Scurvy

 Toes

 and 

Ramsey 

      does

     and   

         little 

       lambsy 

         divey 

Th e 

Sun

   Is out!

OUT!

  The Bo Sheep

     at 

   42nd 

   st

    Shakin

   down 

Overcoat

      salesman

      And shooting 

   Morphine 

    Caplets 

        Watch

     The 

     CAR!

 Hahahahahaha

Don't laugh

It's fucking saints who should be shot

Motherfuckers

They're dead as dead can be 

They just don't know it

"I'm closer to God than you!"

Nah yer a freakin joker

- close to the maggots 

Of the Earth-

Actually maggots are better than you

- but don't tell them 

 I don't have a chance

Not a shot

at beating the odds 

But who does?

- No one

the last hand will be played-

- but no one bets it all----

Why would you?

 

 Cream

a frosty 

  Retort

    To 

The 

Broken

   and 

Washed 

Up 

   vagrants

In 

   Giddyup

    Botanicals

    And 

Last 

Years

Best 

shoes

Nobody

Cares   

About 

  The pains

She 

suffered

  Go 

AWAY

LEAVE US BE

to be awful 

   and so forth

 

 I expanded 

My horizons

Like a nowhere

To a nothing

Sank your yacht

and weighed in at 183

Newspapers wanted to know 

How I did it

Easy I said just kill the tiger

That killed you

We split up in the Casbah

"Go your way, DONT TAKE MY ADVICE!"

You slept on a waterbed

and the Call to Prayer

sounded like a mentally unstable person 

In a mental institution 

howling crying hysterically laughing

 I'm tired & old

My 1975 Marvel comics days 

are long gone

riding the BART bus to Hayward

with Orton

headed to BERKELEY

TELEGRAPH AVENUE

people at tables on the sidewalk 

selling leather belts

Belt buckles

macrame plant holders

Jimi Hendrix film-a-thon 

Three for the price of one

Jimi

Jimi plays Berkeley 

Rainbow Bridge

I wasn't even that big of a Hendrix fan

But we sat through all three

 

 Nobody loves me

I'm tired and old

and I quit drinking

So now I sit around 

And write shit poetry

and make shit paintings

But it pays the bills 

(No it doesn't)

 

I'm tired and old

and I drink too much coffee

and look at young women 

On the street

Ho hum

Somethings gonna snap

I swear to god

SNAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPP!!

 Nobody loves me

I'm tired and old

but I'm

Better than you

 Truth

breathes fire

Shits lies

Eats Catsup

Buys yer ma a flower

Truth

Doesn't know shit

Bout nobody

Just sits and waits 

Like Abraham Lincoln's sister

Truth 

Tells stories

About the sky

And the rain 

And the way you stack in nobodies mind

Truth is a mirage

A conundrum 

An enigma

A way to go

 

 Stoned

&

batty-

                 Sidewalk synopsis 

       street sweeper

      leaves of autumn

         In February 

     Rocks in snowballs

In Washington Square

Jazz band is gone

Chess players gone

Where did they go?

     Where does anyone go?

                 To the Moon!

 Creep! 

Who me?

I'm just Mmm

Regular guy!

Just your regular creep! 

Okay have it your way

 

I sat 

Onward

                  Onward Bound!

       My bags were heaped in the

         corner 

     a dog sniffed

       my leg

   I order 

 The orders

      The brigadier general

        died

      It was very sad

                           We talked where to have lunch

    Onward! 

Onward Bound!

 The deep

dark cavern

Of endless

sadness or not

rocks are beautiful

My epitaph

  Gold doesn't decay

So they say

  Made in times gone bye

By on old woman at a sewing machine 

  Fingers callused and clean 

dirty nails 

Stupid whore!

 Ooch!

I hurt my toe!

Ouch!

That hurts!

 I was probably

Two or three years old

We lived in the Frost house

It had parquet hardwood floors-

  I pulled up one of the wood tiles with 

a bathroom plunger 

I thought I'd broken the floor-

I cried

You saw what I'd done 

and laughed

 The Pleasure Palace

    was a building in honor of corn

you got mad when I laughed about it

You went there on your honeymoon 

Car camping trip

I said look at it

How could not think it was funny?

It looked like a Russian Red Square building

W twirling pirouette pointy crown-

  It's still there you said-

Earth Wind and Fire were playing on

My birthday

 

 Perhaps I was mad

Crazy like-

not angry

Nature 

    What was that?

It seemed giving

Non judgmental 

-Could be harsh though

Fuck that wind and rain and mudslides and drowning

Stuff like that

Isn't natures fault

I blame Physics

 Creep 101

It was a large classroom

In a large cement building

Someone said it was Brutalism

I liked the stark concrete

It had a neutral quality

When I tried to discuss it with a friend 

She just said "What?!"

And I had to rethink my whole way

Of thinking 

Or I had to not talk about certain things

With her

 Mom said-

"You've got a story for everything!"

I don't think it was complimentary. 

She never swore so it was probably her way of saying-

You're full of shit!

 

 

 I stretched

the sky

   bloodied my tooth

on your rock hard neck vein

Sorry bout that

I didn't realize you were frozen

or made of stone!

Sometimes looks are deceiving 

 

 

 The ancient

  Truth

was not even revealed

 Scorn and fury 

replaced it with ease

   So we sold our shares

and lived in condos

 Drank Mai tais 

  And slept 

Well

 

 What am I doing?

another day

another two cents 

In the bucket

another crying jag

Or not 

Who knows 

boredom is the person bored

I'm boring so I'm bored

Revelation? Hardly

My drinking days are done

Cigarettes?

