Collections

Writings on the Shithouse Wall
Duology: Good Time Gals Bad Time Boys
Haikus: 366
Everything: Indexed

Hey, fuck up

Hey, Fuck Up

I am talking to you, reader, author, everyone alike.
And I don’t mean that in the drunken uncle sort of way.
It’s not that same Budweiser tone
Shouted from a vinyl arm chair
Submerged in a leaky kiddie pool

I mean the collect we. The special fuckup.
Ever notice that? “Species”, “Special”
We the people who evidently fuck up.
Why are we like this?

Why do we act the way we do?
Why do we practice anonymous violence?
Cling to outdated and exclusionary ideologies
Try so hard to make everyone else different

It’s not the homeless woman
Trying to score whatever necessity makes this life bearable.
It’s not the trans boy or girl or non-binary
or whatever combination of forces and factors they are
It’s not the downtrodden, the lame, the destitute,
The unwell, the insane, the malfunctioning or the
dysfunctional.

It’s the rich people.
It’s the ones with the money and the power and the say and the platform
And the means and the privilege and the education and the connection
And the alma mater and the 401k and the trust fund
And the summer house.

It’s them.
They’re the fuck-ups.
But so are we.
We let them do it.
Hey, fuck up.
I’m talking to you.

Stop

Stop

“Stop fucking up,”
We say collectively
to ourselves.

It’s one part indictment
One part affirmation
and all a bit unconvincing.

Three wisteria bushes jut from a hunk of basalt
Marking the grave of someone so important
No one remembers how to spell their name.

Why do we even want to be remembered?
The age of Cadillacs has come and gone.
We’re always a step too late.

If everything is imitation,
why do I claw at the roots of my ancestors
Digging for deeper understanding?

Only two wisteria remain -
Lightning struck one and transformed it into charcoal
Suitable for a cave painting.

“Stop fucking up,”
We cry to the heavens
to no avail.

Good Time Gals

They are the good time gals.
They are the women who make the world,
Who come in many forms,
Who cross all boundaries,
And struggle against stacked odds.

They are mothers born and goddesses chosen:
Some warriors, some healers,
Some brutal, some savage,
Some kind, some rude

  • All equal.

This is an ode to the feminine form
in all its guises,
To the women who made my world.
Not all of them birthed me
But all shaped me
All equally,

Equally beautiful
Equally monstrous
Equally stormy
Equally righteous

Some were a passing light
Flittering across smokey windows
Some were lingering lanterns
Guiding the way down twisting corridors
Some were pragmatic nurses
Closing the dead eyes of fathers.

They are the good time gals
The women who remake this world
Who propelled us as a species
And might help us tear it all down.

Forty Two Poems

Forty Two Poems

No reason, no real rhyme
Just attempts to encapsulate
Little vignettes, bubbles of time.
Gaseous things.

Some quirky, some foul
Some droll, some stupid.
You know, poems about life.

They say right what you know
And I really know a good cosmic fart joke
And the pointlessness of worry

Forty two songs about things falling apart
Cosmic order that, the arrow of time
Ever to that great Entropic goddess
Singing that eternal knell

The music of the spheres
My cosmic ass to your celestial ear
The heavens sing
With forty two explosions of the gut.

Creator of Worlds

Creator of Worlds

You make art.
You summon emotion from a featureless plane.
Your slender hands guide indelible ichor.
through unforgiving curves
Where perspective means everything
And assumptions nothing.

A picture is worth a thousand poems
Regardless of the brevity of the imagery
I can describe a hand with allusions and allegory
But you start with a base of originality
You can sketch a hand that people can see
The same way we all see hands.
You can stipple in textures
Showing the callousness of over worked fingers.

Everything Indexed

0123456789

A

A Poem About Beauty
A Song of My Self
A Visit from St. Atticus
A Walk through the Garden
abcs
Abracadabra
Abrasive
America May 2020

B

Baby Boomer
Bad Time Boys
Be My Therapist
Because I Can
Bowflex
Burn it all down

C

Calla
Cats
Coming for Us All
Consent to Let Go
Creator of Worlds

E

Ecuadorian Dream House
Exegesis

F

Fatten the Curve
Forty Two Poems

G

Golden
Good Time Gals

H

Haikus From the Coal Region
Halloweened
Helios and the Local Colours
Her
Hey, fuck up

I

I Am a Bicycle in the Rain
I Break
I Left It All Behind
I Love You, Mom
I Prefer the Sea Days
I Remember Cape Canaveral
I'm Already Packed
I'm out
In the Mountains Oblivion
Island Gaze

L

Lady Libertine
Landmark Erosion
Love Sucks
Lover's Tanka
Lsd in the Afternoon
Luminescence, Cinnamon, Fire, Juniper, Piano

M

Model
Mother Earth
Mother Issues
Mourning
My Ass Is Full of Stars

O

Ode to a Dangling Sword
On Isolation
Orchid

P

Potential
Push and let go

Q

Quarantine Day 39

R

ramble
Rather
Remember

S

Sanctity of Morning
Satre Causes Nausea
Shades
Shelf Full of Dick
Smoke
Staten Island Mating Call
Stop

T

Thank You, Mitch McConnell
The Mistake of Enlightenment
The Northern Lights and a Dead Moose
The NSA took the Imam away
The Perfect Moment
The Philosopher's Stone
This One is for the English Majors
Thoughts on a Fire
Three
Tulla

W

We Fuck Stone
What a glorious day to be alive
When You are Stoned
Whiskey Kiss
Will Song