The road to hell is paved vol 3

bike show

pills and grass
liquor with strangers
life will strengthen or destroy you
"just don’t get greedy"
certain keys will open any door
to a constant, mad calculation
watching me pay my attention
a momentary wait in the february cold
inside
there were chrome monsters
many known perpetrators of domestic violence
jerking their wives and children around
outlaws and angels from hell
a survey girl says, "if you fill out this form,
i'll fuck you til you're blind."
its all in the eyes
it gives me a sick lurching depression
i cant say a word
everyone here belongs to something
or someone
i stumble through the day and leave quietly




why bother?

long hours on the phone
the day is a long eleven-hour pull
we need less work! more pay!
i doubt if that idea works outside of theory
too many blind masses leading themselves
we are taught to enjoy this
to be strong, develop character
suffer for the quick reward
suffer longest
suffer so that you have no doubts
about who is on top
and starve anyway





drink it down

this is the burned out end of american culture
the bars on saturday night
we all sit and converse
saying nothing
praying for help and time to give ourselves the world
what should become of us?
our lives riddled with emotional holes
lies and half truths we tell ourselves
rarely stop the bleeding
these are wounds we must reopen every day
without peace
to be lost in self loathing





corner table

so far gone from themselves
they start yelling
its early on saturday
the bar is half full
the buisiness loser set at the big table
watching television
the alcoholics at the bar
watching thier drinks
the new drunks are in the other room
watching pool and the asses of girls
they seem to come for company
i sit at my corner table
trying to be alone
watching them
......no wonder.......
society and i
slowly poisoning ourselves
happy only in degradation





incompletion

all the dizzy promise of looks
some aproach is necessary
and then you see her taste,
a bungling settlement
you become aware of why she smiles at you
just friendly
because she can
because safety is in the glass
the man at her side or
just outside the door
she knows the unreality of your anticipation
and knowing she holds the keys
she flashes a smile and
kindly
locks the door





I win

strange old hookers on the tv
freaks in torn jeans and painted clothes
bat at one another in fake bloodless battles
noone gets hurt
somehow, its disappointing
the hooker at ringside leaves with the winner
american happy endings
you lose, i get the hooker
drivel
horrible drivel
this country and i, all headed for the bad end of it






bar poem

sitting here writing swill thats worse than what im drinking
i bring books to the bar
comment on the surroundings
tip the barman outrageously high
figuring he feels as alienated as i do
acting so strange
im bound to get beaten before the night is through
staring at the singles in pairs
stylish i guess
preferring anonymity
lost in thinking and bearing out the lines as though they mattered
but i wonder how they get together?
couples
living in a haze of lies
comfortable and soft never confronting the truth
they all look alike
or at least dress to please the same television program
the same heights to make up for egos and lousy sex
me, my striped shirt and idiot hair
feel there are no chances to please
"all the slots are taken, sir, you'll have to wait in line,
outlive your karma, and let them find you."





juke

the place hasn’t even started to jump
its eight o'clock
the room is a strange gaggle
boys at twenty-five still debating on manhood
where do all the beautiful women hide?
i never find them
my friends dont tell me im ugly
but i suspect
my spiraling dying nature
drives the timid glances away





one for tomorrow’s hangover

at the end of the night i'll walk out of here
sober enough
to find a key, a doorway up the stairs to the plastic bed
and hating myself to sleep
maybe
there will be a beautiful ending in this story somewhere
im all beaten out
with paranoid stares
and believing the moment matters





pure ugly

nice guys finish last
how true the old axioms are
whether they oppose or not
some ring true
shes over there drinking
i cant get a glance
but the night is young
when the crowd gets ugly its time to go
now, thats a monstrous implication, isnt it?
and lined with fate
ill be here too






what you get

all ways i get lost
caught up in the passing moment
full with expectations
and i cant go the easy way
its not right somehow
looking for a chance that wont come
a happy ending that doesn’t exist
something tangible
not something i have to force myself into





