the love in a man's heart

is what's taken for

foolishness 

in the sea

of indifference;

like fools

we hold onto the

dream,

cry and stand

ablaze
when all should of been
taken
Gracefully.

and if I continue writing

like this,

I'll off myself first
in my last revolt

and if this was in a typewriter

I would tear it up,

rip it,
pull the gun from
the drawer and
fire

but not before this
poem is finished

I AM HERE

I sit.

think,
write,
drink

continue on for a while...

like most of us,
but not
like most of us.

they've got it all wrong,
baby,
you can be romantic
with yourself
in a fucked up
sort of way

and this includes the
brush, the bottle,
the needle inside your arm
or the
typewriter

this is another poem about 3 a.m. and how I'm still sitting

here listening to classical music and smoking a good 

cigar.

hell, I don't know, sometimes I feel just like Van Gogh or

    Fante or,

say, Stravinsky, as I sip wine and type

and smoke and there's no magic as gentle as this.

maybe I write the same shit,

sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, but when I do the

reason is that it feels so right, it's like making love and

if you knew how good it felt you would forgive me

because we both know how fickle happiness can be.

so I play the fool and say again that 

It's 3 a.m.

and that I am

Brahms

Vivaldi

Doestovevsky

embracing everything:

the sweep of cigar smoke,

another glass of wine,

the woman that love others,

the criminals and the killers,

the lonely mad,

this music,

I repeat it all again

and I'll repeat it all forever

until the magic that happens to me

happens to you

welcome back

this last drink was as
good as the first,
I now realize that the promises
I've made to myself
have been
kept.
that's plenty.
that last: about the promises:
what's not so good is that you've
now lost a friend.
as for woman, you didn't know enough
early enough
and you knew enough
too late.
and if more self-analysis is allowed: it's
nice that you turned out well-
honed,
that you arrived late
and remained generally
capable.
outside of that, not much to say
except you can leave without
regret.
until then, a bit more amusement,
a bit more endurance
leaning back
into this.

like the dog who got across
the busy street:
not all of it was good
lucky baby.

115

driving 115
DRUNK
on the highway
and
I wonder if the
Red and Blue's
will
find me
or if I will
be another
suicide drunk

(which
that matters
less than
nothing)

115
drunk and
alone with the world
and the radio and Vivalvi and
this poetic madness
-ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? lol

can you feel the crushed
birds
in my hands?

the sail boat
in the ocean?

the sail boat on fire?

can you feel the guts of the
universe
in your hands
of this
heart
I call my own?

now I UNDERSTAND
Vivaldi
now I UNDERSTAND
Bukowski
now I UNDERSTAND
Dostovevsky

the world is
NULL
and you brought forth
the gift
to beset us from
our unordinary lives and our
unordinary ills
as a way
of
ENDURING

I now
UNDERSTAND
that
death is not
the tragedy
but the gift,

that she will find a lover
like a flower,
and I that I will
wilt
like a rose
with it's
thorns

will I find a ledge
off this lane?

I will endure
simply to endure
because
there is nothing else
for me to do

I will forget and
unfold
this phone number in
my wallet from some
blonde 
named Sarah,

Fuck it.
Fuck Sarah.

I throw her number
out the window...

the San Diego Police Department
is another problem...

van gogh

vain vanilla ladies strutting

while van Gogh did it to

himself

girls pulling on silk

hose

while van Gogh did it to

himself

in the field man

unkissed, and

worse.

I pass him on the street:

“how’s it going, Van?”

“I dunno, man,” he says

and walks on.

there is a blast of color:

one more creature

dizzy with love.

he said,

then,

I want to leave.

and they look at his paintings

and love him

now.

for that kind of love

he did the right

thing

as for the other kind of love

it never arrived.

now I understand

Van Gogh cut off his ear
gave it to a
prostitute
who flung it away in
extreme
disgust.
Van, whores don't want
ears baby
they want
your soul.
I guess that's why you were
such a great
painter: you
didn't understand
much
else.

painter friend bobby

I was living in this gay hotel,
he told me.
it was getting to me man.
I began fucking those guys.
I even fell in love with a drag queen.
well, the other morning I found a
dildo in the trash can and it was still
coated with vaseline. I just hadda get
out of Frisco so I flew down to San Diego.
I'm in this bar and I meet this blonde,
we drink for awhile and she says
she'll suck my cock (she sucks
so she won't get pregnant)
we go to her place and I found out there
are 3 guys in the front room. I ask her
who they are. and she says, oh, they
are my lovers. and I say, wait,
you mean to tell me you suck those 3
cocks too? she says yes and I get out of
there.
I got to do a painting for a lawyer, she
promised me $300 and when I finished she
said, I'll give you $50.
what the hell, I said, that doesn't even
cover the costs of paints and canvas, let
alone my soul.

$50, she says.

I ripped up the painting and
walked out.
now I don't know what to do man.
maybe I'll go back to
L.A.
and try my chances at
finding a job

where do you think I ought
to go?

Portland, I said.

