#bookslit

Poetry by John Grey

  THE SLITHERING S

A shape in the form of a slithering S hisses softly. It can’t slide under the door but the psyche is a different matter. Saw it from the upstairs window as it disappeared into the garden. Once a floral Eden, now death-dealing roses, now chrysanthemums with fangs. THE ARSONIST STRIKES

A hand with a match near a splash of gasoline on the hardwood floor of an abandoned house. The walls, the shredded curtains, the sofa, the mantle, after ten years of waiting patiently, quietly, with a great red whoosh, let fire in. THE DICTATOR PONDERS

It’s too late to reverse course. It’s like a fine wine, once sipped, the cheap variety will never do. And yet I can’t help probing into my own thoughts, my motivations. Power is a woman. I love it but I just don’t understand it.

And I’m constantly haunted by how easily the populace fell under my authority.

Where was their skepticism, their resistance?

The people are pathetic, zombies, stooges, unable to think or act for themselves.

Two years I’ve ruled this land and not one assassination attempt. I’d shoot myself but it wouldn’t be the same.

Links to Michael’s books can be found at the bottom of the page.

Michael Dolce

A Universe to Come   8/19/08

I imagine the smell of earth in the mist of the sweet jungle’s humidity, Caressing my dry face, Bringing sweet and powerful tears to my cheeks, Half of my own making and half not. I can taste the water of this sacred savannah on my tongue With the gracious passion of a man too long denied its sustenance, Lost in a wilderness of wind and unfertile sand. I cool my overheated fingers in the damp mud of Mother Earth’s wet soil, And when I return them to my face, I smell a perfume that brings peace to my restless spirit And inspiration to all parts of my being. Then with the posture of a god atop Gaea’s highest peak, Bedecked in naught but the flesh that carried me from the ocean to this land And bathed in the light of Helios on high, She comes to me, A muse and a dark prophecy of sublime promise; An angel and a harlot, A song of terrible ardor and a whisper of confident purpose. She descends upon my skin as hot rain, Falling in surprising softness upon me, Flowing from my head to my toes in sanguine rivers of joy That speak to me like tongues of fire In a forgotten language no mortal mind ever had a name for. Upon my right and pure propitiation to her, Infusing her with consecrated heat, She rewards me by taking the world off of my back and smiling at me; A girl and a whore, A wife and a courtesan, A daughter and a mother. Her hands draw from my being every last ounce of poison Corrupting the sanctity of my immortal temple, Wrought from the wars of the civilized world. She finds the seat of my power, Where this deity’s machinations are seeded, The indomitable, indefatigable throne of my kingdom. She takes her seat as my queen, Radiant and magnificent, A goddess in these moments, Even unto other goddesses, Who can scarce contain their own adoration of her. As I worship. She holds a place of mystic guardianship atop the watch tower of my domain, And for all of its stolid solemnity, She makes it a beacon that lights the way for the Divine light to bless my great reign. As the sea meets the shore, we collide. She makes the earth from magma at my core, Pushing it to the surface in delightful chaos that replenishes the fertile realm. In the following calm, In the grace of profound silence. The ancient ritual is accomplished. The universe is reborn.

  Join Me           05-26-04

Anyone could blame it on the mushrooms, Especially the people who’ve never taken them And see merely the incomprehensible chaos it brings to people, Causing them to laugh uncontrollably And express leaps of child-like logic that their aging minds have long forgotten.

But it was beyond psilocybin, Beyond the mind, And beyond the flesh and bone that serve as my conveyance.

My soul spoke. My Great soul.

I sat on a dirt hill beside my best friend. We’d joked all night And had howled with hilarity; Two intelligent innocences struggling to cope with the illusory trappings of the Age of Pisces, The iron age of tyranny, political correctness, violence and abject humorlessness.

I remembered having a religion imposed upon me. I remembered the indoctrinational practices of my schooling. I imagined Jews and Palestinians killing each other over who had the best invisible friend, Busily fighting the great unknowns of human mortality. I imagined a world in which the followers of Elwood P. Dowd Committed acts of rape and murder out of an outrageously enflamed belief in an intangible six-foot tall rabbit named Harvey, And this made as much sense to me as the Crusades, the witch burnings & the jihads.

It struck me then.

It was like looking all around the house for a misplaced wallet And finding it finally in your back pocket.

Love is the thing.

Love is everything.

I could send it from my heart through my hands and heal this planet if I really meant it.