loving the suicide

sometimes we fall so hard and fast
drowning in the wind
sometimes we flail fight or laugh
trying too hard
becoming the things we hate
just to fall in love
to heal only to leave
oh, to be untorn
unscarred
crowned and uncurled around a newborn world






blotter dream

when old, will i remember these years?
only stories left, maybe, filmed with lies
will i remember the persons and places?
or will it be
flames
everything in alanis morrisette flame green
insta-paranoid reaction is mightier
than pistol to the face meaning
whose script?
ancient fools
grasping at all the dead
everything we do is selfish
how do you end the cycle of humanity?
burn that shit with good acid
a Tim Leary cure-all with madness





no way

what?
who, me?
im nobody
tearless vague eyes burn the insight of hatred
the far off lie is so many times told
that now it comes on with a truth too bold to just fade
where is the mirth that wandered the high fields?
you will only see the time going
and thats the paradox
we will hear all the crying
and turn inward for solace
alone with our hate, we'll starve for love
a nameless tragedy of silence and hope
in the astral present we wind
amid and with
it
and all the world





just a little longer

a depression in life
black and rolling
inside the morning of four a.m.
awake with paranoid, shaken dreams
insecure moments
failing at it
i fuck up everything





'hood

when you get close to my neighborhood
there are stripped cars
old mexicans
shattered glass in the streets
every day is a constant push
against the rising civilization
the corner store girls hand out change
that reeks of semen
we are forged in this constant rush of life
images and work
its strange, with art,
how the world darkens or grows brighter
stops things from turning grey






best fuck

i put myself inside her with my broken ribs screaming
skinned knuckles staining the pink sheets
my nose bled two perfect spots on her pillow
half dead and beaten to shit
but still, she wanted me
still, i performed
always wanted to reject these scenes
the punishment too great to leave dormant
she wanted to fuck me with my soul at the head of my cock
spewing my spirit away
to lock up tight in her secret places
the split stitches on my scalp dripped and ran blood
in the canal of my spine and off of my heels as i stood
to turn her over
the sheets were pink and crimson
looking like rape or murder
there are small still frames of the droplets and smears
on her upturned ass
she wants it hard
harder
and my ribs grind
the world goes dim with each thrust
i dont even hear her climax
im still trying to beat her into submission
i cant come or even breathe when she crawls away to clean herself
the best fuck of her life, she says






guesses

this sunny day
like the others
escaping in the warmth
trying to empathize with myself
the homeless
the other injured
where does the time go, once spent?
seems like the ultimate horror in life
is only to have lived through it
with all the flailing mass as witness





singularity

on these stone-lonely moments
i miss you most of all
i sit silent and dreaming
wishing for a touch, a whisper
you sleeping near
soft rush of breathing and tender flesh
warmth that grows
flashing across the seas of discovery
alone, i float
to unknown distant shores
far arden
come to me once more
and collapse
in dreaming seas





when they see

they starve with thier smiles
opening the aching wound
mixing the fire
glistening teeth and lusty mouths
eyes that never stop hating
they will not be held
this she smiles though, appraising
hair: too long
beard: day old
clothes: dirty
hands: callused and scarred
from working,
she blanks and passes
the girl at the counter will not make eye contact
but shows off her full cleavage
the tiniest intersection of lace
between the cups of her bra
exposed for everyone
my heart beats heavy and i cant speak
only want action
sex and tongues
hands sliding over flesh
bodies that grind and mesh
my dry mouth wont open to propose
i consider
she's up to her eyes in that lust all day
and doesnt even realize its her fault




