old. (30)

it startled me.

those white hairs popping up on people I knew from grade school.

there were some in my beard.

we were getting heavier.

or thinner.

worst were the ones I saw seldom.

radical change, it seemed.

their faces had changed so much

and sometimes it was hours later

I recognized their eyes.

this was all too soon, I thought.

and if I could see it happening to them,

it must be happening to me.

I tried looking in the mirror,

but I kept throwing out my chest,

standing up straighter,

turning to my better profile.

what if I really was looking older?

I thought I'd noticed a change

in the way young women

smiled at me.

dear god.

these kids with mohawks these days?

they're starting to look like idiots!

didn't I used to have a haircut like that?

and those lines on my face.

no matter how rested I was,

there they were.

often I felt creaky,

like a car with frozen springs.

so sudden, all of it.

you watch more carefully than I did,

my son.

try to see when this all starts

so you avoid it.

buddha head says:

don't talk about what you don't know about.
go hungry, but don't stay that way if you can help it.
assume no one else thinks like you and act accordingly.
pleasure can be simulated, misery can not.
it doesn't cost anything to be polite.
get kicked in the balls at least once.
try and learn to use silence.
you can be robbed of your possessions, but never your experiences.
go crazy, but come back soon.
great sex is better than frequent sex.
recognize idiots and stand out of their way.
recognize fools and stay close enough to watch.
there is never enough time.

broke

got coffee and a paper down to
$2.75
if I bring my own cup
lunch,
$1.75
skip the sandwich
first time I felt nervous like this
short month, anyway
hands spin on the clock
while
the days fall off the calendar

Hoary Morning/Family Day

webs of frost all over
ghost town out here
nobody working
but the feds
twilight zone streets
pins dropping everywhere
darker even
than a regular monday
ride the centre line
whole city stopped
except us
boy's birthday today
drive and dream
I'm still in bed
with his mother
and him

work (past the ports)

sit on my left nut all day
and say the same thing over and over again

the money's not great but it's better than it used to be

80% of the time I can tell what people are going to do
before they say it

music from the radio,
always just out of the reach of my hearing

I get to think a lot
but sometimes it's easier not to

people don't seem to like it when you
tell them what they're going to do
before they do it

there are pretty women,
sometimes not so pretty women,
and sometimes I speculate on what their genitals look like

I make the little ones laugh and
the old ones smile
and vice versa

while my back hurts and my hair grows

I mentally recite a list of dead actors
to assure myself my mind is still intact...

wonder if there's a beer in the fridge

eat the same lunch in the same order every day
except on Fridays when I get the breakfast special

Dan And Me

his ma got too much gas during a leg operation

so she couldn't watch us very close

we drank up all the grenadine

and played floor hockey downstairs

with a tennis ball soaked in ronsonal

we were always lighting things on fire

smashing bullets with pliers and hammers

3doz eggs on the back of Ryan's parents' house

the whole hood ornament thing

bookended that girl in the easement

he was catatonic the last time I saw him

his mother still says hi

I'm A Bad Man

I run this one stop sign on my way to work every morning
take pleasure in the misfortunes of others as long as they're not too bad
spit on the sidewalk and I don't always wash my hands
judge people by their appearances
stole from WalMart by accident once and just took off when I realized it
totally ignoring Student Loans and paying EI very slowly
sometimes I light my cigarettes in doorways
don't give two shits about Gaza
drink on weekdays
fart in elevators
and I killed a guy in back of a bar this one time
or maybe saw that on TV
point being, you ought not to fuck with me, motherfucker.

Abject Terror At The Carwash

oh god dear lord
what the bloody hell is that?
my father is battling some kind of horrible
spraying hose-beast
it's so steamy in here and loud
man, is it ever loud
that waxy horrible frozen hose-beast
is trying to kill my dad and steal our car
I'm strapped into this horrible moulded plastic seat
thrusting against my nylon restraints,
bawling at the top of my lungs but,
nobody else in here seems scared of it
I assume that that is part of its terrible power
probably terrorizes babies like me at gas stations
all over the country

I HATE THAT THING!

it circles our car and seems especially loud
when it goes past my window
my dad seems to be laughing
but I can't hear him over the monstrous roar
of that terrible waxy frozen hateful hose-beast.
can't escape it
can't believe my Dad paid $3 for this!

IT STOPPPED...

oh thank god,
it stopped
a p parent ly my father
has bested the abomination
Obama Nation?
never you mind
the radio must've been on



I'm a godamned baby fer chrissakes!
what do I know from wordplay?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_play,
bitches.
Fuck it. I'm out.

A Fiction, Brought On By The Stress Of The Season

The increasing frequency of those little shocks

when I touched something metal

didn't strike me as out of the ordinary.



When the static from the radio

began to sync up with

my movements,



I told myself it was coincidence.



The brand new light bulbs blew

when I flipped the switch

and I complained about the



shoddy manufacturer.



I'll admit that all these things

together were making me a little

curious.



I whistled at a dying, flickering

fluorescent light and brought

it back up to full intensity.



I changed pitch and

was able to make the brightness

go up and down.


When I started to think I was controlling traffic lights

with my mind, I became distressed.

I sneezed and the elevator I was riding in shuddered to a halt.