I gazed in immaculate awe up at the stars And gratefully into the eyes of my friend, And I spoke words that had come from a source beyond me; A memory of lessons learned, A prophecy of learning yet to come.

“I just want to love.”

My mind was a cool breeze. My heart was a gentle blaze. My spirit was a calm, healing stream. My body lay serenely prostrate upon the soil.

“I just want to love.”

I knew it was the truth of my existence, My destiny, My road less traveled.

I was absolutely myself, In all worlds, When I said it.

An eternity thrived in the scant seconds of my uttering, And I knew myself for the first time.

Decades have since passed.

Fear, greed & anger have come to fight a last battle for supremacy on earth. Confusion, apathy and disillusionment hold humanity from its inherent greatness, And, Imperfect vessel that I am, I understand it now.

I had spoken words that had come to me from a source beyond me; A memory of lessons learned, A prophecy of learning yet to come.

“I just want to love.”

Join me.

Death and resurrection.

Join me.

  I Met Your Girl           

I met your daughter at a Motel 6. She was calling herself Candy. I didn’t ask her for her real name. She never asked for mine.

A box of Huggies was visible Behind the closet door, Left inadvertently ajar. What was she, 18? 19? Already a mouth to feed.

She had a scar under her right eye. Did you give her that When you came home drunk And angry because You couldn’t be accountable For why you earned minimum wage?

What was she, 18? 19? She looked 30. The shadows under her eyes Were as deep as those cast by trees and buildings At sundown.

Maybe it was lack of sleep. Maybe it was drugs.

Did she roll her first joint for you? Did she have her first swallow of rotgut from your bottle? Did monkey see and monkey do?

She took it like a champ, And to the untrained heart, She feigned sincerity with practiced efficiency.

Did she learn that from you too?

The tattoo on her lower back Featured a skull and cross bones And read “here to go”. What was she, 18? 19? And here to go?

Well, I’m no saint obviously, Or I’d never have been in that hotel room With your daughter, Whose name I’ll never know, But by absent god, I’d never have enjoyed her company For that indecent half hour If you’d been a real man to your girl, Instead of …

…Well… Instead of whatever it was you were to her.

The River

The river swallows what it wishes. Water is potent beyond words. Walking beside the river is the purview of the bold, Because if the river wishes, it commands, And the hero, Regardless of imagined quests, Is drawn into unknown, unknowable currents Into which compassionate resolve sinks or swims. Every call to adventure is a call to love, And the manner of the challenge is a bizarre surprise Born of strange occurrence.

It must be so. For if the hero could choose the battles, They would all be encounters the hero was certain to win.

Heroism is the ability to be instructed by such as a river, Flowing with it as it dictates So that one’s formulas may be disproven, False faiths may be rent asunder And one’s own agnostic kindness may be given the breath of true life.

The river calls you. Fall willingly into it, To be bathed and purified, To have this ego drowned in sacred remembrance of universal unity, To rise a perpetually transformed spirit.

God is the river, The lake, The sea, The ocean.

You are a drop in the water, And you surrender So that you may move as the water moves, And in this submission, Your temporal being with a temporary name Is given the grace and force To perform feats of magic in a sterile atmosphere And to wield a candle’s flame Dispelling darkness.

The river calls. Answer.   Allow. Act.

  Boundless Love Sometimes I curse this flesh and bone because The limitations brought are hard to face, And what this damned trapped ego does Can never seem to stretch beyond its place. The truth of love is not the same as fact, Because this ego’s litany of fears Demands at least the semblance of contract, Imposing boundaries so we fend off tears. Would that this were not so, and we were free From form, from terror and from consequence, To say that you are yours, but you’re with me. Both come with some collateral expense.           I wish we had the minds of gods above,           For then we might enjoy a boundless love.

Michael’s books can be purchased here:

Zero the Clown: and a Lovely Garden of Flowering Weeds Desire and Dust Slap & Tickle Magic & Malarkey 69 Sonnets

Poetry by Kevin Ridgeway

Marty

I saw a photograph of my father taken when he was just five years old. without tattoos on his arm. a clean slate like the one my nephew still enjoys today. long before he cared about what other people think. before he disguised his pain behind a wall of heroin and firearms. and a lifetime before it was my turn to feel the shame outside of a clean slate.

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Grow Up or Die

we keep getting high  for no good reason at all you blamed me for wasting the joint we were smoking and taking everything  for granted in a very mean city where we could easily get killed after our parents died and we had no place to call home, something;s got to give in order for me to wait for miracles  as my mind clears and my life is saved. 