the boss

flat beady eyes
hair receded and combed
exhaust pipe chrome
capillaries in sagging jowls
burst from the drunken wallow
self pity or shame
pain
the playground bully grew up to be the boss
bucktoothed and spitting, "oh Yeah?"
yeah, i remember these people from the past
i grew up outside thier social circles, observing
trying to find out who I truly was
i already knew them
now i see them still, everyday
the bully, the jock
the prom queen
my first fuck
the faces change
but the souls speak like memories
outside, i still watch
they sit hunched and jowly
bleeding eyes and leper tongues
not understanding
hating instead
freedom
me




concussion

life stopped in the instant of collision
i woke from concussion
strange to myself
a stranger in my own skin
i became unknown to the woman who gave me life
one shattering impact in the october sunset
i was left naked
unclothed of self
minus identity
minus all the comforting fictions
my ass soaked from the ditch
my mouth cursing far away in a dreaming slur
coming back from the tunnel into the sweet light
hours had passed outside my knowledge
the ambulances
crushed cars
my head reeling and reeling
as if i were lost forever
spiraling out in the void





common ground

we wanted to be priests
or killers
later there came the realization
that they were one in the same
or opposing polarities that attract

freedom from life
or freedom from death
both dispensed
with blood of savior
or of self





last chance

his smile as wide as the sky
and hands to match
the large dark shades were placed
in a breast pocket
"that love, boy, that LOVE is a bitch."
his brow furrowed tightly
showing sixty years of labor,
prejudice and lessons
he said "baby, straight now,"
locked me in his gaze
"you may as well go on and blow your brains out,
'cause that love, she just gonna kill you SLOW."





working musician on the 9 to 5 bitch

the days are not a flow
merely a stumble
so much to correct at night
with the slow note
as queen
sex
bleeding
crying
all bouncing through my head
setting trembling desire aflame
the afterglow fuck rush of living the music





difference

where do women learn their grace?
where does the sun speak to the sky?
are the days as empty for everyone?
the slow lurch of work
the greedy eyes
hungry for sex
the feminine form
lush breasts
open thighs
to gaze on beauty furled under clothing
she is like the spring mountains
these days
i am dry desert winds





obsessions

sometimes the thoughts are deep as the ocean
loud as the break
the rhythm of life lets us down
or drags us up
deep into one year of forced celibacy
i can see sex in anything
and feel excluded from it
the ways women publicly reveal themselves
with high fashion
men are unimaginative out of necessity
(that’s what im told)
once again, im speaking from outside
looking in





a little piece to you

a dedication of my sanity
the world flies by
and you speak
"hello...."
there is no welcome in her gaze
no tortured silences for me to endure in her eyes





downtown

women always sliding
strutting
through the steel morass
men walk
or scream from bicycles
at slow moving crowds of black women

its beautiful only when couples
find abandoned bliss on a street corner
or drawbridge
they stop only to stare at the polluted canal
It’s the only nature in the street
how beautiful is ignorance
how much beauty is made from the same






for Christian

Arizona
Colorado
California
Illinois
missouri, i am
child of the earth
blood of mountains and desert
sleeps in my veins
the springs in unspoiled places are my thoughts
as the wind over the plain
my soul flies
it is when i am free
smiling or dying it will always be so
the places i call home are not named
noone tells their stories
they live in memory of the laughing spirit
pure
free





seasonal voices

the breeze is coming
across the lake and up the canals
stretching tight the clouds at the far horizon
steps in the sky
like crumbling stones of athens
broken off or edged out
by the masons of far-off autumn
coming closer on this summer night
giving a gentle reminder
in the voice of the wind





