Love

I Need Your Voice

Memories
In a forgotten lunch box
A bubble thought of
Time spent daydreaming
Beside you
And the warmth
From your soft moist skin
Sticking to my skin
And the noises we make

Vibrations distinguish
One voice from another
Become electricity over
The telephone lines
From my town to your town
Still, it is you
Or a fragment of you
Sound

Through the end of an ear piece
Into my ear
Receiving sensation and
Back to vibration
Delivering the message to
The center of my lonely brain
Which goes into action
To interpret your words
Into feelings and beyond that,
Everything
Deep and low
Dark and quiet

Love is a Forgotten Pet

He pulled up to the office -
His yapping terrier eagerly
Moving about the car -
To retrieve a folder
And while inside, he fondly reminisced
With Mrs. Molly, the secretary
About the boss, Mr. Moss
One hour later, he returned
To make a lunch date
And poor Missy the Mutt
Found once, lost, abused, in a parking lot
Had the driest tongue ever baked
To a crisp in the sweltering sun

Thanks For the Wine, Asshole

I look at your rich face smiling
And I wonder why you can’t find
Some fucking money
For the artists?
I know you got your bottom line
And your responsibility
But believe me, brother
Without art
You got nothing
You got shit
You got a 9 to 5 life
With a 9 to 5 wife
That you don’t love
And believe me, brother
She don’t love you back
The both of you
Cheat on each other
And pretend you love
One another
But you got no love
You white middle of the road
Wouldn’t know art if it crawled up
Your ass and dug in to die
Give me some money
You greedy debt manager
But you got nothing
You’re only worth what you owe people
When you finish giving me nothing
Take your freshly wiped ass with a twenty
Dollar bill back to the grave where
You came from and leave
My dirty renaissance
To the hungry dogs
Let me tell you, brother
Let me tell you

Gone

She’s gone
Left yesterday
Said she had to move
Also said she loved me
Well, she’s gone now
At least I know that

This Cigarette Reminds Me of Our Love

I set this thing on fire
Suck in the smoke
That will probably give me cancer
Some lump to be surgically
Removed so I can live

It burns real quick
Tastes like an ashtray
Like your stale kisses
I once thought sweet

Before too long
I’m smoking the filter
Gagging on it
One drag too many

And then
I push the butt
Into the ash tray
And grind out
The fire

That’s you, babe
That’s your cancer
That’s your smoke
That’s your butt

And it ain’t the first butt I crushed
And it ain’t the last

Going Down

This plane
Is rumbling
Pitching
Dropping 3000 feet
Not normal
Looking out the window
Earth becomes dirt
As the shattered bits
Of our pretend love
Impact into
Pieces too small
For recovery

Crying Never Helps

When I heard the news
That you were leaving
My first thoughts:
How can I keep from crying?

Eyes stinging with that
Initial salty expression
Ready to break
Through the dam

And flood the plain
With torrential currents
Washing away
The unclean terrain

I took a breath
And wrote this poem

It feels good
To write out thoughts
That confounds the senses

My eyes are dry now
My lips slick with
The flavor of cheap wine
Cheap wine that works

In fact, I feel no need
To cry about you leaving me
I’ve fallen into
A comfortable peace

I don’t need you
I don’t need anyone
Most of all, I don’t need love
That pain gets old

All I need is my writing
It doesn’t have to be pretty
It doesn’t have to be nice
It doesn’t have to be caring
It doesn’t need my credit card
It’s always new
I know how it thinks
And it loves me

One More Wine

This is the worst wine
Not even table wine
This is floor wine
Dirt on the floor wine

Wine not from the grape
Butt directly from the vine
Pus wine
Wine from the pus of the
Grape vine
Wine made out of pus

And it damn sure gets me drunk
Not light spirited
Not socially lubricated
Not subtly medicated
And not sedated
But a quality of drunk
Far beyond compare

Drunk like the fucking
Back of the alley
Puking on the trash
That could have been
Food for a week
And the girl you met
Shooting up at the bus station
Throw up on her too
That’s the kind of drunk

The kind of drunk that large
Amounts of money just can’t buy
Cheap drunk
Dollar drunk
Drunk li9ke I spit in Shirley Temple’s
Butt hole drunk

You did this to me
At the moment of birth
I was innocent

America carved
My smooth rock
Into a coarse headstone reading:
Here lies the body of
An artist
What he did
We do not know

Love Means, I’ll Take a Bullet For Ya’

Love to me means,
I’ll take a bullet for ya’
Love to you means,
You seem convenient

Love to me means,
I’ll do anything for you
Love to you means,
I’ll give you a call later

Love to me means,
I need you
Love to you means
Let’s get together if
No one else is available

Here is what love
Means to me now:
Why take a bullet
When you can give one away?

BONUS NAPKIN POEMS

Bad Poem on a Napkin
I wrote this poem
For you on a napkin
At the bar

You wiped some food
Particles off your mouth

I should have
Written it on a tampon

Parrot
Each parrot I
Shoot never
Repeats the sound
Of my .45

Monkey
At the zoo
A monkey shamelessly
Masturbates
As performance art
For a church youth group
And their cameras
God loves pornography

Paper Rose
I made a paper
Rose for you
You watered it
You stupid bitch

Eggs
Roaches lay eggs
Chickens lay eggs
Fish lay eggs
Alligators lay eggs
People lay eggs too
And what usually springs forth
Is an alligator, fish,
Chicken, or roach