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Blacktop Showdown

blood squirted from above my friend Ruben’s right eyebrow where a kid in sagging over sized clothes covered  in LA Raiders logo’s stabbed him with a  mechanical pencil during an outdoor school  pep rally after Ruben told him he needed  a Tic Tac for his bad breath in response  to the initial Yo Mama joke hurled in our  direction that started it all, House of Pain blasting out of a nearby boom box.   Ruben squealed trying to extract the pencil  from his head while our rival in gold chains  turned his attention to me.  I rose my trembling hands in surrender and he started squeezing my baby fat tits and poking at the exposed belly button hiding under my t shirt before violently twisting my nipples back and forth in laundry cycles until they went from their natural pink to a deep maroon that glowed in the dark for weeks.

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Underdog Miracle

there is desperation in the voice of a fellow  mental patient of mine who waves and hollers out  the name of the most beautiful  therapist at our day treatment program as she pours her coffee and flashes him a smile he finally won, his sorrow erased.

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The Brat

she speed talks desert rat wisdom that sounds like a garbled language she effortlessly spews forth against the tables outside of the hospital where we gather for therapy. she used to mainline crystal meth and has tremulous hands like mine, either from the drugs or the medications or maybe we were just born this way, but she’s everyone’s hero as she trudges forward on her skateboard like a mumbling warrior of hard-lived witticism and irreverence,  this chick who wants to get clean and get her kids back, this little ball of fire that reminds me of an alternate universe version of my mother and who likes Frank Zappa just as much as I do, always skeptical of whatever my current bullshit is and rarely awarding me a laugh for something I said, but when she turns that smile on at you from the middle  of a raging tirade at two patients  who keep asking for change  to buy sodas from the vending  machine, this graceful, lovely  rebel that we must all bless makes you feel like you count  for something in this world. 

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PUBLICATIONS & PRIZES

Chapbook:

Burn Through Today (Flutter Press, 2012)

Journals:

Emerge Literary Journal, Gutter Eloquence Magazine, Quantum Poetry Magazine, Red Fez, Santa Fe Literary Review, Underground Voices

It was better than any movie  that I have ever seen, all the honest emotion.  All the minute details emotionally registered, now surfaced.  The difference in perspective, and the way  that I was the one to remember the words.  It was easy for these faded pictures to slip my mind. I had lost my own image somewhere.  The colors and the textures had all faded into gray-like smoke. In surfacing effortlessly to new ground once familiar  is how I found true miracles.  The vivid colors that have returned to my flesh.  I can see me again, in all the radiance that leaves  the pigmentation of my presence. Becoming a mirror of the monster of the nightmare mothers  that imagination had created. In the wholeness  that I once thought that I had found, I lost  my true perspective in pounds.  The brightness of my reality in inks has illustrated  my apodictic world. The banderole  of who I once was, who I am, and where I came from.  My animation is a diagram; a correspondence  to irrecoverable stars that still shine brilliantly,  more acutely than before.  I’ve pilled the hues from the inside out, extending them  to those that surround me. Screening them blanketed  I see the images now.  Graphically intense and saturated. I am more  than a component of the perplexities. More  than the composite. When strangers pass by,  they recognize me immediately.  And without all of my parts I am hale and hearty. I can be healthy again.  Without all of my parts, I am whole.

  — Patch Kelly

BILL’S LAST STAY

    Bill’s a regular.  He and his girlfriend are practically weekers at the Triborough.  I, being the desk clerk, reach under the desk and hit the buzzer opening the door which allows Bill and some lousy fucker entrance to the office.  A forced joviality accompanies Bill’s usual wired state of urgency.  I hate his restless, coked-up chitter-chatter. Makes me nervous and throws my concentration.

    I grab the lousy fucker’s cash for a short stay.  The guy leaves the office with key in hand and retrieves his girlfriend from the car.

    I change the registration card and direct it towards Bill.  He waves it away. “I already got a room.” He watches the couple as they enter their room.  “I just have some time to kill. Thought I’d say hello…I got a line if ya want it…”

I think about it.  Change the subject, “You know, your girlfriend called.  Said her car was missin.” The same car Bill drove into the parking lot.

    “Yea!?  She forgot…I borrowed it…I got a joint too…c’mon.”

     What the fuck – it’s slow –  a few tokes, a couple of lines wouldn’t hurt.  Keep me going. “Sounds good…we’ll go into one of the empty rooms.”

