learning to type

no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
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no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.
no one can tell you if your art is meaningful, worthwhile, or good.

hark

it’s me me me
in my shell, in my hole
blending in with gunmetal
thin skin gone grey

left for leper
bred for predictable
falling backwards
through atom and (black)

pictures

I.

drop out of school
drop out of society
go homeless
carry a camera on a strap around your neck

take pictures of sleeping squatters
take pictures of broken houses
take pictures of your naked holocaust body
take pictures of your skin scraped off on the bricks
take pictures of the holes in your feet
take pictures of the cat you killed
take pictures of yourself curled up in a dumpster
take pictures of yourself turning to dust
take pictures of gravestones with no names on them yet
take pictures of empty whipped cream cans
take pictures of rubber cement pots

take pictures of your invisible skin
take pictures of your fragile bones
take pictures of your crumbling teeth
take pictures of your infected gums
take pictures of yourself going blind
take pictures of yourself going bald
take pictures of yourself getting fat
take pictures of your matted pubic hair
take pictures of your flabby gut
take pictures of your penis withdrawing into your body
take pictures of your swollen joints
take pictures of your sunken ribcage
take pictures of your purple pimples
take pictures of your degenerating brain
take pictures of everything until everything is just a picture

take a picture of yourself being left behind
take a picture of yourself being forgotten
take a picture of your friends moving away
take a picture of your parents moving on
take a picture of your blank future
take a picture of everything that is ruined
take a picture of everything that you ruined
take a picture of the bruises on your arms
take a picture of the blood on your clothes
take a picture of the snow and the ice
take a picture of the empty bottle
take a picture of the empty body
take a picture of a lullaby

go to sleep
go to sleep
go to sleep
go to sleep

II.

you’ve fucked everything
you’ve killed us
you’ve killed yourself
you’ve fucked everything
you’ve burnt down the house
you’ve molested your little sister
you’ve flunked out of school
you’ve forgotten your address
you’ve made us hate you
you’ve made yourself loathsome
you’ve made yourself ugly
you’ve screamed at everyone
you’ve written with shit on the walls
you’ve eaten all of your mother’s pills
you’ve pissed your pants
you’ve laughed and spit on yourself
you’ve gone insane
you’ve been sent to the prison for insane people
you’ve forgotten how to think
you’ve forgotten how to talk
you’ve forgotten how to wipe your ass
you’ve forgotten how to bathe
you’ve hurt yourself again
you’ve made us tie you up
you’ve made us lock you up
you’ve hurt us
you’ve made us hurt you
you’ve hurt yourself again
you’ve forgotten your name
you’ve lost your TV privileges
just sit in the corner
just sit in the corner
and think
about what you’ve done
about what you’ve done to us
about what you’ve done to yourself
about what you’ve done to us

III.

take pictures of everything you fucked up
take pictures of everything so you have a picture of it
take pictures of everything until everything is OK again
take pictures until everything is OK again
take pictures to take away the sickness
take pictures of your sickness
take pictures of anything
take pictures of everything until everything is just a picture

take pictures until they stop coming out wrong
take pictures until you’ve gotten good
practice makes perfect
take pictures until they’re worth something
take pictures until you’re a famous artist
take pictures and maybe someday you’ll be good
take pictures and maybe someday you’ll be rich
take pictures and maybe someday you’ll be make your parents
proud
take pictures and maybe someday you’ll be able to afford a doctor
take pictures and maybe someday you can get out of here
take pictures and everything will be OK
take pictures and maybe everything will be OK
keep taking pictures
don’t stop
you can’t stop now
where would you be
if you didn’t have your pictures
everything else is gone
everything else is fucked
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re disappearing
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re dying
everything is ending
everything is over
everything is ruined
everything is fucked
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’ve killed us
you’ve fucked up
you’ve killed us
you’ve killed yourself
you’ve killed us
everything is fucked
you’ve fucked everything
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re dying
you’re dead

Masochrist

the True masochist
does not allow himself to feel pain
because the highest pleasure
lies in abstaining from all pleasure

thus, he lives the life of a sadist
tortured by sacred envy
of the pain he selflessly bestows
to False masochists

sermon

all hail! the dinosaur god
of all christian nations
who drinks the corn syrup blood
of aborted crack babies

who preaches:
“it’s okay to call
indians indians
because they’re all dead
or they never existed”

all hail! the dinosaur god
of every 3rd world cargo cult
who is never photographed
without a breast milk moustache

who preaches:
“if horses had gods
they would look like horses
but they don’t
because they don’t have souls”

all hail! the dinosaur god
of amputees and burn victims
whose mechanical phallus
always points magnetic north

let us drink
His pesticide piss
let us eat
His asbestos shit
let us breathe
His carbon monoxide breath

let us obey
and plant our own children
in the killing fields
if they would lie fallow

the ghost of bukowski

I.

the ghost of bukowski
visited me in a dream
he was drunk
he’s always drunk
he told me to stop
wasting words

he said i was
deluding their power
he said i was
exasperating the word inflation
and making it harder
for real writers

he said that it takes
over ten thousand words
to say ‘futility’
but it used to only take
one

i just punctured
my eardrums with my pen
and kept drawing strings of letters

eventually
he stopped moaning
and rattling his chains
laid on the floor
and passed out

when he did
i got down on my knees
pulled up his shirt
and carved into his skin:

even “if [i] have to sit for hours
staring at [my] computer screen
or hunched over [my]
typewriter
searching for words”
i won’t stop

even “if [i] have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again”
i won’t stop

even “if it drive[s] [me] to madness or
suicide or murder”
i won’t stop

even if it never gets any easier

(especially if it never gets any easier)

