keep off the phone



I awoke to the smell of a cigarette.



She was not in the bed.

The bedroom shade was wan, barely lit.

From outside came a sound of water dripping.



The cigarette smell grew stronger, creeping under the thin door.



I began to feel aroused.

Who knew where she'd gotten them.



We'd both quit in the months after the last war, neither of us wanting to be beholden to the addiction, should slim times ensue.



I pulled on my dusty denim coat and pants.

I pulled on my wool socks and stuffed my feet into my boots.



I stared for a couple of seconds at the duct tape I'd wound around the boots to hold them together. The tape was falling apart. Time to find some more tape.



I opened the thin door. The hallway was mostly dark. But I could see what looked like candlelight flickering from the kitchen area.



I said her name, but she did not answer.



I walked down to the entrance to the kitchen area.



She was sitting at the card table, smoking. A torn open carton of Pall Mall Blues sat on the table. She was ashing into this thick, heavy-looking white candle I'd never seen before.



She was wearing a brand new cashmere sweater, pea green, with a stretchy neck that revealed her bony chest. I could see her bare thighs and calves under the table.



I stared at her soft pale skin, tight along her collarbone.



"What is this?" I said.



The phone rang.



Oh shit I hope I can find me some gasoline. Oh shit I hope I can find me a gun.

What if I have to kill a man to steal his car.



The phone rang and rang.



"It's for you," she said.



"You fuckin' bitch." I could barely speak.



"You going to pick up?"



My hands were shaking as I picked up the phone. A feeling so distant, so unprecedented, holding that dusty receiver to my ear.



There was a click and a pause. Then a recording of a woman's voice began:



You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have no right to an attorney. You are under arrest. Should you challenge subsequent eventualities...



I dropped the phone. It banged against the wall.



"Who'd you fuck?" I yelled.



"It's all the same."



She yawned. She lit another cigarette.



I thought about killing her. I told her so. Then I heard a car door open.



She threw a pack of Palls at me. They bounced of my chest and fell on the floor. I wish I could say she cackled and said something insane but she just sat, smoking, staring off to the side, impassive. Not looking at me nor anything.



I ran back down the hallway and bashed the nailed-shut bedroom window with my fist. The glass broke and I dove through the window.



The sun was up now, the sky full gray.



I ran.

please refrain



first we



got lightly braised with botanicals

ate a hell of a barbecue

and applied a de-humanizing cream



then we

took our beers down

to the computer room,



there to view

forty or fifty

photos,



captured scenes

from the desert war

in

Mesopotamia.



As our soldier

friend

disbursed the

facts,



some of the gathered

civilians

uttered halting



coos

chatter

bluster

cheers



over the unexpectedly

stark,

detailed,

pornographically

violent

images of



charred humans,

split bodies,

generally



maimed

people,



ruined lives,



wounded

kids, etc.



Yet these remarks

seemed also shy

naive

halting

foalish



as if their owners

hadn't come quite prepared

to stand upon

any



spindle-legged compassion

or



walking

abortion

of afterbirth

empathy

fu manchu



perhaps the best thing a man can do

these damp mid-August days



is re-engage

in honest daily

semi-isometric

exercise,



keep the beer

flowing slow

and cold,



and commence

to refoliate in

anticipation



of Fall.

the best bender I ever tore



the day they canned me from my job waiting tables

at their prettified rat's nest of a "health conscious" Italian

joint in the shadow of the Queensboro bridge,



I carried my fired ass across 2nd Avenue to drop

a dollar bill into a homeless lady's cup. She in her purple

quilted coat and seated upon a grey plastic milk crate

smiled up at me with more kindness than I deserved.

My life has always been like this. I lit a Camel

and carried myself serpentine around the corner,



down the length of Lexington Avenue to the train station,

the late afternoon light floating like summer

down across the buildings, the colors of objects and people

shimmering like cilia, or seaweed. The forked tongue

of debauchery flicking my ear. A delicious tender

digital technicolor acid itch crawling all over me.



I rode the train to my hovel in Greenpoint

where I showered and played my guitar.

Drank four Coronas and howled at the red sky,

the night coming down.



later on a low stage in an all night place

just outside Chelsea I slew these 2 drunk chicks

and a few drunken others with every song

I had, and a few I didn't.



this green eyed dude with short dreadlocks

jumped up on stage with me for some E flat blues

till the gray dawn light sluiced in like pale water

thru the big plate glass window.



everyone was drinking as though they were immortal



then this wire-limbed Micmac girl in tight, dirty

blue jeans entered my scope. or perhaps I

entered hers. she seemed like a veteran. everyone

seemed to love her. how I wanted to fuck her.



instead we all smoked a joint outside in a doorway,

then she melted away



after a few more words

of epic drunken cameraderie

with my green eyed blues friend,



so did I too,

down into the E train



much later in the loud

bright 10 oclock

morning,

not a cloud in the sky,



I crawled out

of Greenpoint station

broke to stalk



down the butt-end

of Manhattan Ave.

with my hangover demonic,



my scowl

like finery,



and the bums all knew me.



wonder that

I still had my guitar.



(I'd lose that later,

in a future drunk March,

a week after



my birthday)

god, I am tired. and whipped in the head. for a variety of reasons. nonetheless, here are 5 poems i would like to write. if I'm game, they'll be the next 5 I write.



they might come at night out as drunken phone calls, so if you're one of the handful who's apt to look, you might want to look



the best bender i ever tore



keep away from the phone



panic is a train



what I told her



keep ya greasy mouth off me

arrow



some people arch into your life

at a high trajectory;

you can see them coming,

fore and aft. you can see

the white space around them.

lurching in slow,

they plummet



other people hew

into your life low and fast,

flying tight to the land,

barely seaming the mists.

creeping fast as dawn,

they eat the shadows

and before you know it,

they've come, gone

around, made another

pass



I dreamt of you.



We were seated

in a restaurant

near Ground Zero.



I'd just smoked a cigarette.



I ordered Chinese pizza

for the second day straight.



You said it was as

good a choice as any,



then the floor exploded.



this morning's a wet spore

the sky, a drab bruise



my brain,

a fist of sadness