Tonight, when I left for another pack of cigarettes, I realized how good it felt to be out of the house.

I don't remember the last time I felt like that.

The air was fresh from the rain and the lights reflected off the streets as if off mirrors. I saw everything so still, so static, and

I was part of it.

I belonged there, in the parking lot, surrounded by broken darkness, and breathing.

It felt like the first time I breathed,
the first time I felt I belonged anywhere.

And, for the first time, I began to walk.

So hard, after being half of us, to be the whole of myself.

Why do I have to learn who I am? Shouldn't that be inherent knowledge?

In a way, it is;

In my mind I am neither overweight nor a smoker.

Yet I am both.

In my mind I am strong, independent.

Yet I always search for something to fill me.

So, I know who I am, I observe myself and my actions. And when they don't mesh with my illusions, I deny.

I am not blind, I just don't like what I see and, so,

Close my eyes.

I am the monkey whose fists swing frenetically behind his bulbous head

As I run screaming monkey syllables,

In a hurried frenzy to grasp the prized banana.

If you get in my way I will bitch slap you with monkey palms,

Kick your ass with monkey feet.

I will crawl over your hairy back, step on your chimpy head

And

I will get the banana.

I will pound my chest in primitive victory

And with gorilla grunts declare myself

The Primate President,

The Ape King.

You lesser chimps will tremble before me,

And succumb to the glory that is me.

King of an empty kingdom,

I wander the high arched stone walls of my castle.

My footfalls echo hollowly back to my ears and I am happy for the sound.

Pulling silken robes tight around my shoulders, I resolutely stride forward toward my throne,

I sit, and dream:

I want to kill those who displease me, in grotesque and fanciful ways.

I want to see treasonous blood run thickly on the dungeon floor.

And then I will be happy.

After all, how can we be content until all our enemies lay around us in humiliation

With limbs twisted

And dying?

The chain is broken,
So I can't ride my bike.
If I had just a single link
I could fix it
And go for a ride.

No words are spoken,
None, anyway, that I like.
If I had the slightest clue
I would share it
And have a nice talk.

But I do have a new car
And plenty of music.
I have some good food in the fridge
And yummy rum in an enormous bottle.
My little beagle is cute
And he loves me so.

So I have a nice car…
I've just got to find somewhere to go.

I firmly believe that certain implicit rules exist in life. Some of these are:

1) Anybody using a drive-through window should only be making small orders. This would preclude, of course, any mini-van mom ordering for nine children. This includes banks. Unless you're making a simple deposit or withdrawal, get your fat lazy ass inside.

2) The left lane is for passing only. If cars are passing you from the right lane you probably should turn your license in.

3) Shower before you go in public.

4) If you are going to wear sandals, clip and clean your toenails. Please.

We drank beer in December
Lifting thick-rimmed mugs
In small smoky rooms and
Laughing again over tales often told.

We met again in May
Outside and by the smoking grill.
I watched the embers drift by your face
As you smoked another cigarette
And spoke to me of future plans.

After all these miles, we've never led
And walked as though we're blind.
"Goodnight," we've said and off to bed
Having spent every last dime.

Thus we broke our bread with the dead
Yet never seemed to mind.
We yawned instead and scratched our heads
And carelessly spent our time.

The piglet was an actor. In fact, his current character even had a line to speak. It was his very first speaking part and he was quite excited.

"So what's your line?" asked the hen the morning of the shoot.

"It's ‘Oink'!" replied the piglet enthusiastically.

"'Oink'?" said the hen laughing. "Well you shouldn't screw that up!"

The piglet, quite insulted, turned his curly-tail on the foul fowl and marched backstage to await his cue.

When his time came, he proudly trotted onstage, puffed his chest out and said loudly,

"MOO!"

The hen was impossible to live with, after that.

I have lips that want to kiss,
But instead form the fragmented sounds
Of half-remembered prayers.

My soul yearns to heaven yet
My heart rests on the washboard.

Long-a-coming, waylaid and anyway
An invitation to a waiting.

Time stops.

Never was.

Yet I have the memories of ten thousand years.
Photographs of me and other people crowd my mantle.

It's for tomorrow I was born
Yet I desperately grasp for yesterday.

I blink.

I breathe.

The cobblestones are fixed imperfectly,
Yet the cobblestones are fixed.

The lamps are lit brightly,
Yet it is too dark for me to go home.

The crusade I made
Has come home to stay
The crusade I made
empties my soul more each day

At first it's frightening with no one around
Denials trials truly make no sound
And in complete solitude I have found
That I must face this task to which I'm bound

The tears have disappeared
Embracing them not chasing them
Facing them not erasing them
And the tears have disappeared?

At first it's frightening with no one around
Denials trials truly make no sound
And in complete solitude I have found
That I must face this task to which I'm bound

Scrapings in the bottom of the bowl
Burn too quickly and acridly
Flood the filthy chamber(s)
Of my thirsty mind.