II.

if i write for the rest of my life
and i never write anything
intelligible

at least i might learn
how to spell

if i write for the rest of my life
and i never write anything
that hasn’t been written before

at least it might seem
like i’m not alone

if i write for the rest of my life
and i never write anything
that could be called beautiful

at least i might know
what ugliness looks like

if i write for the rest of my life
and i never write anything
true

at least i will have these pages
to burn

and keep me warm

my days are 24 hours long

everyone else’s days are only
23 hours and 56 minutes long but

my days are 24 hours long

i spend my 4 extra minutes each day
practicing my small talk in the mirror:

hello
hello
how are you?
good, how are you?
good
that’s good
how is your twin brother?
good, how is your twin brother?
good
that’s good
did you hear?
no, what?
my twin brother is having a baby in march
congratulations!
he’s scared
he shouldn’t be!
oh?
my twin brother had a baby in march
did it hurt?
he didn’t feel a thing!
that’s funny
why?
i had a tumor removed in march
did it hurt?
i didn’t feel a thing!
that’s funny
why?
i’m having a tumor removed in march
are you scared?
no

mirage

(i was daydreaming about a far away
blurry oasis
in the middle of a desert of salt
so i didn’t hear her say)

“to love and be loved”

what?

“that’s the secret to happiness”

what is
'to love and be delirious'
the secret to?

“what?”

what if
no one will love you?

“someone will love you”

who?

“someone out there”

someone out in the parking lot?

“no, someone out in the world”

the parking lot is part of the world
so this someone
might be in the parking lot
right?

“yes, i suppose so”

(i shaded my eyes and squinted
but i couldn’t see much
in the glare of steel and glass)

give me one reason

not to cut off my finger
in this bathroom

i have the knife
it’s for cutting chicken bones
i’m sure it will go right through me
i have the rags
to stop the bleeding
i have the hydrogen peroxide
to stop the infection

give me one reason

not to cut off my finger
and flush it down the toilet

i have the knife
and the rags
and the disinfectant
i locked the door
no one is awake

no one would hear me
even if i screamed
and even if i screamed
no one would come running
and even if someone came running
they wouldn’t be able to open the door
and even if they could open the door
they wouldn’t be able to stop me in time
and even if they could stop me in time

and they asked me
what are you doing
and i told them
i’m going to cut off my finger
and they asked me
why
and i told them
give me one reason not to

they would have nothing to say

this country doesn’t support the arts

the police men
didn’t like my
performance art

i was wearing a costume and makeup
in order to look the part
of a homeless person
and i did my best
passed out drunk
impression
on the park bench

(i had taken an acting class
the previous summer)

i did my best but

the police men
didn’t like my
performance art

instead of putting change
in my plastic cup
they dragged me into an alley
held me against the dumpster
and took turns
giving it to me

and then they cut to commercial

i saw you
on TV
you were on the news
psych
you were in the static
psych
you were on the news

and you were talking
to some guy
with a banana for a penis
psych
he had a penis for a penis

(though since he was little
he had always thought
his penis looked a little
like a banana)

and you told him to
fuck off
and he didn’t
know what to say
psych
he did
he told you that
you have some nerve

A Velvet Mafia Reader #2

the airplane

i board
one foot at a time
Watch your step!
says the male stewardess
(what do you call those?)

i walk down the aisle
past a man with a shaved head
wearing that new digital camouflage
probably in order to fight that new digital war

i find 34C and sit down
the girl next to me
is too young to be flying alone
but too old for her anyone to stop her
she’s listening to the new noise
on her headphones

i’m issued my adult beverage and pillow
i give them both to the girl
she gulps the drink down while pinching her nose
and goes to sleep

i look at my in-flight magazine
Congratulations!
it says
You’ve chosen the safest seat in the plane!
but i’m sure they all say that

i look out the window
down at the patchwork quilt of land
none of the pieces seem to fit together
then i try to read
the reader’s digest version of leviathan
for a while

i walk to the bathroom
but Someone is in there
so i wait in my seat for Someone to finish
i stare at the door
not wanting to miss the clean look of relief
on Someone’s face
but the man with the shaved head comes out
and his face is blank

i sit in the cramped bathroom
my knees pressed against the small door
i don’t have to go
i just wanted to sit in the humming belly of the airplane
and pretend i was back in my mother’s womb
from what i can remember
it was nothing like this

[small margin poems]

small margin poems
are just like stri
ng: they are never
so short as to ren
der them incomplet

empty house

on nights
when no one is home
i beat off to muscular old men
fucking girls their daughters' age
who mimic the positions they learned
from watching porn on their big brother’s computer

when i cum
my mind goes blank
like a book thrown into the fire
the clarity is the same
as the first few minutes
after you wake up in the morning

in this reverie
i browse through abandoned websites
with my boxers around my ankles
and the sock still hanging from my penis

the internet is littered
with the sloppy personal pages
of grinning 20somethings
ages frozen on the terminal
like it was a tombstone

some must have moved on
to nice jobs and nice families
others must have died
from car accidents or suicide
from bad drugs or good drugs

they are so beautiful
in these pictures
with their perfect hair and perfect teeth
they pose like fashion models
their outfits hug their tight bodies

i was that age once
but i was never beautiful
my youth came and left
like a delivery man
at the door of an empty house

i and i

where were you last night?

i went to a party.

was it fun?

bob marley’s son was there.

which one?

what?

which one of his sons was there?

oh. i don't know. he had dreads.

was it damian?

which one is damian?

he's the one that raps.

no. his name was JAH or something.

what was he like?

i fucked him.