted away except for the two or three that stood triumphantly in his lower gums. They rattled in his crooked mouth, as his sermon echoed through the quiet night. The words leaped from his ugly face and bounced around the narrow street of row homes and parked cars, and I thought about asking him to speak in a lower volume but didn't want to offend him.
He was older, much older, and it was clear that his stories, fiction or not, were no match for anything I had to offer. He made it a point to cut me off at every attempt to change the subject.
Pulling a joint from his shirt pocket, he began telling me another story. A story of which was not pertinent to the current conversation in any way.
The yellowish light from the nearest telephone pole shined down on us like a spotlight; both of our bodies swaying on the edge of the curb threatening to topple. The wind was stagnant and I had run out of money for beer and I wanted to go home to bed, but the Irishman was the first honest person I had talked to in several days and I didn't want to rush our time together. I listened and responded to him intently. I could see that he was drunk, and I am sure he knew that I was as well. We probably looked and sounded like maniacs. We didn't mind.
"I'm a fuckin' skinhead, ya kno?" He abruptly mentioned while pointing down to his red Doc Martin boots.
"Oh, yea?" I offered rhetorically.
"Yea, I hate fuckin' racists tho, right. . . I became a skin in 1971. . . shaved my head, me and my lads."
He went on to tell me something about how the British were truly scum, and how lucky I was to not go through the hell that he had come from. I could understand some of the words, but some I could not, so I filled in his sentences on my own in my head.
"Yea, the fuckin British Army gotta fuck-load of us in those days. We once used a stolen forklift and an abandoned car as a barricade in a roit. Twenty of us beatin' em down, while three hundred others stood watch. One man would get tired of fightin' and another man would jump in. I'm tellin' ya. we would raid beer factories... a whole fuckin' mob of us."
I could hardly believe what he ways saying me. He demonstrated pining a British officer to the ground and pounding him with his fists, and boots and we both laughed out loud. His gestures were very quick and straight forward and being in his fifties, and at least one hundred pounds less than me, I was still certain that he could have killed me if he wanted to.
A few cars, and homeless people entered and exited my peripheral vision, but I was so locked in his eyes, and so enthralled in his war stories that I forgotten where i was where I was.
After he had finished his tightly wrapped joint and snuffed it with his boot he motioned towards the door as if to indicate that he was done talking to me. I didn't beg him to stay, but a part of me wanted to. I hung out for a while and stared at the miles and miles of black wire between the massive telephone poles. Where did the endless miles of rubber and wires lead to? New Jersey? Ireland?
The young men and women chatted and played with their cell phones in their metal chairs outside of the bar. They were my age, and I could hear two males talking about shoes. A group of attractive girls came to sit with them. I tried to block out their conversations and sit with the night, but couldn't. They were with me all the way. The doomed generation that Hunter warned us about. I sat on the stoop and thought about the my strengths and weaknesses as a man. I was ashamed again.
We were not hungry. We were not at war, we were not desperate to live, or ready to die. We were the plans and fine calculations of soulless parents. There were no oppressors or tyrants to force feeding us gasoline and burning our homes and families in the middle of the street. We would never riot, or rally together to defy an establishment. There would be no growl in our guts, spite in our eyes, or blood on our hands. Rather, we will go to bed, as always, as the unappreciative hypocrites we are, and let our comforts swoon us to sleep.

And Sometimes You Don't

2008-07-22T13:23:00.003-04:00

It feels good to be so in love again.
in love with my self,
in love with the wilting, fire-red
sun of the apocalypse that lingers
above a Pennsylvania tree line.
In love with the trips to the city
on those sticky summer nights that
seemingly always end the same;
me...in my big empty bed.
In love with the drives to and from work,
singing my music from the gut.
In love with my best friends.
In love with my enemies, whos
speed and agility has so graciously
been reduced by their old-age.
In love with catching up to the race
with many more miles to go in my legs.
In love with the books.
In love with my Saturday mornings
spent in isolation in my room.
In love with you, and this,
and whatever our futures may, or may not
hold.

I remembering saying it.
I told you,
and them,
and my self.
"The wave will break,
and then I'll rest."

I was right.
It did.

Saturday Night Fervor

2008-07-21T12:02:00.003-04:00

The summer morning jolts you awake
without respect or warning.
last night's debauchery has oozed from your forehead
and has now drenched the pillow beneath your
pounding, thoughtless skull.
breathe your own rancid oder while writing this
and trying to recall the details that have
found you in such an uncomfortable state
on this desperately hot morning.
You know you had a couple of beers,
you remember the jug of white,
you can picture your friends arriving,
and the meaningless conversations
with certain meaningless people,
but the events thereafter are lost
in the cloudy, toxic stream of hops, barley, and
fermented grapes...
Maybe you took your shirt off and danced on the table again?
maybe you said or did something to offend
a roomful of friends?
Maybe you just smoked a couple of cigarettes
and gazed into the night before passing out?
Maybe it's better you forget?
Maybe not?
You smile and try to piece together today's agenda.
Life is beautiful.