It's a good time for another ten.
It's time, I'm up and off again.
Not where I want to be, I won't pretend.
It's a good time for another ten.

It's only the thinnest of veils
Fluttering too transparently across
My dry eyes.
A thicker veil;
A full fat bag;
Herbal heaven.

It's a good time for another ten.
A cigarette now, another then.
It's time for ten,
And again,
It's time for ten.

It's high time for another ten.

Herringbone and heavy tweed,
Have got all the loving that I need.
Telephone and pumpkin seed,
Making me need to breed.

I've seen how it was completed,
I've even needed to flee it,
Yet I'll always see it,
I'll forever be it.

Orange marmalade,
My momma made.
Untested and untasted,
Undusted on the shelf.
It seems to grow vines.

Take it off the shelf,
Dare to bring it down.

Go ahead! Open it up!

Smell the ancient orange perfume.
Stick your finger in and taste;
Sweet stickiness?
Fruitful nausea?

So what's the verdict?

Are you any better off than before?

The little brown beagle sleeps on rags on the floor.

These rags

I have lovingly

Placed for him

In the corners

Of every room

Of my home.

The beagle follows me,

Every step I take,

Though he is old

For a dog.

Beagle! Beagle!

I miss you the moment I walk out the door.

Every day that passes I love two-fold more.

Beagle! Beagle!

You own my soul to its very core.

I pray you will forever rise from the floor.

Beagle! Beagle!

Devoted and loyal to me, I know, I'm sure.

You are all I'm living for.

Beagle! Beagle!

Sitting in the bookstore

To my right-
A young boy, chubby, pale, bespectacled
Reading intently of the Kama Sutra

To my left-
A loudly wheezing old bald man (also bespectacled)
Using his finger to keep his place

The young boy's younger brother keeps asking him,
"What're you looking at?"
With a mischievously smug smile

While

The old man barely keeps from choking on his own
Treacherous mucus.

I see the symbols:
I know what I'm supposed to do.
But in the whole of things, presently,
All I want
Is to have
Enough silence
To get through this

One

Damned

Sentence.

My parents never drank much. They received wine and whisky every Christmas and stored them, gift-wrapped, in the garage. By the time I was 12, our garage was filled with bottles.

I began stealing them.

One summer night my friend and I stole a bottle of whisky and retired to my tree-house. The next morning I went out back to help my father with the yard-work. He looked at me, steely-eyed, and said,

"You stole my whisky and you didn't even have the courtesy to offer me a drink."

It was quite awhile before I stole anymore of his booze.

My regression to depression
Precipitates my mission
To drink it into submission.

But

I'm always one gin away from happy
One whisky away from satisfied
One beer from content.

So I generally just watch cartoons and wish
For the legalization of marijuana:

"I'll take a pack of Hydro 100s, please."

"Certainly. That'll be $4.60. Thank you and come again!"

I would always buy my joints 100 size, of course.

I know I don't need pot, anymore than I need another drink.
What I need,
What I could truly use,

Is just a single happy thought I could hold on to.

The teenaged girl liked to wear black,
To wear the same old jeans over and over
(the jeans with a triangle stitched on the ass).
She left me early,
Just like many of mine,
And didn't get her paper.
I guess she liked working retail,
Living at home with her mother,
Thinking herself bold and daring-

A true original-

About to wander down the road less traveled.

I've got news for you,
Honey,
There are no more roads like that
Anymore.
They've all been paved over
By the next big thing,
All the other ones,
Just like you-

True originals.

I got a suicide note today-

It arrived by email-

From a former student of mine.

He begged me to call his cell phone,

Just to talk.

He was afraid

Alone

And missed me.

I didn't call him.

I'm not a counselor,

I'm depressed myself,

Afraid

Alone

With no one to turn to.

But I couldn't,

In good conscience,

Ignore him.

I emailed back,

Suggesting the methods of suicide

I thought might be

Most effective

And fun.

However,

I'd be surprised,

If he took any

Of my suggestions:

He never listened,

Not even once,

When he was

In my class.

The other day I organized my orgasms (non-masturbatory) into chronological arrangements.

It's not exactly a fucking bell curve. (get it?)

In fact, it represents an extinction more devastating than at the end of the Permian.

It doesn't really matter, though. The world will be a better place without the likes of me reproducing. Survival of the fittest, you see, doesn't only pertain to our slightly less intelligent animal cousins.

I should make frequent donations to my local sperm bank. Why waste the stuff? I spend most of my free time masturbating anyway.

This may be my ticket to great riches.

It was a good day for death, so I sat on the couch grating cheese while watching the war on television.

I wish I never heard of the word "smorgasbord".

I once wore two different shoes to work. No one noticed.

My dog doesn't like loud noises.

I am a very loud person.

In fact, I'd rather shout than talk.

And I like to slam things around the house.

My stereo's volume's always on 10.

