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there are people alive today
who found it on their first try

people who married their childhood sweetheart

people who somehow happened so early
upon the point of love
in this rotting haystack

can you imagine that kind of luck

the improbability of it is so striking
like finding air in a vacuum

I cannot believe it

but there are people
who insist that it is true

I wonder if those people ever felt
a day of disappointment
in their gracefully implausible lives

because I am dashing
headlong
into my fourth decade

and I have not found another soul
who was living their life
like it was a compassionate
bank robbery

and I had always thought that by now
I would have an accomplice

someone to shout
in a voice more musical than my own

EVERYBODY ON THE FLOOR, PLEASE
THIS WILL ONLY TAKE A SECOND

I wonder what kind of lives
those first-love people
must lead

simple
I suppose

lucky
certainly

I do not know

whatever the case
may be
I just know
that I am struggling
with a strange aching
loneliness
today

still
groping for
that
needle

 

 

I am ill with the music of my self
 and rum and beer
 and the stain of failure

while outside the river softly roars
 the wind sighs in the pines
 and the coyotes in the foothills
 call down the moon

inside an old refrigerator moans
 a mousetrap snaps
 and the radio whispers Spanish guitars

and I perk up my ears
 thinking that I hear again
 beneath the static
 the terrible laughter
 of the gods

yes, I am ill
 with the music of my self
 with the absence of love
 and the impossible justice
 of the cosmos
 as I sit in this dirty kitchen
 and scratch these nonsense lines
 trying my best to ignore
 the breaking of my
 starving
 gentle
 heart

 

 

 

I am always skeptical
when someone tells me,
you have to meet so and so
I just know
that you will like them

so when this last one
turned out as I expected
it wasn’t much of a surprise

for starters
he was already gone
by the time I arrived

by which I mean he was there
and not there
roaring drunk but
not in a good way

he came up to me
like we’d met before
and said through too big a smile
so the bug bit you, too

and thinking he was talking about
chlamydia
which has been going around
something awful
I said
no, man
I’m clean

and he said
no, man
the travel bug
I heard you’ve been runnin’
all over the world

and I laughed and said
oh, yeah
I suppose so

he smiled and said
yeah man
that travel bug…

there wasn’t much to say
after that

it’s just funny
how most people are a punchline
to a joke they’ll never know

when I left I was still
laughing
at it
at him
at the idea

travel bug
that’s cute

here I had always felt
it was more
of a fool’s quest

some deadly,
errant crusade

much less of a bug
much more a plague

 

(originally published in Provoke)

and I do

yes, somehow
I can still laugh

and it rings out mean
here
among the stones and stars

there is an edge to it
something savage and
obscene
like a wood chipper
chewing on panes
of stained glass

I try to trap it in my throat
and sometimes do

and sometimes don’t

sometimes there is no helping it,
it climbs those rattling chains

it frightens the people and
most other animals

I tried to paint it,
my terrible laughter

the girl I gave the canvas to
just cried
and cried

I know
that is not very
funny

but it
almost
is.

 

She said,
“We can go to this new bar
that I heard about.
All my friends
told me
that the atmosphere
is so great.”

And I said,
“Okay,”
with some deep
reservation
screaming,
“NOOOOO!”
inside my bones.

When we got there
she settled in,
and started
picking up toothpicks,
peanut shells
and bent coasters,
building a nest for the night.

I watched her
preparing to roost,
and I thought to myself
“I know that I
have seen this behavior
before…
Oh, my God,
she wants to STAY
AT THE BAR.”

If she had asked me
what I wanted to do,
(and she didn’t)
I could have given her ideas.
I could have saved the night
(or at least myself).

I would have said we should grab a blanket
and make for the park and we could lay
out on that cold, hard snow and stare
up at the sky through the tops of swaying trees
until our toes started to freeze and our blood
began begging for the warmth of a bed!

I would have said we should go sledding
down those icy hills in cardboard boxes
or on particle board or plywood sheets.
Any flat trash is fine – and there is
so much of it here, just going to waste!

I would have said we should pack my car
and make a headlong dash for the shore
to see the stars wink out, one by one,
before watching the sea give birth
to a morning full of fire and glory
while we huddled together
against all that creeping cold!

I would have said we should get drunk
and play dress-up and take ridiculous,
scandalous photographs of each other,
finally wild, twisted and free!

I would have said we should go bowling.
Not to go bowling,
but to see how long we could last,
to see how much they could take
before they threw us out
or called the police,
two wild beasts rampaging
new love down those dreary lanes!

I would have told her how
the magic of life
isn’t waiting patiently for her
inside some hip bar
or standing in line
outside a trendy club.
That she can’t buy it
because they don’t sell it.
That nobody can sell it.

I would have told her that
happiness,
real happiness,
has to be orchestrated.
We have to create it,
we have to improvise it.
We have to MacGyver
the shit out of it,
or we’ll never have it at all.

I would have told her that
until she understands
these things
every night out
getting wasted,
IS wasted.

That every one of those nights
will feel like standing
in front of a firing squad
for those of us
with the courage
to create
our own
joy.

But in the end
I just snuck out
of that great bar,
“for some air,”
and went to build
my fun

alone.