Waiting Room

2008-07-16T11:14:00.005-04:00

There was a slight uneasiness about the room
after we had run out of things to talk about.
I had been watching him pluck at the elastic
of his shin-high dirty socks while talking to me
about prescription pills, and nerve damage.
I don't remember his name.
I am no good at names.
Anyway, after telling his life story to me,
I felt an obligation to ask him why he was here
in the doctors office with me.
I immediately regretted it.
"Fuckin' battery acid, man!"
His long gray hair was soaked in sweat.
His response startled me, and I thought he was trying to make a joke.
"I was in my garage, and I saw what I thought was some old trash in a plastic bag....I picked it up and realized that it was way too heavy to be trash. It was the god damed battery that my son and his friend were shootin' with BB guns. The fucker leaked all over me."
The urge to laugh out loud was nearly impossible to suppress.
I watched him look at the backs and palms of his hands, and wince in pain.
"Wow, thats pretty nuts, I've never....."
"Yea I know... It didnt hur't at first, but then I sat down to watch some TV and I felt hands and legs burning. My wife was convinced that I was having another panic attack...that fucking bitch... I had to drive my self here... with acid chewing at my flesh...she doesn't care about anythi...don't ever get married, man...they'll bury you awake"
he shook his head while closing his eyes. He rested his hands in his lap and went off in into thought, leaving me to do the same.
The click of the receptionist's clock went of steadily in one second intervals.
We sat and started at the walls, waiting for the doctor to beckon.
He wasn't thinking about the acid anymore.
Neither was I.

"It's been no bed of roses"

2008-07-15T11:18:00.003-04:00

I spent the morning reading books
and listening to the traffic.
I found my self dozing out to the sound
of the church bells and wind.
I had a dream of a young girl with white skin
in a black dress and cathedral veil.
She came into my room and covered my bed
with roses.
We both laughed as her small hands
scattered the roses frantically throughout
the room.
we laughed some more before she waved goodbye,
told me that she loved me, and left the
door opened behind her.

What I Saw Tonight

2008-07-12T03:12:00.004-04:00

Go ahead;
add it all up.
It will never equal what you want it to.
I will be the nameless man
who writes his own obituary by candle light.

As real as my words may be,
I will always be too ashamed to own them.
I'll learn to take my work home with me
and let it burden my family.
Come on, lets
grow old together in the basement.

I got so tired of the lies.
I turned my phone off
and slept for months.

I know that it's repetitive.
I know that it scares you.

I'm not sorry.

Nothing is Permanent , I Promise

2008-07-10T10:42:00.005-04:00

"...and I remember all the young girls.
those poor god damned girls.
dumb enough to believe in me,
and my sob stories.
I would reel em' in and suffocate them
into submission within a matter of days.

Don't get me wrong;
long after me
they did eventually find their dreams.
The endless sunflower fields
and placid, life-long romance under the sun.
God and true love and safety
would one day wisk them away,
and the memory of me would be buried
in the back yard with the pets.
But for a short while they let me
hold them under water,
and feed them blood.
I would prove to be their,
'learning experience',
or
'biggest regret';
a lowly stepping stone between
the innocent and the condemned.
My face was to be forgotten.
Just a dark figure slumped over
in a holding cell.

And after they finally gave up,
they would vow to the stars
to never let it happen
to them again,
and I'm sure they didn't.

I was good at it man, I'm tellin' you.
After a while I'd slip up though.

I would get comfortable and let her sneak in.
We'd be wasting the day's hours
in bed, trying to forget the world together.
I'd play with her hair, and whisper lies
into her ear over the hum of the air-conditioner.
I even went as far as to tell a couple of them
that I loved them. . .
and I don't know, maybe I did.
Or maybe it was the guilt of a leeching
con artist forcing me to say it. . .
She would lean into me,
smell my insides,
and hate herself
for staying.
I would try with what little strength I had
to force the girls
back into my hole.
But like always, night will give way
to dawn and the ghost will be put to rest
in the closet.

I can't imagine how they did it.
I don't want to.
My hands worked viciously
over pressure points in those days,
I was a real son of a bitch.
I don't regret much of it.
They we all cowards.
all of them.
But then again;
I was too."

