the meaning of gun is bang

afterwards i
pull my belt tight
like a junkie tying off
for the "last time
i promise"

kidney stone

i'm now convinced that
writing poetry is just
passing kidney stones

we squat in dark rooms
writhe in abandoned basements
chewing through our tongues

gasping as we squeeze
out! sharp pieces of ourselves
lest they poison us

we trade sweat and blood
for a pitiful pebble
made of piss and salt

radio for help

one grey monday
i walked the length
of the seashore with a
metal detector

i found a whale
the wretch beached itself
its atrophied limbs twitched feebly
as blue-black gnats drank its eyes

out of its blowhole
snaked a thin black wire
a radio antennae
perhaps jonah was still in its belly
frozen in a grotesque pose
like a fossil of a caveman
perhaps jonah was
composing his invisible s.o.s.
up until the moment when
asphyxiation overtook him

perhaps the ubiquitous hissing that you hear
after every other living thing has gone extinct
is not blood rushing through your ears

perhaps it is cosmic elevator music

perhaps it is the sound of
memoirs / living wills / death poems / suicide notes
recorded on an ancient 4-track
broadcasted in a constant loop
through tiny speakers
hidden in seashells

birthday poem

i wanted to make
you a present like
they do in the
movies and on
T.V. like a

funny card or
children's book or
birdhouse or
something but

i'm not very
good at those
things and
i'm not very
motivated, lazy
my parents say, so

here's a poem i
wrote i
hope you like
it O.K.

this dirty room

i look at the ceiling
so i don’t have to stare
at the dried spots of urine
speckling the ceramic tiles
sparkling in the tubercular fluorescent light
like the crystals in cat litter

i look at the ceiling
so i don’t have to risk
my eyes stealing a glance
at the ape next to me
milking his manhood

it’s like driving down a two-lane highway:
once you get the idea in your head
that you could turn the wheel
ever so slightly
and cleanly detach your brainstem in the collision

you can’t get it out

it’s like standing on top of a skyscraper:
you can so easily picture yourself
hurdling the short safety rail
and plummeting headfirst to the street below

it’s hard to keep yourself jumping

we are all slaves
to our inbred instincts
just like the lemmings

i fix my eyes on the ceiling
so i don’t have to imagine
the billions of dicks
nasty, brutish, and short
just like mine
relieving themselves
in this dirty room

the lonely road

sometimes
when i’m alone in a car
when i’m feverish and numb
from the humming engine
and the endless road
i talk to myself

i scream obscenities
because though i’m alone
they still make me blush

i listen to am radio
horns and drums
emerge from the static
at the crest of each hill
i pound the steering
wheel and howl

i am the last
living soul on earth

and i am finally alive