i wrote this the other day

"I Read Allen Ginsberg Once."

spit out whatever taste haunts the lips

be it words, places, events, the leftover
ghosts of kisses (spectre love gloom)

january clouds strike lightning, paralyze the body as
it stumbles, drank yourself into a stereotype

dancing for quarters, on berwyn, need train
fare to escape the saliva dripping from the mouth
that once promised eternity...

spoke of heaven as though it was a cab ride from downtown to
uptown to hell.

shocking like electricity advertising
all night delivery... so hungry. we are so hungry for
that moment, starving, like asthetics in jungles read
about in magazines, national apathetic, lounged in a bar
seeking enlightenment. booths not quite bodhi trees, levis
and flannels, not quite robes.

horrors, beers not finished, glass is half
fucked. this city is romantic when enjoyed responsibly.
prefer intoxication of concrete and lust

prayers on knees, i've seen the best jeans of my generation
ripped and torn and frayed because we knew not how to apologize
to those saints who paid bar tabs and told us about san francisco and
the poets who've done it before us

spit out blood from a tongue split, not cut, a decision
not made, left or right, go or stay, a train into the suburban
pit of self mutilation.

a body covered in scars from nights spent slipping
and hands held out for solace and restitution, ungrateful
black and blue and black stained shoes... borrowed from a friend

of all the cities fucked, this one is the easiest
and most welcome, coffee in the morning, kind of lay
that makes one pray it'll fuck you again the next day

spit out sunshine on a sunday afternoon.
exorcised ghosts caught the redline towards howard and that
is not your way.

it's never been, never will be, bite your lips, return home. or not
there are things to do and cities to wander

one foot in front of the other is not as beautiful a dance
as it was the night before
never took lessons, never took lessons

there are streets paved and parking meters
ticking, metronomes keeping pace with the worries of the mind

find the words, hidden, lips purse... robbed from
an old women on a bench, not much in it.

heathens, spitting on streets and smoking
cigarettes rebelling against their mothers but
only loving the ones that remind of us of said authoritatives
oedipus tore out his eyes, the tongue more suiting, words
last longer than stares when written in wet cement

the future is and always will be a sentence salivated
over breasts and hips and hair and dicks and hands
held over turnstyles

find the words, they were spray painted on
city walls and freight trains that only grandfather
knew the destination of, farms green, not
the gray desired

this city was once a slaughterhouse but still beckons blood
from papercuts, tickets and notebook pages torn out
and left on doorsteps of desire

a stroll, a leisurely stroll, still bleeding

tourniquets are phonecalls promising weekends
that will not be blood thinners, proper medication
of whiskey and forget.

if we could be criminals, we'd love each other
and forget the stolen conversations from french
films we couldnt understand.

black and white, not suiting
we need red and blue, the police
on the next avenue should arrest us.

for we are who we are never supposed to be

a comedian, a poet, a salesmen, a cook
a painter, a lover, a friend, a husband, a wife
a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a word spit on the sidwalk

a passerby called it disgusting.


1/25/10