On Another Planet

2008-07-03T11:10:00.004-04:00

The alarm went off at it's usual time.
After pressing snooze a few times he opened his eyes
to see the crisp blue sky through the window. He had survived another one.
Zero Hour
time to choke
time to hide my bloody past
time to put on dirty clothes
and forge the burning jungle.
I was here yesterday
I was here a million times before
and it never lets up.
Has it already been 24 hours
since the last time?
There will be no old age
or retirement for me.
the 8:00am reality checks
have hacked me to peices.
He cautiously sat up, threw the blanket to the floor, and lit a cigarette. The smoke whirled like clouds in a storm. He watched in silence as the gray fumes billowed and weaved in the sun's glorious rays, dancing like a tribe of rain starved Indians.
I wonder If anyone sees it the way I see it?
Probably not.
I swear to god I'm insane.
Barely able to keep his eyes open, he took another drag and exhaled. The cancer vapors rose higher and higher; curling and weaving in asymmetric patterns.
he smiled to himself.
I may be completely out of my mind,
but at least it this easy to escape.
It doesn't' take much
for me to get away.

Rinse, Repeat

2008-07-02T12:32:00.003-04:00

I dare you to try to slow it down.
It will buck you like an iron bull.
pistons fire full bore behind bruised ribs.
eighty pound heart
convulse in half-time beat
no room for gut feelings
clutch the writhing organ
pin it down.
nail it to the floor.
walk away.
block it out.
don't cry again.
its only another relapse.
it's gets easier. . .
well, maybe it doesn't.
but you will eventually stop caring.
either way,
what does it matter?

Welcoming Party

2008-07-01T11:59:00.003-04:00

welcome back,
your home!
home to settle your debt.
home to take me back
into the wilderness
to put me down
like an old dog.
I am easier to coerce
than you probably remember.
I'v weakened over time.
I will shut my mouth now.
do your worst,
and promise me nothing.

The Cold and Bitter Hands

2008-07-01T11:15:00.003-04:00

"He's a slick son of a bitch.
I'd watched him lurk in the misty background,
totally oblivious to the rain,
and the herd of people nervously shuffling
away from him.
he'd waited for me for a long long time.
he was knew what he was doing.
Finally, she left.
I was able to focus on my self for once, you know?
Before long, I started to feel the love,
and the enthusiasm warm my soul again.
I was alone,
it was what I needed...
All the while, he was watching.
He wanted to see how far I though I could get.
And I really believed it man!
I really did.
I thought it was all getting better, you know?
Well, he hated it.
he couldn't stand to see me laugh.
He was mad cause I wasn't drinking at him anymore.
It made him sick.
I don't really remember where it was, or when,
but he came for me.
His, greasy fuckin' hands cut me from ear to ear.
I was too angry to feel anything.
This motherfucker knew what he was doing.
he popped out from his dark alley,
did his business,
and left me there to die.
again.
God fuckin' hates me man,
im tellin ya..."

George

2008-06-23T10:59:00.009-04:00

There are no more heroes.
They packed their things,
and left us sleeping in our beds.
Off into the forever night.
Under the dead low moon.
away for good.
A meandering and medicated
generation of cowards have
proceeded a lifetime of legends.
And I can't hide
my shame.
my guilt.
Not too long ago:
hardened hands lifted American soil
to the sun to drain the blood.
And the eager dogs
were set lose to wreak their havoc.
But somewhere along the line,
we lost our desire
to plummet into the burning discontent
that makes us human.
The insatiable hunger
to write your own legacy
on your time,
with your own words,
from your frightened conscience;
it's all gone now.
The dying breed
finally came home to retire
and watch the world burn down
before their eyes.
They left us.
They left us.
They left us.
They left us.
Say it as may times as you want,
it will always hurt.
no more thinkers and dreamers.
no more songs or books
no time to stop and have a beer
under the bridge with your best friends.

We were there for the last of the revolutions
but were persuaded to bite our tongues
and look away.
I'm sorry that we listened to them.

This morning, in a his house in Santa Monica,
George Carlin drew his last breath
and gave us his bitter farewell.
Proving that now, more than ever,
we are grossly out-numbered.

Dream On

2008-06-20T12:33:00.003-04:00

I wanted our charred bones
to jam the gears of the incinerator
and halt production
for the first time in human history.
one in seven billion.

I wanted to watch the moon
turn a body of water
into a sea of flickering tinsel
as the bloated bodies washed ashore
in the shallow bay;
lining the waterfront like sandbags
in a flood.
The contorted blue-gray limbs
piled so high above the horizon.