Spanish lesson

that’s all there was
sweating toil
language and the ride home
with a woman my mothers age
her breasts were so compressed
into a tiny dress that
i thought the seams would burst
and embarrass the world
once, she tried to make me
drawn into a kiss with the strength of a man
its scary shit, let me tell you
especially when she's looking down the side streets
for places to park at three a.m.
her english didnt improve
neither did my spanish
every night i thanked her for some unknown something
trying to apologize at the same time
for my lack of usefulness




oh, man

stoned again
just watching the people walk by
a daily vouristic ritual
wondering why some things never add up
i suppose its reasonable to assume
(that damned word)
so, maybe its not reasonable
but men and women
seem drawn and held
by long snakes of lust
yearning always to be close to the fire
held in the white hot flame





the velour chamber

dark and warm
with close steel walls
always moving up
stopping too soon
to complete the dream





watch this world

sit here with the telephone
noone to call
the virgins are running in my head
and im screaming
in the hall
Violence sits quiet
on a sunday afternoon
ive been down its road before
and it only ends in flame

bleeding all the while
'cause im cutting on myself again
i just cant seem to smile
past the gun inside my mouth
it will take awhile
before i can turn my back again

the time is always nagging
in this elegant psycho haze
the lies seem to be dreaming
all the things i never said i'd be
she slaps me in the face again
the game, for her
never ends
but she says shes only mine
this time





my afternoon

the damned walk a fine line
of newspaper fiction, media dreams
my brain vomits words, strings
melodies get lost
forgotten in my midday sun
as they all sleep
here i am pushing two a.m. again
with the haggard lines
running across this page
and pushing the time ahead of me
to get where im going





man-whore

i think i sucked him off maybe five times
and it wasnt for heroin or lust
it was for rent, goddamn it
and i needed to eat and get drunk
at least once a week
to watch his tight, fat skin stretch
and his tiny cock scream and jump its dead orgasm
his head in my lap
toothless gums raking my length
thinking he was doing me some favor
some reciprocation
the first time he gave me one hundred dollars
(to get home for christmas)
when i arrived
everyone seemed to want me to disappear
with my native jewelry
long hair and beard
all my talk about open mindedness
disagreeing with their god and their mind
well, i guess i could take my presents
my appearance, all my mixed up views
and crawl straight back to hell
so i did, and i got semen on the roof of my mouth
a junkie girlfriend
(and another on the side)
the end
they say
its all in the end




bingo bill

he was kind at first
like a new lover
catering to everything
reeling me in
but i hate that shit
so, soon it was just
his seminal fluid in my mouth
a forced bitter orgasm
that i should be under the hands of a man
his voice, above all, in the hangover mornings
yelling that i've got 'no respect'
saying he's figured me out
but cant break my will
what a sick and unsubtle dance





first

every time i think of her
its needles in the back
of a spine that wont stand
up beside heaven and the hell of it
every time, i see the world ending
the profusion of this dust
the chalk white taste of love
sticking like erasers in my throat
'give yourself away at any cost'
is an anthem shared
in the misery tones of desire
it is the endless unbirthing of
who, in time forgets his name
and fades
to not knowing who he was
or why
he comes only in the vigor of the night






fast lane

our speculations increase with our age
win and lose blend with
the specter of past existing
and present knowledge
each day we fight the increase
dream better tomorrows
and grind, grind away
we work and grow old at the pace of machines
clocks and cars
gasoline pumps and salesmen






gritty unreasonable

too hard and bitter to care
this life makes us fools
before our art does
can i hate myself through tomorrow
fast enough to breathe at the end?





escape

we live next to a hallway of lights and stars
the orange-grey blur of the deep city night
the concrete outside the kitchen window
holds the expressway up
reminds me of the prison yard
the anxiousness of enclosure
it is sunday and the screaming week awaits
machines and false smiles
doing anything to evade the memory of the city






after the mushroom

back just after i left
caught in between losing time
making effort
and letting the voice scream loud again
too much vocabulary
too much instant mix work
cant see the way through to hope
laying down, all i want is my poetry mind
a piece of flesh to soothe my appetites
but i settle for darkness and jerking off
so fucking lazy
unable to pick up the pen
scared of what i might reveal
as if something i might see
could cause my eyes to turn black in my head
my brain black behind my eyes
my soul in torment
lost again.
too many roads between here and home






