just like the lust
i felt
for that perfect
pick rosebud
of hate
and betrayal
this too
must come to an end.

the wine is gone
and the cigarettes are left
smashed out in the ashtray
(just as it should be).

goodbye.

losing faith
i peel cheap gold tinfoil
over and around
ice cold brown glass
tip the bottle up
to try to find
the courage to continue.
it isn’t in there
it never was.
my lungs won’t dry
my fingers won’t mend
and my pen won’t sing.
i cry idiot tears
so fucking lonely
for the man i knew
in the mirror.

“war is Wrong!!”
she screams it
into the mike.
she is beautiful, a red-
hot fire-cracker
every one is dying to fuck her
to suck at the beautiful pink
honey pot thats playing peek-a-boo
under her short
camo-skirt.
she goes Commando;
a real Revolutionary.
i’m just dying
to get the fuck out of there.
i’ve already been killed
for just such a war.
she’s the last
in a long line
of angry poets, songsters
and Anarcho-punks
puking the obvious down the gullet
of the cawing masses.
“war is wrong”
no fucking kidding.
but violence is primal
and murder tastes pretty great
while peace brings in
no new revenues
and buttons don’t buy iPods
or tongue studs
and nothing purple
ever speaks
with the tongue of good intent
truth is a price tag
not a moral value
sex is a classic transaction
-goods for services
and all the armpit hair
and dreadlocks in this world
won’t put bullets
back into the gun.

crammed the wool hat down
brim butted up against the collar
an oatmeal turtleneck
navy-blue woolen trench;
wraps for the stoop of the diseased.
donning dark glasses
protection from clouded sky
and passing pedestrians.
must brave the outside
as the snivels have intensified
threaten to spread
chest infection time, again.
move thru the soup
of mid-day downtown
in slow-motion nausea torture
pushing quick past
the cell-phone organisms
and cash-poor unkjays.
step around the yapping rottey
that blocks the clinic door
and a huge pink ass takes my name
and card number
and i’m set to wait
with the rest of the mob.
thru the merciful grace
of someone else’s God
i’m in and out
in mere minutes
but, the script is all wrong
the dose
dries my nose
and turns my guts to slime
and i soon in worse shape
than i was
before.
when the tub runs cold
and the cramps die down
i’ll have to brave it all again
like a moron
trying the same thing twice
expecting a better result.

drinks with Dusty
hiding in my pint
as the cougars prowl
fangs up thongs out
gapping cunts hunting
cutting the light desperate
to flow thru the smoke
and the beer stench.
some crazed raven approaches
a pinch of his
from the distant pass, she
has a husband in-tow
and never takes her eyes off me.
screaming above the bad rock
i try to ignore the nitemare
but the questions keep coming
and her right breast
has broken free
from her white strapless
and now, sits ready to spill
into my glass.
i order four more
and tuck my boots up
off the floor
’cause the big cats
smell a new kill
in the exposed flesh.
the husbands hand put
the mammary away
his glare tells me
its time to go, but
Dusty’s on a nostalgic kick
and we wade
across the killing floor
with the raven, to the door
to the car
to the house
begging the tragedy to come.
the beer brings up the piss
and i bolt to the washroom before
the car door
is fully closed.
i grip the rim of the sink
and try, in vain
to convince my twisted reflection
to call a cab
a get free.
i’m almost sold
when i hear the pop
of the shitter lock
and the raven floats
around the door.
she’s back at
dropping that top
and thru the beer fog
and fear
my cock begs me
to fuck her
to play the norm
who am i
to waste such amazing breasts?
such an easy thing
just push the thin white material back
up those long, warm thighs
and let the ache
and the drunken moisture guide me.
the ease
and the disgust merge
in my sullen heart
and i throw her
out of the way
and slip out the door.
weaving to the kitchen
i find the fridge
crack a stolen beer and watch
in the big bay window reflection
as she puts her peak
to the husbands ear
and tells ugly little lies
’cause she didn’t get her claws in me.
i wait, with a smile
as the image fills
with those readied
to hang me
for an imagined crime.
i finish the bottle
and put my right hand
thru that bay window glass.
the image is shattered
as the pane falls away
and my bloodied paw
is ready to rip
at the throats
of my accusers.

cocktails and bullshit
such easy bedfellows.
nonsense flows in droves everywhere
but nowhere so
as over a couple of tall pints
in the darker parts
of that ancient pub;

“she/he doesn’t know what
she/he’s got with you”

“i’ve changed”

“what we’ve got
is more than just
SEX!”