I briefly considered telling somebody,


My wife, my mother, some bum in the street.

But at the same time I relished this secret thing I had going on.

Maybe I was taking too many vitamins like that fellow from Albemuth.



When the vending machine blew up


I turned and ran.

I figured nobody coulda seen it.

It was mid morning on some back road, no truckers, even.


This was nothing new.


I'd experienced electrical phenomena before.

Back when we were kids we'd get all jacked up

on cough medicine.


Actifed DM had a peculiar way of dissociation


that made everybody think they were contolling the weather

but this just crept up on me

so subtly.


I wasn't getting high anymore.

Hadn't even thought about it.

But here it was,


Clear as day.


When I shook people's hands

I could feel what they were about to feel.

Gave some fool directions and tasted what he was going to have for lunch.


There was no physical sensation


to let me know it was coming on,

some days I just got up and knew

exactly what you were thinking.


My nose starting bleeding

when I brought that plane down,

by accident of course.


I done led them fuckin' hikers

to the bodies of their friends

just by reading the paper.


and you thought I was going crazy.


You thought I needed attention.

I thought you needed tension.

I'm glad you were in attendance.

Dear Client

You ask me a question and then ignore me

when I tell you the answer.

You ask me the question again

and then ignore me

when I tell you the answer again.

I begin to suspect you're asking

not because you want to know

but

because you can.

You rephrase the question,

ignore my answer,

and then turn and ask someone else.

In my mind's eye,

I rush across the room

and push you through the window.

As you fall five stories,

I shout the answer after you,

but you hit the pavement

before you can ask again.

women, as I understand it

there's just three kinds of beauty out there in the terrible world
you'll laugh and think I'm too old

but...

some of the women take it for granted
they'll do it on purpose and will expect you to behave a certain way
in their favour

there's resentful beauties
they can't help the way they look and they're sick and fucking tired
of fool men goggling at them
they're stupid hot but they hate it and you oughta hate yourself for looking
you asshole

then you have the indifferent drop dead super women
they're a special breed, my son
they're the ones who're pretty in the morning
and even more so at lunch
you'll know them by the simple fact that it don't matter what they're wearing

they could be dressed in wet paper sacks and you'd only have eyes for them
you can be a friend with a woman like that
completely overwhelmed by her beauty, you'd have no other choice

The Wait

only two more days
just 16 more hours
eight hours is really only two sets of 4
an hour's only a dozen 5 minute increments
49 more minutes
just half of 1hr to go
still 23min left
six hundred and ninety 2nds
1sec=1hr
24hrs=7days
seven days times 24hr
= one hundred and sixty eight
three hundred and sixty degrees
three hundred and sixty 5 days
bear with me, I'm no mathemagician

Polyester Sausage

belt and tie, choking me off at both ends.
pretty sure I could do a better job in a bloodstained loincloth.
I'd be just as polite and comfortable, too.
probably settle for relief of either link of pressure.
you likely aren't aware of the suffocation that goes on
when you're trapped in a uniform past 15yrs of age.
it ain't pretty, lemme tell ya that right now.
I'm pretty sure you can see steam when I tug at my collar.
for the record, I've had far worse jobs.
but I was young, then, and uniforms fit me better.

I'm king of the fruit flies
emanating from their beercan cities
they bring me information
from the rest of the house
those wild provinces far away from my desk
perfect replicating genes
convinced they've evolved enough
to receive my prophecies
"Thou shalt not fly in front of the monitor"
and such
do my bidding
insofar as replicating and avoiding the screen

I thought I was a painter until I started writing
I thought I was a writer until I started drinking
I thought I understood people until I met some
I thought it was your turn to pay
I thought this was what you wanted
I thought you thought we were happy
I thougt I coud still type
I thought I was your type
I thought that the word thought looked really pretty fucking funny if I typed it over and over again

I was going to write this great poem.
then I was just so happy that I'd had
an urge to write a great poem.
the afternoon light was falling perfectly
and there were beautiful women walking by.
I'd been eating good food and enjoying a fine book.
for a good forty five minutes there wasn't nothing bothering me.
I just felt just fine.
and I told myself, you should write a great poem about this.
and I said to myself, self, I'll never have time to,
and I probably won't remember anyway.

Drive

road so hot

the car gets to feeling all loose and wobbly

like meat



the sun

through all the trees

sizzling by



burning fuel

and the trail of heated smells

from in front

boneshaker

only guy on the last bus
music, book and I
pass those same stops
same spots
just the dust and exhaust
no cloud of contained human smells
watching lights of all kinds go by
cross the bridge
light on the water
peek out my window into all the other windows
and write

report

that wavering pain starts like a walnut in my shoulder
works its way down my arm
until my hand goes numb
wonder what it is while trying to ignore it
it'll pass
systems functioning less efficiently than they once did
felling rusty, kind of
oxidized

4:43am, April 6, 2008

usually when I try to write feeling happy I turn out shit
I assume tonight will be like any other
on the topic of shit,
my farts now seem to smell exactly like my infant son's poop
and I was right about time speeding up for any of you
who give a flying fuck
I'll turn around here in a little while and be an old man
crotchety to beat all and with a bunch of useless advice
about cooking, fucking and home repair
s'been a million years already and that's just half
so I should feel lucky to live so long