dead god day

today i met a lady who smiled at me
and touched my hand
(even though it was dirty and worn)
she said things directly to my sweaty face
as if i needed to know them
she's from michigan city, a place i used to know
and she's got hippie style, only
she has joined the believers and gone off preaching
she tells me so matter-of-factly
like i might think the wrong thing if she's not clear
i'm not sure what scares her
the possibilities
or me
"happy easter" she says
but by then her blonde hair, florida tan
and stunning smile have
removed thoughts of dates and holidays
as well as the fact she has a husband
i dont even know its spring anymore
and she guesses as much
retreating from my eyes
and spring and easter





self pity

so, ive declined to this
soft tonguing lies onto the page
trying to alleviate the loneliness
of without her
i dont know what’s worse
giving up
or losing






up all night

talking to the seamstress across the hall
(she's forever patching and after me)
playing classical pop until three a.m.
i call in to work
its a hospital day
they're actually starting to feel like home
there's no more chills and creeps
every time i see a nurse
i meet a girl in the parking lot
she has one kid and wants to be a singer
bums most of my cigarettes
in exchange for long looks at her monstrous bosom
and sexy brown eyes
but she's spacey, liquid
about two hundred and twenty pounds at 5' 3"
so i realize i must be shallow
give her a wrong number
tell her, "take care"
and smile to break my face






tired

tried to put on my ball-batting face
but got a whine instead
all my guilt was tied
in cords on the living room floor
so i danced the madman's dance
eyeless and afraid
grinned through my scowl
ate the shit they fed to me
by and by
we grow older
some of us stronger than steel
old as unbreakable faults
these things cling
in the masquerade
so you get honest instead of angry
crazy
and put your balls in the vice truth brings you






lost another one

where did i wander since
that phrase caught me
in the shower
or the middle of a fuck
ripping the moment to shreds
with 4 or 5 very certain words
to run and flail through the house
nakedly digging for pens and paper
only to lose it all
and write another poem
like this





burning out life for awhile

let this run around inside your head:
kill everything you see
make virgins from whores
like what you see
stop rhyming
stop time
feast on the things in which you find endless value
say you’ve lost your freedom to speak
get famous
furious
lose contradictions
forget lies
learn life
get wiser than is rational
grow old
pass on





vagueness kills the poetry

old words and rhymes
kill poetry
"kill poetry"
"i have"
i have kill poetry
i have killed poetry





problems

the lady across the hall
a job that won't fit into anyplace
a girl with no sense of timing
always coming and going
a tease that i mismarked
(my eyes aint so great these days)
the over glutinous misanthrope from work
i say that i'll call but never do
four women having run circles around me
are no longer sure of what they want
but they always turn me into whatever they please
without ever asking me who i am





letch

a plane cuts the silence of the may summertime
the children are populating the pool
on a sunday afternoon with their mothers
(who look sexy)
in rainbow bikinis and latino skin
like an endless perfect tan
c'mon
put away your children
your husband
succumb to the perfect lechery in my smile
someone come for the light behind my eyes
to learn an endless pleasure
give me one straining fuck to complete the day





voices

locked in time
out of mind and reasons
pavlov's dog outside the window
the mountain rising up behind the house
can't be satisfied with trivialities
bored scenery
theres too many of us
crowded into this small green space
too many voices in the house
on the television
and in my head





but i might

i fear to be drastic
a knife to my wrist
a gun in my mouth
to bleed or blow away the liquid poem
the lonely hour
the vast reckoning
we build a terror of questions
bitching to get a grasp
arguments to avoid truths
women slice through our lives
with white hot confidence
sure of thier right to be loved on sight
i fear to be drastic
to tell the truth so well that opinions break to pieces
or hearts to shards
to stick through us in cutting embraces





sinking with fear

claws of logic
truth
rending tendons and muscular
denial
its clear
that there is no way out but
foreward
faster
til youre catching the sun, losing the
way
plunging deeper
to the river's beginning
to witness the
soul, fading
out of sight away from the mirrors and the
introspective
eye
lashing with doubt the interior of the
mind
casements for the head, stones for the dead
running
farther still
out to the place where you fell
red eden
washing away with the rain





changing

the pain of awareness is my ventriloquist
wooden mouth flapping arguments
cracking information
a constant smiling without meaning,
except, 'i lost again'
or 'life, don't prove me right this time'
if tomorrow is a new miracle,
will it erode the shores of today?
my father fears my poems
my mother will never hear them
i am wooden and turning to stone
will the liquid of childhood dreams
make this less real?