“that place would fall apart
w/o me!”

staggering, stuttering fools.

its better to just
pay the tab
hit the street
and save myself
from the bad backdraft
of temporary
alcoholics.

he was a fuck
and a racist
and a whole lot stronger than i.
my attempt
to throw
his fat carcass
down the stairs failed
as i
was flailing, drunk beyond words.
instead
i was air-born
tossed
and completely out of control.
i landed at the bottom
with the bottom riser
in my spine
and my legs numb.

i couldn’t walk.

then, slowly, i could
with a cane
for years
suffering the indignation
of chiropractic barbarism
and chronic pain.

it took 12 years
innumerable lost jobs
and one heavy addiction
to uncrimp
the twist
that flight put into me.

bad decisions
and worship of the bottle
cost much more
than bruises
and egos.

these broken fingers are not shovels
nor nails
or tiny hammers
they are creamy
fruit figs
pulling back words
from the brink
foil from the neck
of cold, brown beer bottles
denim down the hips
over white flesh wounds.
this black, here
under my nails
this is not
the meat
the marrow
its just the soil
and the stain
of day labour.
the hands that have become
wranglers of rock weight were once
wrestlers of thigh
and cigarette romancers.
softer surfaces do slower
but, similiar work
on eroding
my soul.

this job, that
gone
back again, gone
tips, flights, buses
booked
canceled, re-scheduled
dreaded, needed, loathed
longed for

interviews, emails, faxes
phone calls, call backs
messages, attachments
forwards

ties, ironing, shaving
dress-shirts, shoes, resumes
accepted, rejected, deflated, defeated
sleepless, anxious
night sweats, indigestion

late night arguments that
down-grade into
juvenille episodes of name-calling
and threats of abandonment
that are meaningless and cruel and stupid
and at least as useless
as these vain attempts at being something other
than what
i am.

13 minutes more
then i’m off
back, out there
killing my life
to make the fucking rent.
don’t listen
don’t let ‘em put that con upon you
the one about
the value
of hard work
and the promise
on the rate of pay.
it makes no difference at all.
every day spent
under the man
working
under the gun
is another day
murdered.

Buk was right
there is no peace
just war
noise, commotion
nausea, halitossis
blurred vision
muscle strain
fiscal concerns
dishes, garbage
groceries
madness dusting laundry
mail, male
pattern baldness
sore gums
phone bills
wine corks
white pages
empty cans
and bottles
white faces
gone blank
good pens
gone dead
bed mates
life mates
dull fucks
bad head
cunt hairs
life waits on
lost lovers
found, won, stolen
given over
and gone.
i’d give anything
for a moment
of peace.

7:04 am sun comes
screaming in
beer can pillow waitress
sticky and sick on the cheating floor
someone did the unthinkable
under the kitchen table
and abandoned
a bottle of gin.

hand holds tabs and capsules
codeine wash blues wash
the blue back to gray
tall cool water glass
cuts across, and down, both hands
pain pounds home the point.

pull the heavy head up and off
cough life back out the lung
strange body softened the lies
told over neon phone despair
fiddle and fuck with the handset
turn the screaming ringer down
or just throw the thing
out the window.

make the trip to
the first brew
of the day caffeine eases
and compound the pain
a double shot thru ugly thoughts
one sure thing;
you’ll do it all again.

its not my truck so
i park it
like a prick
in the middle of the fire lane
desperate to sup
the good, black death
of morning Gringo
’cause i’ve been fighting
around the camp fire
guzzling and writing all night.

behind the bar the purple
mohawk and jet-
black bob beginning
to burn
my sensitive retina
but i gotta suffer the cut
and the colour
to get a cup to go.

tremor of hung-over guilt
shoots up my spine and i
stare down at the floor
to keep tight
solve the immediate vomit problem.
must ignore the nitemare
of public interaction. someone
snaps a crisp newspaper
and i’m sucked back in;

“..ya know, i don’t LIKE
new cowboys i like OLD cowboys..”