Out

No drugs

Well Tylenol extra strength

I'm barely holding on

So what

Nobody gives a royal fuck

So I paint a little

Eat a little

Walk a little

Another day

I did drink with my cousin

Ended up driving on the Powell street

Cable car turnaround 

and backed into a pole 

Turning around 

WHAM!

No worse for the wear

Most fun I've had in a while-

 Don't

ECHO

Zin

Mmm

inanities

     stay away from Gallo

         Jugs

Of purple wine

Steer clear of the Captains

Patched up Caddy

   By the Oakland library

bookstore

Near the jail

   "Why were those men waving at me?"

"They're prisoners"

 E

M

B

R

A

C

E

a Lucy character 

bitter ignorant loud and sure of herself

The stuff of Karen's on yer phone

Where have they been all these years?

Oh they were always here

Raising Persian cats 

listening to country western

On the small radio on the refrigerator

Married to a laughing pot bellied welder

The house smelled of cat pee and was covered in fur

and you had a thing for a gal named Pam Putt

Who lived in the country 

And raised horses

She rode the bus to school

 

 

 Slaughtered 

        Let it bleed

Beehive

    Student of no one 

     Worker bee

         In the skull of a marmot

            Covered in pollen

                And buzzing 

Around 

Going flower to flower

     Dreaming of the Queen

        Gotta get back to "work"

 

 

 

 I stormed

the castle gates

With torn overcoat

and sketchy sneakers

Lances and bulwarks

Played from the jukebox 

A knight in black armor

Approached 

"What'll ya have?"

"Gin and tonic double"

He wielded a battle axe dripping with blood

"Four bucks" 

I dropped a five and said keep it.

Some knights respond well to money.

 

 I stop  

And embrace my

Lonely souls parched thirst

BEER!

Lots and lots of beer

And TEQUILA

HERES TO MEXICO

So it's too hot

People are nice

Iguanas and hyacinths

Gardens and patios

With checkerboard

Tiled floor

And leather Mexican chairs

Surrounded by sawdust

Eaten through by termites

And dust

Tortas 

by a man with a 

Skin affliction

Don Pedro

No sign outside

He'd have to pay 

Rebar sticking out everywhere

BEER

and Bolillos

At the little store

La tiendita

The bodega

That

Smells like bread

And chlorine

And peppers

and plastic

 I can't stop

painting these things

on the back of torn open

grocery bags 

It's like an addiction 

Who knows what the next

one will look like

For a while they got shitty

Who knows

Maybe they're all shitty

But what does it matter?

Who knows

 A thousand storied

Epistle

In your seersucker suit

and sneakers

Cryin like a baby

For no reason

Just why the fuck not

So simple

So clear

So wrong

Or forget it

Get out of bed

Go breathe

 Alarmed 

that was his proof

alarmed again

but he thought 

this always happens 

It's the same as two

Or three times before

You don't know why 

It happens

good luck trying to

Figure that out

But it does

So just settle down

Motherfucker

You're doing it again

So yeah fuck it

 

 Steady

   the wringing 

don't forget your pants

Mmm

   the shoes are on the wrong feet

And two different shoes

no matter

No bother

In the land of Nod

praise the sorrowful angel

For he manages

Arcadian battles

And ravages pizza

Like nobody's business

 

 

 Sterile

    fragilistic

mirage

  Of simpatico 

and seance

Hold hands in the dark

Onibaba

The pit

In the reeds

If you leave early

You don't get paid

What does it mean

Ask the spirits 

They'll answer in barley and rice wine

 Oops

     Tribulations 

and turgid

   Smiles

  In lost package 

   Apologies

What's it mean?

No one knows

  Expectations 

I guess 

  Let's forget it

And have a good time

 

 Ima loser

So why don't ya killme

Music music music

   Cannibal vampires

  And local evening news

FOOSBALL

  AYAHUASCA HATS

with bulbous balls

  From Panama

To you

With love,

   Bob

 Curreepy 

        and moist

  Like some 

  Bento box lover

       Never looking you in the tempura

     Soy sauce everywhere

TERIYAKI YAKKING

  ALL DAY LONG

(Or occasionally)

Sad 

 Little Japanese restaurant

     

 Silver Gods

      stupefying

Outward SIGNS

    slender body

         YOURE OLD!

       And STUPID

  CRY ME A PONTOON BOAT

    on the MICHIGAN LAKES

       POWHATTAN

 Occasioned

by rain

and other shit

     like books

                            and cinnamon toast 

        and splashing black

          INDIA ink

           on torn

      grocery bags

 

 

 Kilgore 

   Was Here

or not

  who cares

  fuck that shit 

   mothra

 being

Time for Emptiness

    Whoa

profound 

(Nope)

   Just another dimming 

of the day

Another NIGHT

(Rotation away from Sol)

  Cooking kale 

and carrots

  Green ONIONS

OINK OINK

VEGETARIAN-ESQUE

as we go proudly

  Cab Callowaying

our mercurial kaleidoscopes

Into the brains 

Of misfits 

 And Rocky paths 

 

 Pizza

Wings

Tequila

Super Bowl

Indigestion

Oof

Zantac 

Pepto Bismol 

Water

Oof

Bad Bunny?

Bad Tummy!

Oof