    “Let’s go.”

     Locking the office door behind me, we walk through the horseshoe parking lot.  Bill keeps chattering on as I look into the pink sunset sky and remind myself to turn on the motel lights when I return to the office. 

“What room?”

    “Room 10.”  Bill follows me in, waving a joint.  “Here! Light it up. I’ll be right back with the coke.”  Bill opens the trunk of his girlfriend’s Nova and fishes around beneath a blanket.  I exhale sweet reefer smoke out the bathroom window as Bill returns with a tire iron.

    “Bill – what the hell are you doin?”

    “Give me the keys,” Bill says, hands gripped tight to the tire iron.

    I take another toke, laugh a bluff, “For a moment I thought you were serious.”

   “Seth,” he says looking me in the eye, “I am serious.”

   “Don’t do this,” I beg.

   “GIVE ME THE KEYS!”  Tire iron raised.

   “Okay.”  Bill has the master keys.

   “Now lie on the floor!”

   “What?”

   “LIE ON THE FLOOR!”  he shouts, eyes bulging, iron waving.

    “Can’t I lie on the bed?” I ask, eyeing the door.  Unable to get out the door, I figure the bed will at least cushion a blow.

    Bill’s white knuckles pull back on the tire iron – “LIE ON THE FLOOR!”

    Unable to get past him or overpower him – wanting it all to go away – I lie on the floor awaiting unconsciousness.

    “NOW DON’T MOVE!”

    Bill walks out, closing the door behind him.

    I rise to a crouching position in front of the window and watch Bill leave the office, pass my room, open the door to his girlfriend’s Nova, throw the tire iron into the backseat and drive away.

    I walk back to the office.  I stare in disbelief at the opened and emptied drawer.  My mind races. I wonder what to do. I call my boss and get his kid’s voice fooling around on the answering machine.  Cute. I hang up the phone and call up Frank. He works at the motel with me. I tell him what happened. I tell him it could have happened to him.

    “I don’t do drugs,” Frank says and tells me to call the cops.

    “What?  Bill’s off his rocker.  He’s a crazy crackhead.”

    “You’re being paranoid.”

    “I’m in the phone book!”  I protest against his straight sensibilities.  “He knows my car! The bars I hang out at! He’s a crackhead!  It’s best to get rid of him.  Otherwise he’s trouble on the run or on bail.  Don’t matter. I don’t want no drugged lunatic on the loose threatening my existence.”

    I hang up the phone and figure the damage to be only 220 bucks.

    I redial Frank who agrees to bring me a $220 loan.

    “After all,” I tell him, “It’s my fault for being fooled by such swine.  Filing police reports and answering their questions wouldn’t catch him…it would get me fired.”

    I let Bill ride…

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HARMONY HILL

    Johnson University stands on Harmony Hill.  Uninitiated students moving from safe suburban streets to Harmony Avenue learn fast.  They become prey: harassed, mugged and sold beat drugs. Their apartments are broken into and ransacked.  Women asleep in their beds aren’t safe unless all windows and doors are locked. Harmony can be harsh and violent.

    And that’s just where I’m headed.

    Snore just got himself an apartment on Harmony Ave.

    On his corner prostitution reigns.  Biological women work one side – across the street transsexuals strut their sex – both harboring the disease.  Makeup conceals lesions and needle marks.

    Habits are fed two blocks away at the projects.

    Snore believes he is in heaven.  He’s a five-minute walk from a bag of dope.  He knows the deals and the dealers by name. Since the dealers are his friends, Snore’s house-warming party is open to the hood.  Junkies, whores, and dealers are welcome. They pop in. Use the bathroom. Scope out Snore’s friends. Encourage business.

    Snore’s friends fit right in – eccentric weirdos, artists, flaming queens, musicians, and bartenders – many sharing the same addictions while others only indulge on weekends.  It’s Saturday night. In dark corners of the living room drugs and cash are exchanged.

    In the bedroom…who knows?  The door is shut.

    Aurora, beautiful Jewish/Wiccan painter, Goddess of the Night, sits in the bright kitchen with an odd old friend named Tommy: a skinhead nazi guitarist for The Nihilists.  Tommy sits at the table with his cock out.  “I have to piss.”

    Tommy’s new girlfriend – he always has a new one – gets down on her knees, drinks his fleshy fountain.

    Aurora laughs in disgust and belief.  Tommy’s capable of anything.  She knows that.

