.

I thought of emptying fluid

Into a particular woman

Who has electric blond hair

And a slender neck, large

Witch’s nose. I thought

Of us smiling, under

The myth of romantic

Love, under

The

Myth of success,

Happiness, and

I thought

Of the essence of

Creation. Are we

Subservient

To something?

Is there something

More, off in

The distant celestial

heavens? On

Earth, dark eyes

Spite and dark eyes

Cower and

Dark eyes elaborate

Machinery for

Separation

From the selfsame and

One shot of light

And one shot

Of a woman’s neck

Is terrific

At masking

Such things.

I noticed the suicide watch post at the university and I signed up. It was to make up to $225. That seemed like good money and I’ve been going through it. I filled out the survey, with my phone number, e-mail address and all that good stuff we know and hate. And I got all ready, mentally, to go in and sit with a person, at Notre Dame, and talk about my suicidal thoughts. And I hit “submit.” And then I went back on Facebook. And I saw this black and white cat. And I couldn’t stop staring at that cat and how cool it looked. It had these long, white whiskers that reminded me of the glaze on a donut, that reminded me of the fluorescent lights you see when you’re in the back seat of your parents’ car and you’re pulling into a city, and they’re nervous about seeing their parents and in-laws. Everything is still and you behold the beauty of our Apollonian creations, or of a cat, and their Zen Buddhist lack of desire. And then, after thinking of all this, I caught a look of myself in a mirror. And I was glad I had a beard. I was glad of that. And I was glad of everything. And I thought, I better skip the suicide trip, and the Notre Dame trip, too, while I’m at it. I mean, I don’t want ’em getting any ideas.

The Buddha is crying.

The flag is cold and shivering.

Our atmosphere is wilting.

.

LA is poised to drown,

The tide tickling the

“Hollywood” sign

On the side of the mountain.

.

I went downtown today

And heard a homeless dude uttering

Threats, I saw an old lady

In entropy, and I

Averted eye contact

.

In my hometown, to

Retire home for reading and

Hearing about a murder

In front of the new breakfast diner.

.

People have spoken in hate

And on this worm moon

I am choosing my battles and

Cursing the extolled man in the sky

Who bestowed uniformity and logic

On a fiery pinochle den.

Sometimes, sitting in my hometown, in the backyard of where I lived with my mom, I’d get this electric vibe. And I just knew it was it. The lawns were all landscaped beautifully, flanked with colorful, aromatic gardens, the high school down the street procured spirited, energetic (sometimes violent) adolescents and that gas station two blocks down sold Donut Stix for $.75. The contour of my mind was completed by a rhythm from without — meditation took a back seat to aural absorption.

And it threw all kinds at you. At this one job there was this ex-junkie. And it’s going fine, going fine, continually, and then things just blow up. There’s a sautee pan slammed into the bus tub at 100 decibels. There’s the declaration that, upon cooking a burger for oneself, “I’m gonna have a hell of a time shitting this thing out!”

And then there were just the little moments that were supposed to be good. And yes, I have to admit, sometimes I know that I was raised by a pretty good mom. I can, that is, just let go, sometimes. And shit, I get it too. My mind races through everything. I have a fear of abandonment because I’ve BEEN abandoned. My mind races to murder. It races to brutality, the machine, wheels churning, homelessness, treachery and suicide. And then I turn the page. A new day begins. Maybe my “self” is more fully formed or maybe I just never fully became myself, kept part of my ambitions wrapped up in that colorful shrubbery I swear I saw when I was 17, outside of the movie theater, tripping on shrooms.

You stare a black,

Coal truncheon

Through my empty,

Feeble optimism

.

As you sit there in the bar

You frequent every night

To smoke cigarettes and

Drink Mountain Dew.

.

In you,

I see a hurt little boy,

Beneath your hard exterior,

.

And I

See

What the world does

To little boys, and

.

All the toxic waste matter

You insert into your stomach and lungs

Never seems to change you

.

Because

.

It doesn’t mean anything

To you.

.

Only I,

Your enemy,

Procure you any meaning,

As your old glory heart

.

Spits on into the night

In spite of it all.

Sports bars

And tomboys

Are subsuming my mind

On this gray winter day and

To get through the winding streets of Pittsburgh

And escalate into your mountainous coordinates

Would be akin to the next coliseum of murderous carnage,

Like placing 20 five-ton cement planks

On the summit of our sweat and cunning,

As if watering my own eyes

Like a spout from a decanter

Onto agreeable poppies in daisyland,

Caressed by florid voices in Steelers jerseys.