I wanted to feel the love in my veins again;
ten months after I swore it off by way of
the incessant no call, no shows
to reality.
I wanted it back, but not badly enough.

I wanted to take my life
in the middle of the night,
In the middle of no where,
in the middle of a sentence I was writing
in the middle of a tired, tired story.

At The Reunion

2008-06-19T12:17:00.006-04:00

And just like that,
the sound went off.
As if someone had suddenly flipped a switch,
the entire room went silent before my eyes.
It was a gift.
Someone owed me a favor,
and plucked me from the flames
that my mind had created in subsequent moments.
The young men and women, all geared up
in their weekend outfits, casually went about
their business as if nothing had changed.
The room was full of sex hungry early twenty-something suburbanites who seemingly
all knew each other.
They were a friend of a friend of a friend,
or a childhood neighbor,
or a former class mate,
or a crazy ex-significant other,
or a regretful one night stand
that you tried so desperately to avoid
as you hid in a dim corner by the juke box.
They were my hometown.
They were every city that I will never see.
They were the reason television,
and anti-depressants were created.
The were America's brave war pawns.
They were future divorces,
middle-class, suicidal, dead-beat parents
who would breed a new kind of terrorist
with every conceived child.
I watched them smile and embrace each other
and talk about their memories of their sterile
and pampered upbringing.
The tanned and obnoxious young women
laughed, and smoked menthol cigarettes,
and checked their cell phones every five minutes.
The young men, with their gelled hair,
and pristine clothing ordered beer after beer,
as their unrelenting quests to destroy brain cells,
and get laid forged on for one more night.
I stared directly at their faces
while they laughed, and hollered
and still; not a sound
over the white noise.
My brain rattled as my heart pounded like a timpani;
hot blood surging through my head
like a molten landslide.
Of all my problems,
I thought,
at least I never became one of them.
I now understood why I was born with
my mother's spiteful outlook
and deceptive tongue.
And for the first time in my entire life
I was proud to be one of her many mistakes.
I sat and stared for a while
before I had my fill and left.
for one beautiful night,
I was not the enemy.

Absolved

2008-06-15T21:00:00.006-04:00

I am shocked and amazed to still have the ability
to stand on my own two feet.
I was told
to get a grip on reality,
but all was lost on me.
I am not sorry.
So many days of hauling the heavy load,
so many nights in the boiler
One day it will swallow me whole.
the pre-cautionary tale of my life
will be told world-wide.
The veterans will tip their hats to me,
as tears well up in their sunken eyes.
saw my self drift into the infinite blackness
and I romanticized about the end of our days.
I sat frozen still, cloaked in it's vast boundlessness
and felt the fear and anger
slowly wash from my face.
I laid down my arms, rested my head,
and let it welcome me.
I knew that my search was over,
and I had finally found my place.
It was my first, and only love,
and it was painfully honest:

no roads to no future.
No gods; just solitude,
the outside chance of survival,
and the collected memories
of lost loves,
better days,
and wrong turns.

The Same Scum

2008-06-13T12:03:00.004-04:00

We waited on the porch, sitting in the sun.
waited for nothing.
After a couple of hours of talking
about nothing, we decided to take a ride
down the street to get some beer.
We drove in complete silence until we
got to the train tracks at the bottom of the hill.
the truck rumbled over the tracks,
causing our heads to jostle in unison.
The late afternoon sun was blinding,
and all I could think about was beer.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him look at me.
"Someone should drop a bomb on this town."
he said while shaking his head in disgust.
I took a deep breath,
tasted the stench of the nearby river,
and exhaled.
Still looking out of the window,
I began to think about my hatred for humanity,
and the dry rotted souls melting to their
plastic picnic chairs while watching the traffic.
I used to see them every morning on my way to work.
Their faces begged for escape,
and there was nothing I could do.
I turned to look at him,
"Yea, I know."