    “Aurora can laugh,” Tommy says.  “She’s a Jew. And I hate Jews.  We all know that!  But she’s different.  Somehow she’s gained my friendship.”  Tommy smirks, “No lampshade or gas chamber for her.  She can be my sex slave.”

    “That Will Never Happen!”  Aurora shouts out loud. Her nervous laugh acknowledges that if Tommy’s Nazis were in power, she would be her on her knees.

    “You wait, my dear,” says Tommy with a menacing smile.

    “FOREVER!”  Aurora yells.

    The bedroom door opens.  A bare-chested blonde exits.  Someone’s fucking on the bed. A naked brown-skinned woman is on top.  Her back to us as she moans and rides upon milky white thighs. Closing the door, the blonde pulls her tube top over her large breasts and sits at the kitchen table.  She preps her glass pipe and watches Tommy’s girlfriend, still on her knees, giving head. Snore’s German shepherd stalks, sniffs. Tommy’s girlfriend pulls back. Smiles as the dog licks Tommy’s cock and walks away.  The girlfriend continues.

    The busty blonde lights up the rock.  Exhales, “I’m pregnant.” Takes another hit.

    I grab a beer from the fridge.

    “Can you get me one?” asks the new mother.

    “Anyone else?”

    Hands go up.  I grab a five-pack but its empty plastic ring and put it on the table.  Five beers pop open.

    The blonde mother shakes her head, “Damn – that guy in the bedroom offers me a tip, right?  Just wants to suck my ‘big titties.’  I say okay.  And he gets a mouthful.”  She drinks her beer. She hits the pipe…exhales.  Blankly stating, “I’m lactating.”

    Tommy’s girlfriend stands up.  Wipes her hand across her mouth.  Swigs a beer.

    Tommy begins his usual barrage about the superiority of Aryans Cursing “the scourge of our nation: niggers, Jews and spics.”  It wouldn’t surprise me if Tommy gets jumped by the Brothers standing by and listening. That’s happened before.

    I grab my beer and walk out on the second floor porch for some fresh air.  Jeff, trombone player and only white dude in the reggae band Respect is very pale, sweating profusely, swaying as the boom box blasts the old Supremes tune, “You Can’t Hurry Love.”

    “Oh man,” Jeff moans, leans over the banister and pukes…

    “Heads up!” I yell.

    “I don’t feel too good,” Jeff confides.

        “Done heroin before?” I ask.

    Jeff weakly shakes his head, removes his T-shirt and wipes his sweating face.  “I’ll be okay,” leans over the ledge…pukes.

    I back into the apartment.

    “Yo!” Doctor Crucial, the Cuban coke dealer with doctor bag, calls me over for some lines…nostrils numb…everything rings true, “Amazing.”

    The Doctor laughs, “Nooo credit.”  He’s high and as usual in his own movie.

    “I’m gonna buy a beer.  Want one?”

    “My boy,” Doc says snorting another line.

    I head for the fridge.

    The crack mom is pushing against the bathroom door.  “Hey let me in.” She leans in sideways. Looks down, “Hey!  This guy don’t look too good.” She backs up and gestures me over.  I lean in and take a look. Snore is blue-lipped, ashen, passed out on the floor.

    “Hey!  I Need Some Help Here!”

    Two of Snore’s junkie friends rush in – “Don’t worry!  We got ‘im” – Snore is raised up and sitting on the toilet seat.

    “Shit!”  The guy says, fingers on Snore’s wrist.  “No pulse…better call 911. On second thought,” he whispers, “we’ll take him around the corner.”  Gives me a hard look, “Gotta be done sometimes.”

    A panicky voice on the phone gives Snore’s address and plays dumb to questions.  “I don’t know!” She says. “He’s passed out. Just get here quick.” She hangs up the phone, “Ambulance On Its Way!”

    “And I’m on my way,” Doctor Crucial grabs his drug bag and heads down the stairs.    “Me too,” says another.The exodus begins.  Personal possessions are quickly gathered.  Whores, junkies, musicians, artists, and flames flee as the faint siren grows louder.

    Friends that stay scamper, cleaning the apartment of incriminating evidence.

    Snore stays slumped over the toilet seat.  A crying friend splashes his face with water.  “I feel a pulse!” She screams. “C’mon Snore! Snap out of it!”  She shakes him.

    “EMS,” a white uniform walks into the bathroom.  He rolls up Snore’s sleeves, sees the tracks. “Overdose,” he yells to his partner.  Holding Snore’s head in his hands, he lifts Snore’s lids and stares into his eyes. “What drugs has he taken?”

