Let’s start this by saying
she’s cute in that
wow-before-all-the-alcohol-you-musta-been-something
kinda way.

She’s ranting at Mrs. Bell
who’s doing her
good-natured-suffering-because-this-one-is-going-to-buy-something-eventually bit
from behind the counter.

The Ghost Of Cutie Past is agitated,
proclaims
“I’m French, German, Indian, Irish and
Russian.  I rule this earth.
I need my vodka. I have a princess suit —
I’m sensitive!  I could be
on Oprah!  I mean, I need my vodka,
why would they do that to me?”

Mrs. Bell rolls her eyes in my direction.

All I want to do is pay my cable bill
so I can have uninterrupted access to the Internet
and all the good shows on TV,
but right now
I’m beginning to reconsider
what I call a need.

As I leave, Mrs. Bell is saying,

“I know you’re angry, honey,
but honestly, they’re a business,
what did you think they’d do?”

The answer’s lost behind me
as I walk out the door
to my car and head for home.

I’m not drunk or stoned,
not too cold,
was never pretty so I’ve lost no looks to age
and wear,
don’t have a princess suit though I bet
I could get one,
and this is one sensitive half-breed
who knows he’ll never rule the earth —
but I’ve been there, friends,
I’ve been where she was, and
I’ve been where Mrs. Bell was, too.
I’ve asked the same questions,
and given myself the same answer:

How could they do that to me?

Why won’t Oprah call me, or someone
who’ll let me talk it out
and make everything better?

What, exactly, did you expect them to do?

Maybe I should have stuck around
just a minute or two longer
and found out.
Maybe I should have handed over
one moment of sympathy for these neighbors
bound to the eternal questions —

but the TV’s waiting,
and there’s a whole world of unmet friends
waiting on this
critical message
I was born to share.

1.
In a world of six billion people,
your soul mate will be right next door.

2.
War, while horrible in the macro,
brings forth the most delicate emotions from men.

3.
The addict, finally aware of her problem,
will cry as she swallows the pills.

4.
Loved ones with cancer
ennoble all around them.

5.
Nature exists
as a foil for hubris.

6.
Things beyond this world
conform to strict rules.

7.
When love finds you,
you will be unready for it.

8.
Animals are smarter than us
in all the important ways.

9.
The force of a bullet or a bomb
can bestow the power of flight.

10.
The rich are rarely as happy
as the poor, but you will be an exception.

11.
A neat ending is to be expected,
as is a lesson.  Things don’t simply happen.

“The other night”
will be amazing
two weeks
or a month from now,

but today it’s only
a blue thread on the pillow
and an ache for more.

Marvelous time
that will not move too quickly
for fear of gently substituting
a too-eagerly desired nostalgia
for this necessary,
melancholy present, for

without today’s blues
how much less sweet
“the other night” will be
two weeks or a month
from now.

Love the West
as it’s painted.

The wind off the prairie,
the wind off the face of Crazy Horse.

The long false memory of lone wolves
under quarter-sky moons.

Movie, movie, movie.
Pulp book footing at the ford of a shallow stream.

Dirt main streets and families
stoic as props.

Something to rely on
when the spirit’s down

and that howl is a wolf
at the door.

With this small pistol
I invite you to shoot me.
You are safe from repercussions.
I will press no charges.

Shoot me in the shoulder!

Is this art?

Some ask that art be gunless,
unarmed.  Well, I am asking you
to take an arm from me
and use it to take an arm from me,
so if this is your perspective
you can console yourself
by knowing that together,
we will be making art.

This is disturbing to you?
You don’t wish to help?

Or, it does not disturb you at all
because I sound like an artist talking,
speaking figuratively?

I assure you that I’m an artist
but I will not say if I am speaking figuratively,
or rather, I leave that up to you
and your decision as to what to do
with the pistol.

I could shoot myself on stage
but then, you’d bear no part
of the performance. Or a small part only
if you felt pain or fear for me,
or for yourself as I fired.

When is pain performance?
At what point does a grimace demand applause?
These are the questions of art we face tonight.

Here is the small pistol I promised.
Perhaps you have your own to use?
Please, take mine; it’s not traceable.
I built it myself.  Learned gunsmithing
just for tonight’s show.

At what point does this become insanity,
or some form of illness? I assure you
I was sane enough to learn the new craft
with great care.  The gun will not go off
in your hand by error.  It will require
your attention to go off at all.
It is not the finished product of an insane man;
my thinking is quite well-ordered.

“Shoot me” is also not my crazy thought
but a calm invitation, a willingness to take pain
for your educational and entertainment needs.
This is compassion and sacrifice.
How am I insane?

You may stand very close, if you wish,
if it will salve your fear that you may miss
and make a lethal error.  Press the barrel
against the meat…If you like,
we can clear the room so it’s just the two of us
here, intimates in shared creation.

At what point will my pain,
vicariously thrilling at one remove,
become worthy enough of your attention
that you will assist me?

No blame will attach to your choice
no matter what you choose to do.
But I have come this far for you;
how far will you come for me?