The Prima

2008-06-12T17:56:00.002-04:00

The Prima Motel and Cocktail Lounge. By the name alone I should have known to stay away, but I reluctantly pulled into the lot and got out of my car. I studied the exterior of the Bar/Motel combo as I walked down the small hill towards the door that looked like an entrance to a mid evil dungeon. The building resembled many other buildings in this dead-end Pennsylvanian suburb; desolate, and obsolete.
The technological boom that had so rapidly transformed this country over the past twenty-five years had left this town in the dust, and its bitter, and simple-minded occupants came to the Prima to dull the relentless pain that was their lives. It served as a beacon in their hopeless and restless nights. It was a mistress to many married men. Me crashing their pity party was a threat to any semblance of unity that they had been so desperately clinging to. I had heard the stories of drunken brawls, "secret" drug peddling bye the Pagans, and the plebeian women, so I knew what I was walking in on, and part of me couldn't wait.
As I neared the front door, I peered through the window and saw three or four pagan-looking men laughing and shooting pool, and could tell that they did not want to be bothered. I decided to use the side door instead.
The second that the door closed behind me, I was overcome with a nervous stomach ache of regret, but I assured my self that at least I would get a memorable night out of the deal. I walked down the narrow corridor which for whatever reason, wreaked of egg salad, past the coat rack and could not help but notice the colorful row of stained Starter pullover jackets that were hugely popular among kids in my school in the mid 90's, but could now be found at any local thrift store. Around the corner, I turned into the bar with my head down so as to not make eye contact with any of the savage, blood-hungry locals. I watched the heads turn and focus in bewilderment as if I had walked in on a gang rape dressed as a police officer. The entire room took a deep breath and glared my way while I maneuvered past the beer cooler, and the massive shuffle board table ironically painted with a life size portrait of what looked like a very homosexual He-Man-esque Aryan character. There where a few opened seats at the end of the bar, underneath the hanging TV, so I took my seat, lifted my head, and was greeted with a roomful of "what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you're-doing?" looks.
I could see the evil rhetoric in their glassy, drunken eyeballs and with each man I caught staring he would look away in shame. From across the room I saw a man who looked like an ex soap operah star turned hardened biker, who later I would name "Night Hawk", exit the bathroom while fastening his belt. He made his way towards my side of the oddly shaped bar, his skunk-like black and gray long hair neatly parted down the middle. I noticed the red bandanna around his neck, his time tested boots, and silver chain wallet. He was the master of his world, it was obvious. I tried to put my self in his position, I wanted to know what was going through his head as every person was fixated on him. I though about the line my mother used to say to me when I would critique her driving; "It's my world, your're living in it. . . for now".
NightHawk reached his spot, put his hands on the back of his stool and professed, "Has anyone seen my will to live?...."
we all looked at him,
"I think I lost it."
The crowd let out a laugh, and I was not hesitant to join in. I had survived the gauntlet.
I ordered a few beers and was overly nice to the bartender. I knew that he hated his life. He must have. I tried to start a conversation with him, but he was somewhat awkward, and after drinking about 6 pints I lost interest, and focused on the enormous early twenty year old woman in white see-thru pants as she flirted with the willing but unable bottom feeders of the Prima Hotel and Coctail Lounge.
Mashed Potatoes on a Stool, as I called her, made me nauseas to look at, but I am sure that she had more greasy fingers and sick dicks in her than than the average self loathing pig. She craved compliments and affection so strongly that she didn't mind being a mattress. I could feel my blood pressure slowly rise while watching her gigantic, clumsy, egg-shaped body purposely bang into every middle aged man in her path like a steel ball in a pin ball machine. I tried to take my eyes off of her sweaty sluggish body and her pathetic attempts to lure her nightly feast.
My anger overtook me and stuck my brain like lightning. Violent images of me beating her with my stool, gutting her with a broken pint glass, and spewing her innards into the faces of the lowly, drunken piles of waste that were encouraging her quickly flashed in my mind. I set my beer on the counter and mustered the strength to block her out.
After a few moments of wishing her away, she went of the the back of the the cocktail lounge and began to set up the karaoke equipment. This gave me a chance to put my hatred aside for a few minutes. The spanish bartender said something to me that I pretended to understand, but did not. It wasn't until later that I realized that he was telling me that he was not going to serve me anymore because I was obviously intoxicated. I noticed a sign that read, "Don't drink and drive, cheap rooms available". I tried to imagine some of the horror scenes that taken place in those derilic rooms, but quickly snapped out of it when I realized that I didn't have the energy to think anymore. I was tired.
With my last ounce of energy, I raised my hands to cover my face. I felt the warmth of my sweat beads trickling down my face and quickly trapped them between my calloused palms and my cheeks in hopes that I could hide them. Even with my face hidden, I could still feel the heat from the neon signs that were carelessly strewn along the painted-over wall paper. I felt the gray wind, courtesy the nearby chain-smokers, blow across my face, slowly drying out my skin. This is hell. I thought to my self, as I stared at the Puerto Rican, or mexican, or whatever he was, bartender. This is the place we were warned about as children; minus the flames and the red man with horns. The opposite of god.
I knew that I would never see these people again, and wanted to take as much as the nightmare home with me as I could to warn the others. Everything about the place told me that me, and my kind were not welcomed back. The stiff, and uncomfortable bar stool who had lent its services to the countless sorry patrons before me, the solid wood table with long forgotten names and numbers etched into its thick layer of polyurethane, the smell of hot biker urine and year old fly paper that rushed into the room with every person who entered or exited the bathroom, I was never more aware of my surroundings, and the grave mistakes I had commited to land me there.
I fiddled with my pint glass, sloshing the warm bubbles around the bottom.