    No one says anything.

    “Give us room,” sighs the EMS partner.

    Snore is given a shot and strapped to the stretcher.

    Snore slowly awakens, “Get me off this stretcher.”

    “You’re coming with us, pal…You’re lucky to be alive.”

    Snore pleads with me, “Seth, come with me.”

    I sit next to him in the ambulance.  Snore calls me close, “Not Johnson Hospital.”  Makes sense. Snore works at Johnson Hospital. Snore whispers, “My name is Ted.”  Winks, “Ted Freeman.”

    “Take him to Saint Peter’s,” I tell the ambulance medic.

    “I’m not driving,” the medic responds.

    I yell up front, “Please take Ted to Saint Peter’s.”

    The driver says nothing.

    The ambulance pulls up to the emergency entrance at Johnson’s Memorial Hospital.

    ‘Ted Freeman’ is wheeled through the sliding and swinging doors and into a curtained partition in the ER.  He is wired to a heart monitor and connected to a glucose drip. “You can go now,” Snore tells me.

    “You sure?”

    “Yea.  I’ll be out in no time.  Wait for me at my apartment.  Make sure no one rips me off.”

    I walk out the swinging doors as Snore reiterates: “Ted Freeman…no insurance,” and gives a fake address.

    I make my way back to Harmony – a vampire remnant of the night – the sun burns through my squinting eyes as I pass the open shops, the students, and the business-attired.

    Inside Snore’s apartment the curtains are drawn.  People have passed out from opiates and alcohol or stagger around in coke-induced deliriums.  A dehydrated zombie asks from the white-crusted corner of his mouth, “Did you bring any beers?”  In afterthought, he inquires, “How’s Snore?”

    I shake my head, “He’s all right.  He’ll be back soon.” I slump into a couch and wait.

    A half hour later Snore walks in with a 12-pack of beer.

    “You’re a saint,” a stoner gives praise.

    The sleepy pin-eyed rally into the bright kitchen for a beer.

    Everyone listens to Snore’s story: “There I was, hooked up to IV and monitors using a fictitious name, Ted Freeman…”

    “The homeless dude at Johnson Park?”

    “Yeah.  His name just popped into my head.  Sounded good at the time.” Snore takes a drag from his cigarette, “Then, thereal  Ted Freeman walks into the emergency room.”

    “WHAT?”

    Snore nods, “I’m lying there on the stretcher when I hear, ‘My name’s Ted Freeman and I think I did too much coke.’  And then he starts goin’ on about his heart beating too fast and shit.”

    “No way!!” says Tommy.

    Snore puts his hand up – in oath – “I’m telling the truth.”

    “What did you do?”

    “I unplugged myself, threw my clothes on, and snuck out.”

    “Get the fuck out of here!” a single shrieking exclamation of disbelief.

    Snore raises his hand again.  “I took the elevator up to the lab.  Punched in. Told the crew I stayed at a friend’s house and bumped my head.”  Everyone laughs. Snore takes a healthy swig of his beer. “Then I told them I had to go home to take a shower and change my clothes.”

    “They were cool with that?”

    “I’m here,” Snore says grinning.  He raises his beer. We laugh and toast.  “But I have to get back to work,” Snore grumbles towards the shower.  Rushing out the bathroom, Snore grabs another beer and shuffles into his bedroom.  Dressed in lab blues Snore yells, “Bye!” and closes the door behind him.

    The beers are going fast.  I grab another. Then slump back into the couch, very tired, thinking that today I better call in sick to work.  Body heavy, exhausted, I finish my beer and fall asleep…

thru experiment The experiment seems to have worked fine, for the doctor.  For me, a lesion. A kernel of all I hate and love fastened to my feet, my baggage. I’ve carried it around for months, a man condemned to quicksand. I pop the analgesics, a fatman eating bon bons, a cadillac on a drinking binge.  Nerves a plate of jello dancing a mambo. Nightmares done up in drag: my mother, my father, my lover, her lover, prance around me like a Maypole. I consume the carcass of a flower. I speak a dead language. I am the tornado’s eye gone blind. counting the bones

words come with wind asking to be heard. they shatter windows.  they crawl into bed and try to sleep. I watch her flee the premises, the clouds of a running storm. I coil the world, a swollen snake. I prospect the hidden gold, the wholeness that hides in my closet. I wear it, not ironing out the wrinkles           from weeks without use.   I murder fleeting moments with dreams because I know what will happen at dawn. I work at counting the bones. the surrealist explains his smile parables are the knives of the tongue with hidden teeth– they bite, chew and break down everything to seeds of the home we grow from with silent hands\ and eyes that bumble and drool like rain. we buy band-aids to bind our leaking credit cards. their blood’s a practical substitute for what we breathe– they’re demanding names at the gate. have your social security card ready. bring toothbrush and toilet paper,                                    remember deodorant too–                                              it gets hot in here!