Portland! he said, furious. Don't
fuck with my head! where'd you get
that tattoo? I could draw you up
a new tattoo,
"Poet's Row"
like you always wanted. but where's that hot
blonde you were with? the brunette? and
what the hell man, how'ya been?

message from the past, syd

they have their gains

and

they're out there

having it all

in a place

higher then

themselves

but only if you let them.

and I remember my

brain

captivated by the

magic of those rare

delicate creatures

as they found

new ways to kiss

the lips

the ears

the neck

there were nights

firing

at this machine

in the well of

myself

as I sat here

musing

upon them like

toothpicks

"you have a way with words,"

they would say

"but why are you so

quiet all the time, what are you

thinking of?"

"what?!"

"why did you say that! what

the hell is wrong with you?"

"fix it!"

it is better now not

having

to think

about these things

because like them,

I too have choices

and that includes not

having to think

about them

or

their lips or their

eyes or their ears

but when Sydnie sent

me a message

it was like a

spiraling

into the script:

Caroline Kennedy

the other night
I saw Caroline Kennedy
reading poems with
Stephen Colbert on his show

god awful writing about
americans
the good in americans-
sunflowers
God
the presence of
sun or no sun-
men
woman
and the general
"goodness" of
life
and the sun
and the sunflowers

which is a lot say
considering she is a
published author/writer/poet
and I am
not.

but there is
one thing she said
that spoke of truth;
(like yellow sunflowers)

and that is to
say that poetry
is beautiful and
that woman
have a special
relationship
with poetry
(more so than men)
but when men
write poetry it's
usually about a
woman
and that,
according to her:
is beautiful.

so here is a poem
about a
beautiful
woman who;
surprisingly,
responded to my
e-mail
and my poem

bruckner

it was not a good day.
there was a jagged wretchedness inhabiting
my part of the world
and now I sit at this machine
tonight
hoping for some luck and some
light
but they refuse to
fire, things refuse to
fire.
wagner and brucker
on my
computer is
grand
but whatever was born in me
today
has been stamped
out, tossed
away.
I don't ask for your
sympathy
during this time.
I am just speaking to myself
and this is the medium through
which I speak.
still, if somebody reads
this
and your day and your
night
were
akin to mine,
then somehow we've touched,
stranger brother or
sister,
and we both understand that death is
not the
tragedy.
you are alone and I am
alone
and it's best that we aren't
alone
together
comparing our pitiful
sorrows
over the phone
or online
or in
writing

only let me sit before this
tired computer
strange friend,
and write this
final
dull
line:
thanking you
for reading
this far.

words of my dreams

tear at the relentless gods who
put us here
in our moiled carnage

our time could be spent
other than
wasted leaning
towards
this machine

to strike for a
minor chance,
unless sensibility overcomes first

like lovers we might need
and might be needed
so that the generous miracle might work

that finally,
words and words and words and words
might move forward toward
something.

to the last one: Sydnie

just like an elephant stepping
on an ant

that's the way you
helped love
vanish.

someone asked me, what would you do if you won the lottery?

I would buy a loft in
San Francisco
and
New York City.

I would go to College
and study English
and music history,
specializing in Jazz.

I would plan to travel
the United States
and then the world,
teaching seminars on the
importance of Jazz and education.

I would study music history,
and teach
with a meaningful
objective as to
apply the
knowledge in
correlation to life lessons.

but first,
I would buy a black
Porche Carerra convertible,
a typewriter,
a bottle of wine,
and I would drive
through the Arizona desert
listening to Led Zeppelin.

writer's locks
flowing in the wind,
I would gently stop at a
liquor store to buy another
bottle of wine.

I would probably then look for a
cheap hotel,
set the typewriter down
and start,
the best way I know how.

katelynn

it's funny,

but I was thinking about

a poet friend Katelynn today

I remember how we used to get drunk

and she would say,

"I need to write a poem right now,

I left a notebook in my car and I've

just got to rip one out!"

she did that about 2 or 3 times

then stopped.

now I'm sitting
here upon the ivory throne

thinking about that,

ripping one out.

in the sun

It's April
4/1/11 10:36 AM,

It's what the parking ticket says,
the officer even gave me his autograph.

I'm still with Rachel
but right now she's in the shower.

we went to the beach
and bought some Thai food from a
restaurant on El Cajon and 50th

two sandwiches,
one pork
one chicken

I guess what's really
on my mind is how good the sun
felt on my skin as we walked together
on the shore,
I've almost forgotten how good it felt 
to feel this happy

so if this is a bad poem for you,
please understand
that I want to briefly
capture this moment in the sun
before tomorrow,
before the sun sets and
cracks like an egg-yolk
and the sky goes
south
into the earth.

rachel kern

I love the way she moves
as she cleans
around the house.
I could get used to this,
I think
but you've had your chance and
she's humming now and
all you can think about
is how you'd like to hold her
and tell her everything-
everything
before it's too late.

"I'm not a very good writer," I say,
"oh shut up! she says,
stop fishing for compliments!"