Royersford, Pa.

2008-06-04T11:00:00.005-04:00

I peered over the fence
and watched a puddle evaporate
for what felt like hours.
I laid my head on the grass
under the tree and closed my eyes.
I thought about the summers in the city,
and how lucky I am that I was able to escape
before it claimed me.
I though about the closet-alcoholic mothers
and fathers and the shameful secrets
they are buried with.
I though about a book that I once read
about a man who spent the majority of his life
in a cage.
I though about the night my mother was beaten
by crack dealers,
and the look on her swollen face
when she eased her sore body
into my dad's tan Datsun hatchback.
I opened my eyes
and saw the gently swaying tree above me,
listening to the wind's attempts
to lessen my burden.
The years have not been kind,
but I'm slowly getting my legs back.

Still Something Worth Mentioning

2008-05-17T17:39:00.003-04:00

I got in my car and make up my mind to drive through the woods, rather than eating on my lunch break.
I drove about a mile before I ended up at a baseball field
that I recognized from when I had spent my last day with the love of my life
before she left for Europe for the first time.
I felt compelled to stop off
and do some thinking,
in hopes that the beautiful weather could, in some way,
brighten my spirits.
I completely lost track of time as I watched bumble bees
cut through the wind, like dogfighters in one of those black and white movies.
I watched a young mother push her toddler in a swing as his laugh;
although barely audible over the sound of the nearby traffic,
made me smile to my self.
I gathered my belongs and drove back to work.
I tried as hard as I could to focus on being productive.

I have been trying so hard to let my self rest.
I pray that one day the headaches will subside,
and that I will finally get a chance to prove my worth,
and be a man.

Early May, 2008, 1:15pm

Godless

2008-04-14T10:45:00.003-04:00

On the steps of the porch
watching the clouds
while listening to the roar of traffic
behind the fence.
rubber, asphalt, and synthetics.
It's not anger.
It's not depression.
it's not stress.
It's the by-product of a restless conscience
that leaves me nerves in ruins.
It's the perpetual dives into the darkest,
and most unholy chambers of the human heart
that steals my breath in the night.
I have seen the worst that hell has to offer,
and even it won't welcome me.
I am this earth's poison,
a godless nomad on course for a young death.

4/14/08 2:52pm

Good Friday

2008-03-21T11:43:00.004-04:00

Chapped hands fumble for the door key.
The winds of early spring welcome you home.
"Come on in.
Have a seat on the couch.
You will solve nothing today.
The same will go for tomorrow.
You can leave if you want,
but we know you wont."

3/21/08 11:55am

Nobody

2008-02-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

On the fast track.
As it were, I was
dying in my bed studying
the slanted, spit covered walls.
I have never been this free.
I must admit,
Although I remember it happening,
I dont remember what it feels like
to live without fear and dependence.
If i could have the chance to keep the love with me
in my heart,
all through my days,
maybe then it will mean something.
They tell me there is always hope.

I dont make children laugh anymore.
I dont make my mother proud anymore.
I dont frustrate my father like I used to.
2/11/07 11:06pm

the hell with it all.
its time I went to bed.

Goodbye to the Guttersnipes

2008-01-21T13:38:00.001-05:00

Tonight I'll cruise the city's veins.
I will paddle my way to its heart,
to destroy whatever it is that I can.
I'll burn the urchins
as they sleep in the cold.
I will breath fire to it's
slaves of the night life.
Hold fast to your bowels,
I had a long week
and this is my day off.

Over the potholes,
Elvis Costello plays on the radio:
"I can't do it anymore; and I'm not satisfied"
My thoughts exactly, Mr. Costello

1/21/08 2:24pm

Homecoming

2008-01-18T12:49:00.000-05:00

No guts
no heart
Nothing to prop this wretched skull
a swiveling head atop a massive hallow frame.
The irony of electric life finally greeting your bones
at your final hour.
all these unsatisfying years add up,
to show you just how meant you meant to this world.
Like your father,
and his father;
curl up and let the devil's minions carry you to your destiny:
A hell more barren than a south Florida landfill.
"welcome home, son"

1/18/07 1:31pm

2008-01-16T10:14:00.000-05:00

A cold sweat puddle begins to form
in the palm of a trembling opened hand
when you realize that coming here
alone was a good idea.
The best idea you've had in a long time.
Not even the
intermittent heart burn
and numbness in your face
will sway your concentration tonight.
Solitude on a dry-rotted park bench
as you bare witness to consumer traffic
hastily straggle along the sidewalk
to their homes
to their loved ones
to their warm beds.
You will never know such comforts.
You don't need them tonight.
10 million people,
and not one kind word to offer.
This is the mid-point of your life.
What have you done?
what is it worth?
1/16/07 12:00pm

Rain-Rusted

2008-01-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

At last, another day in the books
and I bid my tear-eyed farewell.
Time to lay down and rest my head,
and forget about the war.