chicken flu

the price of poultry has risen. so has the price of its eggs. at first a paranoia:        poultry farmers found out my like of chicken        and wanted to put my stomach out of business.        force my diet to a standstill.

then I heard of the influenza that had stricken them, a genocide—mass graves full of one hundred thousand bodies of feathers.

tonight I’ll eat black beans and rice, typically Latin American and high in protein too.

somewhere in some heaven the chicken-god is angry at his people.

a dictator a dictator lives in a den of wolves and feeds them with luscious parts of his body once they’ve got the taste he unleashes them on their own country which they chew up with teeth gnashing ripping the heart from every body that refuses to hear his doctrine scratched on a sacred scroll of death this land of great distractions there’s always a movie                a comedy of errors that distracts us from the truth                perilously passing by I cry          you cry  and all of us die parched dry                nameless sticks of meat sold at a local bodega managed by illegal aliens                who hopped over a rundown wall somewhere                way down south who cares              we’re witnesses                protected by a National Guard trained to aim an AK47 down a baby’s throat who never gets milk for breakfast                          lunch or dinner

                 GOLEM

clay wedding figure straddles yellow line three ton flame follows Golem home seeking some vanishing point the crack under the door shouldn’t admit light but it does, news from the bureau hasn’t been good, but Golem denies it, the company needs a new trademark, can’t move enough people with the old one; so Golem sends 40 tons of bananas overseas to compensate, and curses the gamble, but what can he do? it’s sink or swim, damns the old emblem, it’s silly colors

                Golem Tuesday Morning

Golem brushes his teeth, shines his shoes factories out like a thick law journal praising progress, every creed wilts celebration under Golem, who makes dog food out of their hands and feet sending helium balloons to the survivors

            Golem Wednesday 2:17 P.M.

Golem goes to the dentist, mumbling “forgiveness is formlessness” his dentist agrees, and tells him to dig the Tchaikovsky tape in the elevator, newsboy in wheelchair stares at Golem as he leaves Golem feels compassion, not pity, they should build more ramps, he thinks, that’s the way to go.

              Golem Friday in the Warehouse

perusing the white lines, he likes what he sees, the neat rowed boxes stacked on pallets filled with severed heads waiting for shipment should bring a good price, yes. Golem adjusts his flag pin, runs his thumbnail down his red vest, Golem is pleased, he will tell Mrs. Golem tonight over dinner, they may be able to afford the summer home in the Hamptons, after all, Golem turns aside, away from the WORLD, touches the soft aching flesh of his prick through the hole in his pocket. Monday is Golem’s birthday, he’s accomplished much in his 43 years, more than most Golems, and he never stumbled, never faltered, and most important, this Golem ALWAYS KEPT IT CLEAN, what the personal cost and aggravation…. and it hasn’t been easy. CLEAN GOLEM. that’s the miracle