‘ ..oh yeh, ya know what i like i like
Drugstore cowboys, ya know
the ones
who sell their flesh

i like those cowboys…’

” ..ya, no, i don’t LIKE
new cowboys i LIKE
old cowboys…”

i couldn’t believe what i had just heard.

i looked around the room
for some sense
but, i was in
the wrong place
in the wrong part of the country.

i thought
of the real cowboys
i knew
back on the prairies
and i felt like telling
these dyed and pierced little coffee geeks, busied
playing to type talking
shit about things they know nothing about
about just what
those cowboys
would do
if they caught a hold of them

that it was “Midnight”, not “Drugstore”, but
they’d never believe
only think me
a bigger prick.

i took my paper cup
spun on my heals
and got the fuck
out of there.

they are not properties
and i’m no flesh trader nor
oil-baron drilling
for black gold
in the seams
and recesses
of the feminine crevice and
i never said that i was.
misogynist prick
is an ugly badge
i never found to fit; i’m just telling
tales outside the school walls
under the rug
and near the opened door
where the blatant hatred
of red-neck
fuckery
left me, left us all
gelatine
like spam sandwiches
on sliced white bread.
history isn’t hate
even if
it sticks
between what remains
of your yellow teeth.

whoa. she was a bloody whore.
i couldn’t trust
her trips to the shitter.
she’d run off
with any
half-wit that
would run it long
against the rim
of that
rock slut ass.
but, she sucked
and moaned and cried
when she’d cum
cum wet, like no other and
in-between bouts
of torture and suicide
she’d pull down those
hand-stitched, drop-waisted denims
with one hand and open
her pink rosebud miracle with the other
and i’d be lost
leaned in
sucking, sipping and tonging
and that gorgeous
pink rosebud hole of betrayal whilst
i spread
her apple ass cheeks
and fingered
her perfect
murderous asshole.
she’d cum
under my tongue
and cry
and beg me to forgive
and i’d only bite and
she’d only moan for more
and she’d slide
that miracle down
all down over me
until i was empty
the early sun stabbing at
my stupid fucking eyes.
she was
a bloody murderous whore
and i forgave her everything as i
so loved
to fuck her
in every
murderous hole.

under the Midnight Mission
moon on my tongue i
hand a twenty over
to two street urchins perched
pre-flight
at the corner
of Doug
and Pandora
and i tell ‘em ” don’t
waste it
on food” smiling
i seem to think
i’m much smarter
than i am as
the doser’s pound veins
into canyons, valleys
pimps pound
cunts
into coin slots i
begin to get
sick under
that same moon
puke moving along cardboard
nylon tent street-
side housing project, rain
sleet come like slug
cooked drugs and Gallo
wine empties bring
up the rats binging
the gnats the lice the waste
litter
this wet concrete pillow and
the dull gray
under my feet sucks
up the light
off the lives
it eats
to reflect.

he said ”
you drank it.
you drank it all, you came
in here
in my home
in her.
you drank
my liquor
and you
you fucked
my beloved..”

he had me
right up
until
that soft finish.