We were all hung crooked,

In a way,

With the universe composed of gunk

That would seep itself onto our visages

And make the hands sticky

Of all the natives,

.

How we’d pounce

From horror movie living rooms

Into loud, endless mania,

Left to the machine

And the whip,

Proud purveyors of

Well-lit homicides.

The shop still stands

There in my old neighborhood

Of endless, stately houses,

Neat lawns and

Velcroed binoculars

For the leering.

.

The same man still owns the shop

With eyes like splintered wooden blanks

That penetrate your benevolent intentions

And with high school female employees

Populating the premises like

Some off-colored rhododendrons

Out of season.

.

And that

Dark Horse

Fore Smoked Stout

Still

Sits on the shelves in there,

Rich, robust and with

Unmistakably rounded flavor,

A beer I’ve

.

Never

Been able to find

Anywhere else around.

.

And really,

I don’t need it.

.

There’s Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout,

There’s Old Rasputin,

There’s Budweiser,

For when pay day’s coming up.

.

But the Fore Smoked

Napalms on to my consciousness

Like the decadent curve of a

High school girl’s posterior,

.

Like the low,

Moribund, gurgling

Sound

.

That is this world

And that

.

Makes you squint

Or nervously chuckle,

As you change the channel.

I’ve been single for a long time and just today, I was sitting around my room before
work, and thinking about finally actively pursuing a girlfriend. I’m just coming off this
brief string of days where I went out three out of the four, the one when I didn’t go out
laced with what seemed like an increased amount of loneliness and monotony, just
hanging out and watching playoff baseball.
There’s this girl on my Facebook feed I’m kind of into a little. As it happens, too, my
lust for her is outpaced by just the impression that I have of her being a really good girl
— into music, kind, friendly and honest.
She’s got a couple of kids and has been single for a while, I think, no doubt focusing
on them and making their wellbeing a priority, as she should. Another factor, with her,
though, is that, I believe, her last boyfriend was this black dude. And I feel ashamed to
say this, on a certain level, but it does, to an extent, make me less inclined to want to
get involved with her.
Let me explain something, first. This is a person, the dude, with whom I actually ran
track in high school, but didn’t usually talk to. I didn’t get the impression that he was
shy. I got the impression that he was dealing with a noxious set of inner energies and
thoughts that weren’t always appropriate for discussion. In this way, I suppose, he
behaved pretty well, by and large.
But I’ve friended him on Facebook and he never likes any of my posts and when I
comment on his and like, he never reacts back or says anything to me. Now, obviously,
the anatomical malady you’re at a higher percentage of dealing with in a girl who’s
been with a black dude represents somewhat of a pitfall, in certain instances, at least.
But, equally, it’s a depressing realm to deal with in terms of me being white and having
to deal with what sometimes feels like this cultural void. What’s more, I get the sense
that he’s encouraged to dislike me — to disdain me, to disregard my comments as
meaningless because I’m white, and to exclude me from all his ambitions and agendas.
And I don’t think all black people are like this but I do think that if he were white there
would be a far greater probability that I could find some common ground with him and
hence ameliorate the social landscape surrounding this love interest of mine, making,
more than likely, for an improved dating situation. In the meantime, I feel forced to
observe this guy’s blackness as an encumbrance, if not to say, necessarily, a problem
in the larger eye of universal law, if you will.

I seek out asylum,

A respite from the monsoon of

Pop-fizz realities and urgent

Chemical inundations.

.

I find it

Behind the abandoned Target store

On an 80-degree day in summer,

Where I

.

Park behind the store’s barracks

Which block me from Yosemite Sam

Searching me for weed.

.

Off in the distance,

About 200 feet away or so,

A good-looking girl

Of about 20 or so

.

Gets out of her car with a basketball

And starts dribbling

And shooting.

.

I hadn’t even known

There was a basketball hoop there.

.

I sit there in my car,

Which is off

With the windows down,

For about half an hour,

.

Just thinking,

Thinking about my place

In this rat race and

.

Thinking about how to pay respect

To this sunny, 80-degree day off, and

I am doing just that with this

.

Silhouette of my anatomy’s counterpoint

Off in the distance like a siren or sage,

Complementing my soft-bellied lethargy

With athleticism and

.

Committing a sagely,

Unambitious

Act of summer.