              Golem at Work, Golem at Play

Golem at a softball game, Golem and more Golem. Golem in the mountains, Golem fishing in the sea, Golem at a party, Golem drinking tea, Golem with new shoes, Golem in sweat pants, Golem naked his right foot in the air, Golem in the barber’s chair. Golem this and Golem that, Golem. Golem addressing a group of younger, yet rising Golems, Golem on a train platform, the New York Times folded neatly under his arm, Golem, in a lawn chair sipping an ice cold beer, Golem driving Mrs. Golem to her Aerobics class. Golem alone. Golem with Golem junior. Golem drunk on New Year’s Eve singing “should old acquaintance be forgot!” Golem sick on New Year’s Day. Golem yelling through the football game, “Come on, COME ON!,” pounding his fists on the table, Golem excited. the many, many moods of Golem. Golem visiting his dying father in the hospital saying, “don’t worry, you’ll be O.K.” Golem lying. Golem thinking, well, it’s not the end of the world. even the end of the world isn’t the end of the world to Golem. Golem in despair, Golem feigning charity. Golem angry at the traffic Golem, on the telephone complaining about prices, Golem greeting other Golems at a small gathering, Golems everywhere. Golem likes himself and other Golems, or at least he tries to, that’s the kind of Golem he is. kind Golem, patient Golem, and most important, CLEAN GOLEM Golem voting for his favorite candidate on November 5th, Golem happy when his candidate wins, Golem not surprised, Golem says the tide has turned, Golem knows things will get much better now. Golem believes his country is the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!! Golem believes in freedom, Golem sorry other Golems in other countries aren’t free like him, Golem loves his freedom. Freedom to be the kind of Golem he wants to be, freedom to watch any show he wants on television, freedom to read anything his Golem heart desires, freedom to buy any kind of car he wants and finance it through any bank he wants, with any type of payment plan he wants, freedom to drink any brand of soft drink he chooses, anytime he chooses, freedom not to drink soft drinks, freedom to say fuck soft drinks, fuck all soft drinks, I’ll just drink water, Thank You….. Golem thinks we should free the entire globe, even if we have to use force, even if we have to kill a lot of people in the process…..they’ll thank us for it eventually, Yes,

Golem and Mrs. Golem agree, it’s damn nice being free – by Matt Borkowski

Fall & All  copyright 2000, 2019 by Dave Roskos.

Book 2 (Take 2)

Some of the poems in Fall & All have been published in Arbella,

The Black Swan Review, Big Scream, Big Hammer, Casino Anthology, Home Planet News, The Home News Tribune, The Daily Observer, New Jersey Bowel & Bladder Control, Elephant, The Paterson Literary Review, Blue Collar Review,  Dionysus–The Journal of Literature and Addiction, LUMMOX, Without Halos, Working Hard for the Money  (Bottom Dog Press, Working Lives Series), in the 2016 CAT IN THE SUN PRESS edition of LYRICAL GRAIN, DOGGEREL CHAFF, & PEDESTRIAN PREOCCUPATIONS (LGDC&PP).

& online in POETS on the line , & Napalm Health Spa.

  I’d like to thank the editors of these publications for their commitment to small press publishing.

This is the 2019 print-on-demand second edition of this book.

Around 300 copies of a xeroxed/saddle-stapled 28 page chapbook were published in 2000. One poem from that edition has been omitted from this version; six poems from that time period (mid 90s to early 00s) have been added. One poem from 1986 (“Veterans”) is reprinted from my first chapbook The Energy of the Flesh (1989), to keep the laundromat poems together. “Early Morning Suicides” is from my fifth chapbook INTENSIVE CARE (Black Rabbit Press, 2010). A later version of early morning suicides appears in LGDC&PP as “a blessing & a curse.”  “These Tomatoes Have Life In Them” was written in 1983 & is reprinted from Without Halos #1.

The book review by Donald Lev, used here  as a forward, is reprinted from Home Planet News #48 (2002).

Long Live Donald Lev! Iniquity Press/Vendetta Books PO Box 906, Island Heights, NJ 08732-0906 iniquitypress(at)hotmail.com

  This book is for Ayler.

the moon is defunct as an image in poetry — drained of significance, played. oh moon, swoon in a spoon at noon. Moon! full or quartered. Moon! 2 of them cupped in my wife’s brassiere Moon! melted down & shot up by junkies. (rubber gloved dishwashers w/ moons in their hair nets) Moon! halved or in eighths like marijuana weighed & bagged to be sold. Moon! lamented & lost, & at what cost? the whole of the sky. (3/11/98) broke open a moon poured its milk in the radiator hundred dollars worth of gas in two 50 gallon tanks a cargo of constellations we put it in drive & drove over state lines & across borders gleefully giving toll collectors the last of our quarters paying for groceries w/ broadsides of out-of-print Maxwell Bodenheim poems, lecturing state troopers on the significance of Wm Carlos Williams, the importance of needle exchange programs in the schools, discussions about addiction, its treatment as a disease & decriminalization of narcotics &, therefore, addicts. where to end a poem like this, and how. 1/1/99 ORIZABA! I the sea which fed him his livelihood swallowed him whole foot caught in the rigging of the lobster nets overboard like Hart Crane ORIZABA! II Hart Crane eaten by sharks; poem-circled. scent of blood & bone– not very lyrical, not much music in it. Cinquain for A New World

Of Love. Spiritual U- Nity. Nurture a Child’s Heart & Mind, in ourselves & our Children. “Fall & All: Book 2” can be purchased on Amazon.