I feel the poison in my guts and know it wants out.
in my chest
through my heart
up my throat,
and burns the back of my mouth
before I send it back with a hard swallow.
let it boil.
I pass out and grind my teeth to powder.

1/2/08 5:01pm

It looms

2007-12-13T11:46:00.001-05:00

It looms
It craves your heart.
Pry the dirt from your nails
and nervously anticipate
another week in hell.

five parts misery
two parts reckless abandon
These are our lives,
This is the best it will ever be.
try to laugh if off
12/13/07 11:54am

Saturday Mornings

2007-11-29T12:38:00.000-05:00

After the headaches went away,
I said goodbye to
a lifetime of names,
and places,
and things
that used to set me free.

Rub your face.
Exhale another breath
on the edge of the bed,
as you watch a watch a piece
of trash roll across the backyard.
no more worries.

This world grows heavier
everyday

11/29/07 12:59pm

Another Satisfied Customer

2007-11-20T15:46:00.001-05:00

Late November invites it's self into your life,
and you decide it's a good time for a walk.
Fast-paced,
three-foot-wide-steps through the wet autumn leaves.
It has rained for almost two weeks straight,
and the soles of your shoes offer no traction.
Breathing heavily, you notice your breath flicker above your head,
and disappear into thin air.
It is cold, it is dark, and you realize your are all alone.
Walking, breathing, and existing.
All alone.
No one wants your money,
or to waste your time,
and there most likely will not be any problems awaiting you when you turn the corner. You slide your chapped hands into the pockets of your jeans,
and tell your self that these are the moments you live for.
Walking aimlessly,
another satisfied customer.
11/20/07 3:59pm

On the Phone, in Your Car

2007-11-06T18:57:00.000-05:00

dont call me.
wish me away.
fuck you.
It still hurts.
11/6/07 6:58pm

The Black and White

2007-10-27T03:40:00.000-04:00

It is safe to say that you have lost me.
As the aftermath of ten thousand lost battles
rings out against the inside of my brittle skull.
vibrating my brain into shock.
You will find no words to offer me.
You cant undo my failures
I wont let you.
Save your words,
take back your promise
Forget we ever happened,
it wont matter when I am gone
10/27/07 3:44am

Dear Love,

2007-10-25T16:09:00.001-04:00

Another hole in the heart
another mouthfull of blood
another handfull of my pulsating organs,
these are for you.
I did this for you.
because of you.
I am not alive
I died when you left
I slept do death
after months of insomnia.

I despise the connections,
and the love and the feelings
that I thought would make me whole

From a grown man with a loving heart,
to a cold corps with piss for insides.

Who would have thought?
10/25/07 4:16

Independently Wealthy

2007-10-16T02:05:00.001-04:00

It felt to be out out of the heat. I had time to spend my days in bed, and my nights making retroactive choices like drinking, and spending what little money I had left in the bank. I had just gotten fired from my job, and the threat of financial devistaion, and expontially growing debt had not quite hit home yet in my head. I kept telling my self that I would take care of it, and that worrying would only make it worse on me. I was going through some hard times that were to be expected after one's unexpected firing.
I was grasping for any form of positive thought I could pull out of thin air. My sleep schedule had reversed it self, and the depression was well on its way. I new it, but like every other problem that had weasled it way in to my aimless life, I was assuring my self that sooner or later, ambition would find me, and I would be back on track again as if the train had never de-railed.
The first few weeks I look at as a deserved break. I had put in hard time, battling the elements for the past eight months doing manual labor, so it wasn't exactly hard to get used to having no daily obligations, and no where to be. I made it a point to wake up before 11:30 everday, so with my sleep schedule still slightly regulated, I was still confident that I would break the chains of Unemployment.
And so as it went, I began drinking more, staying up later, and and sleeping later into the day. before I knew it, I was waking up at 2:00pm, closing the blinds, and cursing at my self for conciously letting my life deteriorate into borderline alcoholsim, and waking up while the rest of the world was coming home from work. I had a roomate that used to live that way, and I know now that his life must have been sheer hell.
It has been exactly six months to the day that I was fired, and if you would have told me then that I would have willing prolonged these agonizing days of resentment and depression, I would have called you a liar without hesitation. I have wasted a half year of my life, and at almost twenty two years old, I am running out of time on this earth.
Tomorrow ill find a job.