I'm a very annoying person.

I have a seventeen inch neck.

I don't like ties.

I prefer boxers to briefs.

My boys gotta breathe, man.

I saw a very large jumping spider
Amiably walking across my ceiling.
Normally, when I see a spider,
I refrain from screaming.
However, in this case, I made an exception.
Grabbing an empty coffee can I trapped the arachnid
And freed him in my backyard.

Whenever I spot a mosquito I splat it immediately.
Mosquitoes, you see, have no respect.
A spider, if it bites, bites alone and only when you sleep.
Mosquitoes on the other hand, will attack you in squadrons
In broad daylight.

They lack the subtlety, entirely, of our friend, the spider.

Therefore, mosquitoes deserve to die.

Sometimes you lose.

Sometimes you walk away.

You choose how to act.

You choose when to try.

Is your life easier now?

Are you content?

Could you have done anything different?

I sit and ask myself these things, and more.

Will there be a reckoning?

Is there justice or, barring that, karma?

Maybe that's what's happening now, karma.

Man.

I must have been a shitty mother fucker in my last life.

But there isn't any justice or karma, I know.

So I watch a spider scamper across my floor and briefly consider smashing him dead.

Instead, I just watch it.

Ted could see his barn from the back porch of his house. If he looked very closely he could see vestiges of its former color in forgotten corners. Ted had kept the weeds from it, though. And inside, every piece of equipment, every tool had its own place. The doors were latched and locked safely against the wind; Ted was expecting a storm tonight. He knew he did his best making everything safe and secure. He knew that he could easily lose the barn tonight anyway. He knew it really didn't make a goddamn bit of difference what he did.

The undergrowth grabbed at Stan's trousers as he trudged forward. His loafers slipped on mud beneath the dead leaves, his hands were torn and bleeding. It couldn't be much farther, he thought. The man, his informant, said he would find her fifty-yards east from the crossroad. Stan saw a piece of cloth hanging limply off a nasty looking branch. It was stained with blood. Stan pushed on. He thought he saw something ahead and he began to run. Too late he looked down. Too late he tried to stop his momentum. Too late he saw the man with the axe.

Melvin gazed at the lake through half-closed eyes. He watched the sunlight glance off the lake's calm surface like noon stars. Melvin wondered what surprises hid under the watery blanket in front of him. Perhaps there were new-born fish gracefully swimming through shadows hoping for some buggy manna to be dropped from above, to be sent from Heaven. Melvin hoped there were.

He had the sudden thought to wash his hands in the lake, to scrub them clean of dirt, the stains of life and death. Instead, he remained right where he was, quietly gazing at the lake, satisfied, content.

The summer trees were full of twigs. Some twigs were pale-green underneath. Some twigs, blackened by death or disease, could be easily broken off to serve other purposes. The trees also had branches; big sturdy ones down low, where predators could reach, and small flexible branches up high, where few could travel. The branches up high were the best.

In the midst of the trees there was a puddle formed from last night's thunderstorm. The water was still chilly, this dawn, not having a chance yet to absorb the sun. Now if there were only an insect...That would be perfect.

The building was made of cinder-blocks, stacked uniformly in rows. The cinder-blocks were probably made in some vast cold factory in some vast cold wasteland. The factory workers would be dressed in gray coveralls and would pour cinder in one end of a big metal machine and pull blocks out the other end. Block, by block, by goddamned block. And if a block broke so fucking what? There were hundreds, thousands, millions more blocks and they were all expendable. The building would be built no matter the number of blocks. There's not a goddamned thing anybody can do about it.

The building was painted pure white and stretched all the way to Heaven. Little cute birds had to have little snug homes in the eaves. The people who worked there, in the building, must love looking out the windows and watching Mother Bird feed her adorable hatchlings. The Father Bird must gather food too, don't you think? Or is he busy tending to the nest and watching out for cats? Either way, he'd be doing something good for his family. The people must be sad when the hatchlings grow up and fly away. But let's not think about that yet.

I only had on old 22-caliber rifle, but it almost always did the trick, so I waited patiently by the junkyard for dusk. My dog used to be with me, times like these. He would go fetch what I killed…or wounded. There'd be no more wounding though, not after last time. Don't give rats the chance to bite. They were full of diseases, those worm-tailed vermin, so you had to shoot ‘em dead. This used to be fun, a diversion from routine life. Not any more. This was war now and war allowed for no mistakes. One shot, one kill.

I carefully placed the pencil in the hole, point fist, with my left hand. My right hand turned the crank, which squeaked loudly with every revolution. I could feel, more than hear, the grinding of hard metal on soft wood. How many turns ‘til the point was sharp but not broken, useless? No matter how many times I sharpened a pencil I always had to visually check it to be sure. Nope. Not ready yet. Back in carefully, it wouldn't do to nick the point now. Crank, crank, check again. Goddamn it, too much. Now I have to start over.