ready for anything

more spewing insults
more crowded space
agoraphobe and claustrophobe
verdiphile: a poorer vision,
to wait out the life i dreamt.
the velour chamber beckons
for sperm and raw friction
in the steel mirrored ceiling.
sunday without sun and solitude
cigarettes on the front porch
a moment of clean vision
the subversion of desire for peace
or truth
moments without pain






when it arrives

drowning witticisms
with the foreplay of imagination
jumping in the candlelight
nova of creation
the stars are flying
in the blanket of the sky
minor cataclysm
a catharsis
we will burn to be free
yet, wink out before tasting the truth






outbursts

among the sounds of the forlorn morning
there are outbursts
close to death in the upstairs hallway
a minute from leaving
sticking through the parody of myself
emotions exposed and glimmering
i am beginning to hate more than myself






break down

remember when i cried
in your room
on the park bench
trying to piece together the whys
twisting the knife of memory

the pieces are as many now as ever
maybe im missing a few more
giving myself to whoever would ask
not sleeping, i dont eat for days
still a heap of punishing logic and little else

think ill never get better than this
pen
moment
place
word
no better than the soft lies
we use to alleviate our lives







school days

the beast will eat us with rules
make us fat and slow against
the tide of time
opulence, like disease
kills slowly
forsaking peace and all else
false circling faces guide us
we rage-blinded,
impotent and dying
square off to the world
raining blow after blow
the beast never falters even an inch
in its slow sickness
we pummel at nothing
smashing fists and skulls on brick
a gesture of futility
or of life inching inevitably toward death






fever dream

women i cant even fuck in a dream
wearing teasing half panties
showing off a small slip of protruding hairs
all this rubbing
friction for flames
fingers and tongues to loosen
engage
orgasms exploding
around my delirium
but i cannot enter one so fresh
yet so dirty
crimes i cannot commit even while sleeping






depression

drained of conversation
words
meaningless strands of words
nothing thought provoking in the music
or the impending phone call
and i haven’t figured out which is more pathetic
the words or the silences
both are leaving me empty
there is almost no more to say
and less to think
just a slow bunching of will to push
for the next entrance





kesey's movie

sickness- its a little like imploding
sucking into yourself so deeply
that you begin to exit

days pile up
dirty clothes in their sameness
pill, work, sleep, collapse
the blue room with a pallet lain
for sleeping away each mundanity
under the blue light
writing or cursing all that is valid
the things we've built this world to be
i pity the star in this movie
the supporters and seconds
even the cameo actors,
who eclipse us for a moment
to remind us
that, like us, they were once walking the
guilted road toward greatness
but the scripts were written
without approval from any of us
and everyone complains about their roles





atlas

collapsing in the blue room
on the pallet of blankets
between the attic door and the library
its enough room for myself and a guitar
nearly dawn and ready for sleep
eyes fluttering closed and open
waiting for the hiss of a heater
a word from a friend to warm
me for dreaming
neither comes
just the cold dark of sleep
awakening to the cold dark of six p.m.
winter breathing through the cracks
around the window above my head
the blue light's still burning
i grab the road atlas
thumbing through until i see the dot
that indicates my dwelling place
back and forth
flipping pages
from where i have been to where i'll be
one book containing the whole distance of my life
every road and decision ive taken
the space it will take a lifetime to write out