10/17/07 2:21am

Grinded Down, Then to Nothing

2007-10-12T04:23:00.000-04:00

the days are becoming shorter
this time of year.
take what you can
of the day light.
before I have a chance
to live,
my days
are
grinded down,
then to nothing.

I fucked up again.

10/12/07 4:21am

You Live Once

2007-10-10T03:06:00.000-04:00

The beat
of my strained heart
pumping its poison
keeping me alive
at 3:00am.
Anxiety
rushes up
and down my spinal chord,
tension in
every limb,
finger,
and toe.

"You live once."
I find my self
saying it again;
"You live once."

Forcing the deepest breaths possible.
When I wake up tomorrow,
I'll forget this happened.

Goodnight world.

10/10/07 3:10am

When We're Alone

2007-10-10T01:39:00.000-04:00

A thunderstorm
blankets southeastern Pennsylvania.

Here in my apartment;
tragedy unfolds.
I lay down
on the couch
and pretend
that I am ok with it all.

close my eyes.
pins and needles.

I'll make plans
to make plans
to better my slef,
as the rain pours
down
on a fall night.

If none of this makes any sense
to you,
I would understand.
I dont sleep much anymore.

10/9/07 1:45am

Secret Death

2007-10-08T00:17:00.001-04:00

secret death.
die while no one is looking;
while no one notices.
there is so steady beat
to my rythem.
no reactions
to no actions.
nothing.
ever.

I am my own master
and i have perfected my trade.

A Not So Good Heart

2007-10-02T03:53:00.001-04:00

I checked out for a little while
in an attempt to clear my head.
I was never good at helping my self.
we all know that

So glad the cool wind is on its way.
maybe ill catch a break this time.
however, I wouldn't bet on it.

One year ago today,
I was wising I was dead.
A year is a long time,
but not much has changed.

I know i will break this,
and run,
and never look back.
but its just hard to
believe it sometimes.
10/2/07 3:55am

Letting All Of Us Down

2007-09-18T02:58:00.000-04:00

It will never let up.
I wake up,
and I am forced
to battle.

I can't do it.
I am not like
everyone else.

The harder I try,
the less I sleep.

I feel nothing anymore.

Win,
or lose,
one day,
this war
will
be
over.
9/18/07 2:58am

Fucking Liar

2007-09-17T00:13:00.000-04:00

Keep me
from moving forward.
don't untie me,
don't let me feel the atumn
nighttime air.
don't show me who I could be
I will get better,
It will happen on its own.

I take everyhing for granted,
even my hatred.
9/17/07 12:12am

The Summer Of Nothing

2007-09-17T00:09:00.000-04:00

Tonight, I sit on my balcony.
gazing at the trees outside of my
apartment.
This is the fourth place that
I have lived in this year.
It is unusually cool night,
the first of many to come.

I am not alone,
the jungle across the street
is more alive than ever.

I see nothing.
nothing but outlines
of things,
and places,
and people,
that will never set me free.

I see no reason to sleep tonight.
I will let the mid september wind
roll over my skin,
and put me to bed if it wants to.

I am no stranger to restlessness.
I will always remember these days
as the summer i lost to insomnia,
and depression,
and self loathing fits of rage.

I listen to the insects,
and the rodents,
and the cars on the nearby highway,
praying
that something,
or someone,
will
bring me peace.
9.14.07. 2:11am

Learn to Let Go

2007-09-12T23:23:00.000-04:00

Take me home.
I stand
to make
one last bad dream
come true.

my life
is only half over,
what are my chances
of being reborn?
9/13/07 11:21pm

Shit Cramps

2007-09-10T17:51:00.000-04:00

Staring at a blank page
write
in an attempt
to drain
the poison.

I dont learn from my mistakes,
I run from them,
and hope they never
find me again.

But they do.
Lord knows
Im no good at hiding.

I am fucking worthless.

A Fistfull Of Hearts

2007-09-08T14:46:00.000-04:00

Pounding at the walls.
scream till you bleed.
there is a way out,
but you wll die trying.

I have,
without
a doubt,
Lost
my mind.

9/8/07 2:44pm

Up, Up, And Away

2007-09-04T20:34:00.000-04:00

Another day
escapes
into thin air

Up, Up,
and away.

Im cursed
to repeat
the same
horror.
Day in
Day out.

Hang your head.
drop your shoulders.

at least your not me.

9/3/07 8:36PM