(..a letter to Kevin I.)

ah yes, my brother, i am alive. i am island and the word of the day is “god”.
but, not that sacred old misrepresentation. the one those confused nomads made, in the desert, all those years ago, when they went euphamism-crazy and eventually led a nation of pale-skinned sand-suckers down another garden path, praying to a man-child, up there. somewhere, atoning for all those precious rumps rousted under the hot noon-day sun,… NO!… brother i mean “GOD”, as in “god shot” , or, the paranoic, modern phenomenon of youthful, painfully hype barista types, chasing this illusive, thick chocolate outpouring from somewhere between 16-24gs. a densely packed, frantically blended espresso( re; eXpresso everywhere outside the tiny cafe walls), speckled, dense, with nine inches of lusty crema, dropped under 8-9 bars of pressure at EXACTLY 203.5 DEGREES
( it has always been 203.5, any other thought is a crime…..)
28 seconds of cascading ecstacy,
with a spotted smokey red result.
never attained
never believed when achieved….

white trickle treasure trail keeps
me peeking below her borders
i know i’m supposed to
notice the arch
of low denim taut
against hard flesh, and
i know
there’s a hairless miracle
2 quick betrayals
and a half an hour away and
as her unslung breast spills
out of her shear blouse
into her Americano
i’ve tried to remember the teeth marks
i saw in the flesh
and the tears
in the eyes
of the men shes
stepped on
to remind myself
that its just
off
near the nuts
-one dumb deep cum
and all that longing is gone.
or, far worse
just begun.

age has done that
which morality
never could.

i CAN see
my face
upon hers
on the face
of our children
and its the very picture
of incarnate
hate.

weeks and weeks
of lung butter for breakfast
lunch
and dinner.
this island,
so humid and green
had me drowning
in my own fluids.
that illness broke
as the days got warmer
and we finally saw the sun.
now i can almost
run across the road
w/o gasping for breath
or clutching my chest.
maybe now
i can get back
to leaking fluids
from another
appendage.

or, sometimes gloves
over the white knuckles
of lies.
i serve coffee bean cum
over the wood
and under the radar
and every now and then
i get tested
by the little people
so, i rub grounds in my eye
a scald my palm
with the steam wand
and try like fuck
to forget
the perma-smile
moronic
they expect
for a buck
and change.

the heat wouldn’t relent
and i must’ve be mad
crashing in
coming on strong
on her
there at work
(it wasn’t a scam, i love that pizza)
she’s coy and busy
and i don’t know
if i’m really
that cute in this hat
or she’s just so embarrassed that
she throws me
the keys
tells me
of the case of wine in the closest
and promises
to bring home
the pie
after her shift.

we’d known each other
for just over
24 hours
(3 of them, sober).

driving off, away
from the setting sun
i lit
one Camel
off another
with the huge windows
of the Grand Prix rolled down
and the tunes turned up high
as Memorial Dr. fades
to the right, south
onto Crowchild
i caught myself smiling
in the rear-view mirror
took a deep drag
and leaned on the pedal.

i was a sore thumb
stuck up, into the air
of that old whore city
and it kept me, tight
tucked in, close
and cared for me
as the wheels squealed
and i
brought some kind of life
back
behind my eyes.

to hang myself
i ran into another one.
a duplicate
in a long-line
of sucking-chest wound victims
who’d picked my flesh
and patience
for cold-compress
for the myriad of ailments
life had inflicted upon them.

being so much older now
than i was yesterday
i’ve grown fragile
and unaccustomed
to the chafe
and rash
of knotted hemp
under my chin
and along the nape of my neck.
this whelp-like reticence
to incurring wounds
has me backing off
when i know
its my move.

the victory
will not be mine
and i will not live to remember
the look
on her face
when i crashed
the inflated egoism
she’s gotten great
at battering against
her imaginary infliction.

but
i will go on
blissfully unaware
and fully assured
that someday
the neck she stretches
will be
her own.

a beautiful girl
dressed in dark garb
struts across my view of the kitchen.
there’s a cold beer in the fridge
and more food than i can consume.
a co-worker bought me a book
and i have 3 crosswords to look forward too.
the radio interviews Pete Seeger
and i’ve been offered
backing to go off
and make bean.

this is the way
the world softens a rebel.
swallow soft lies
with mouth full of sold water
and slavery sugar goods
keep the balls empty
the belly full
the bed warm
the beer cold.

its easy.

let it go.

you never looked good
in fatigues
uncombed and bearded
anyways.

the cork
has robbed the pocket
and soured
upon the tongue
in a way
the cap
the pull-tab
the pulled pint
never has.

brewer’s droop be damned.