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

I’m going to try.
Laid out like that,
they look appetizing enough.

I try.
The clash of flavors is…
interesting.  Interesting texture,
too. 

I try again a little later.
Now they’re cold,
and the congealed fat
that once seemed to add so much
is just so much glop.

I’m still hungry
so I snack a little while later.
Junk food, strangely aromatic,
still unsatisfying.

I put myself and my hollow gut
to bed wishing I had taken
more time in preparation,
stocked up on better ingredients.

Can’t live like this — should have
just had something simple,
something I knew ahead of time
would fill me up.

But I will try again, I know.
Have to try a million recipes.
Something in me makes it
so I have to have a thousand pots going
at once and time everything to come out
at the same time perfectly delectable,
all the seasonings working together,
no gristle, no fat beyond what’s needed for savor,
a good meal at last, and one
I might be willing to share.

My dirty friends and I talk dirty in private and public.
We the dirty, sanctified profane, mud spitters.
We the dirty music of living bother.
We the basement orators licking mold.

When we say gun we mean penis.
When we say fire we mean the act of losing the gun to its purpose.
When we say target we mean the regret of the immediate afterward.
When we say empty clip we mean not again we have a communal headache.

“I have a dirty Bible written on lambskin.
I tear the pages out to wrap my gun in.
I pass the Bible around for my dirty friends to use.
I’m a dirty boy so precious you want me to talk dirty.”

Ooooooh, so the lovely, aren’t we the lovely?

Sometimes we use the dirty words to talk sense.
Sometimes we don’t want to but we do it because you want to.
Even if you’re not here when we do it we do it.
Thank us after, spank us, make us come hard again.

So little a word as the obvious four-letter verb all purpose is beyond us.
So we invent a new finger for it.
So we stick the new finger up in it.
So we are the dumbasses with our fingers in our love.

Don’t you love how we smell, we dirty talkers?
Sort of mushroom and the hot new grass after mowing.
We pastoral because talking dirty is impossible on a farm.
We farm so you can see us farm dirty, manure, guns, varmints, words.

Nothing you don’t say to yourselves.
Nothing you haven’t thought of all clean in a rec room.
We the dirty songbirds say that’s all right, little lambs.
Dirty songbirds off the bathtub rails not clean ourselves, just for you.

Every dirty word is a scapegoat bell tinkling running from tribe stones.
Every dirty talker knows this and keeps the clean mouth for some.
We and ugly, dirty friends of ours do the big talk you won’t.
Thank us, kiss us, make us a hard drink, admit one with coupon, let us be.

get a phone call
can I stop and pick up
kids after school
sure I say
pick em up then I say
gotta make a stop
gotta stop at the liquor store
gotta buy beer buy beer buy beer
here be a big boy be a big girl
hold this in your lap in your lap in your lap
like to have a beer when I get home
gotta have a beer have a beer
a beer beer beer
next day same thing
gotta pick em up
gotta make another stop
this time beer and a bottle and a bump
gotta have beer have beer beer and a bump
beer and a bump and a beer and a bump
and a beer and a beer and a beer beer beer
sometimes sometimes I get myself a bag
and a beer and a bump and a beer beer beer
when the kids are asleep I like to have a smoke
and a beer and a bump and a beer beer beer
don’t let the kids see it’s fine for me
if I have a smoke and a beer and a beer beer beer
but don’t let me catch you
coming home drunk
what’s in the bag on the seat between you
better not be beer
beer and a bump
or a bag and a beer and a beer beer beer
you’re a young man now
and a young woman now
and I better not catch you with a beer beer beer
and God forbid you come home pregnant
and don’t come home with your girl knocked up
cause you got into the car with a bag and a beer
and a bump and a bottle and a pipe and a beer
never mind we do it did it back when
never mind how you two got here
don’t come home in trouble or you’re out on the street
with your bag and your bottle and your beer beer beer
if it ever happens I swear I’ll lose my head
have to sit down have myself a beer beer beer
and a dip in the bag and a swig from the bottle
a bottle and a bump and a beer beer beer

Whiskey writing, twist of
sloppy anger.  Beer writing,
young as giggling at farts.
Weed writing, profound phrases
wrapped around themselves as big as a burrito.
Acid writing, a whine of bees
looking for atrophied
flowers.  Coke writing, swift angles.
Smack writing, looped and slow.
Wine writing, delayed and delayed.

Name a writing drug, I’ve tried it.
Supplemental addictions
to the main habit.

I have kicked them all
but for the first, the love of my life,
the cigarette writing, airy typewriter ribbon
soft twirl —
that, and the Big Horse
of naked writing,
no substance at all to back it,

no way to hide from it.
No excuses.
Just the vein open, full flow,
nodding into its rush.

A car radio
set to scan
in remote areas
far from stations
will crackle in bursts
interrupted by minute pauses
for hours as you drive:
small bastions of hope
appearing and disappearing
with every break in the aural snow.

You would gladly settle
for an evangelist out here
as you hurtle alone
through the dark
though you are no believer:
any voice would be welcome
no matter the message.

That, sometimes,
is how fanatics
are born.