Jesus is pounding on the bathroom door
“Hurry the **** up dude, I need to go.”
I tell Jesus to stop being a little *****
as I hold the door open for him - smirking
Jesus goes in there
and I can tell he really had to go
by the thunderous sound
of a waterfall battering the earth,
and the smell of holy water -
Jesus must be pretty well hung
He emerges and walks over to the coffee table
beginning to pack small pinches of ****
into the **** which we hide behind the sofa
and it ***** getting high with Jesus
just one self-righteous rant after another
and the old stigmata story
yaddahyaddahyaddah
but Jesus knows a Puerto Rican
by the name of C C
who gets some of the best stuff around
and me and Jesus - we smoke
and Jesus runs the tap in the sink
changing it all into wine
and we drink his blood
until our lips are stained and our voices loud
“It’s a real ****** having had to die for your sins, y’know?
because it seems that you all live for your sins.”
He says as he fishes a twenty out of his beard
and gives C C a call

You are on the wrong side of thirty
You the white cliff of Dover
the passing of days the waves of the ocean
chipping away at you
wearing you down
You are on the wrong side of thirty
and maybe you’re starting to notice
your fleeing hairline
the creaking which starts in your ankles
and connects your milestones
to knees and back and neck
maybe you don’t see the point of getting out of bed today
or tomorrow
maybe your wife has started to let herself go
after the kid came
love handles and cellulite thighs
sagging **** and a birds nest atop her wrinkled face
You resent the kid
because for him
the world is so open
full of choices made on his fickle whim
while you wither away
giving every part of yourself
so one day he can be on the wrong side of thirty
and you can rest easily
on the wrong side of a grave
a wry smile stretching the skin of your corpse
*It’s your turn now you ungrateful *******

He comes in around the same time
every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
eating alone save for the newspapers
constantly clutched beneath his arm
his spectacles worn to ice
his windbreaker and khakis
every time ordering the same
salad, soup, and pasta dish
He doesn’t talk much
and I like that
his words are rare occurrences
of honest observation
a reflection of the aged, sad look
which he wears on his face
every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
just before the dinner rush
I never see him arrive or leave
simply he appears
a ghost from an old photograph
walking among the swirling mess
of flesh, blood, and heartbeats
I bet he drives an Oldsmobile
or maybe a buick
stick shift with faded leather interior
I bet he had a wife once who loved him
and children who weren’t too grown up
to give him a call every now and then
just to check in
I think about this man
under the closing-time moon
as I pull myself into my car
and leave
away with my own life
my own story
and I aim not to forget him

It’s funny how despite different tastes
we all have a taste for music
my life has never felt complete
with a soundtrack. A beat
as a kid I was told not to fidget
told to just sit still
but my person was anything but chill
I have always had a thing for rhythm
I felt it in the way people speak
the way a husband sneaks around
keeping his wife trapped and meak
whether it is weak or strong
I could always hear that drumming song
It started with a rap song I heard
Hi My Name Is by eminem
but then again it had always been with me
it’s the reason time scares me
because in the beating tick of those two drum sticks
I could see the sound of life wasted
and it made me want to get wasted
black out drunk at fatal altitudes
when I was in middle school
we were angry
and disrespectfully spiteful
so we rocked long socks and listened to punk rock
then It was about being a bad guy
a real force not to be reckoned with
so we wore black Tshirts depicting violent scenes
and joined the screaming heavy metal mosh pit
a place to fit for all the kids who didn’t anywhere else
as I got older I put the heavy metal on the shelf
if I’m being honest it was all just a little silly
angsty teens with lofty dreams which they told us
were unattainable so we went out looking for cheap thrills
rather than develop any marketable skills
The first time I felt marketable
it gave me chills
The National in Richmond Virginia
an old theatre
converted into a sanctuary for the sanctimonious masses
to forget everything they learned in their classes
a place where kicked *****
wasn’t always a bad thing
I remember I was there
in the tenth grade
to see the Atmosphere show
because the lead singer - Slug
was my hero
his words enveloped me in a bear hug
which said you’re doing just fine kid
and in that crowd of tattoos and hipsters
and the ghetto kids wearing chips on their shoulders
I was high
but not on drugs
I was high on expressionism and the loftiness of ideas
The men behind the microphone
wearing a costume of stage lighting and swaggering egos
made me feel at home
for the first time in a while
they said things like God Loves Ugly
and Every Day Can’t be the Best Day
and the DJ’s worked the turntables
like a good lover brings their partner to ******
I didn’t know anybody else at the show
but don’t think for a minute that I was alone
we were all connected as brothers by bond and spilled blood
of our heros who were cut short before they could say the things
which we all needed to hear
We respect the story tellers
because it is how we come to terms with tougher aspects of life
and I was flying high on the dreams of kids just like me
saluting the scarred, worn, souls who had made it
who were making the path that we would one day walk
with the cut of their jive and the strength of their talk
***** of the walk
chalked outlines of the end of loneliness
They called us hop heads
and we’d reply
you’re ******* right we are
hip hop didn’t save my life
it just stopped me from taking me
for granted

The angels are calling me home
to churches at night where concrete features
bleed with the blood of artists
who were consumed by their pride
in their search for God:
Hide and seek champion of all time
which is completely relative
I’ve been on this planet since the days where
creatures fled the Jurassic blackness
a pen is just a pen is just a pen is just a gateway
into a mind afflicted with rational thoughts
and freud would say a pen is just a pen
but sometimes a pen is a *****
and that’s the world we live in
I walk the same twelve square blocks of this city
and the police chase me away from
******* on fire hydrants
drunk on the steps of city hall
I bought myself a thick glass of self-esteem
and fed it to my ego
before I threw up all of things we never wanted heard
onto a piece of paper
a hotel bar napkin
which reads I love you
The angels are calling me home
but I falter
because I want my time to fly
so I fly on the wings of dead street birds
and childhood kites
and when it rains it pours
and I collect it in a cup and baptize myself in nature
a poet is a poet is a poet
but I say
a poet is a poet is sometimes a jack ***

Whether you know it or not
you are armed and dangerous
your voice is far more powerful
than the droning of propaganda
being churned out of the register machine
take a roll call of the injustices
spit in the face of men masked in good intentions
take personal gain and **** it
drag its corpse behind you through ***** and Gomorrah
be the vesuvius ready to blow
the secret which they don’t want us to know
is that we hold far more power than they
we are the future of our universe
and that’s worth more than a luxury lexus
be loud
do not allow silence to fall over you like snow
tainted black with the carcinogenic second hand smoke
of what they would call progress
be politically incorrect
take risks
walk along the edge and create something which brings us closer to the divine
we need your voice
because one voice on its own is easily drowned out
but together we form a thunderous monstrosity
capable of bringing destructive earthquakes
to the temple of the holy dollar worshippers
this life has no goal
no end point
life is not a video game
equipped with linear objectives
graduation completed
move on to the family life dream
drilled into your head with vicious screams
of all of those who dared leave the pack and path
and fell short
mutilated by forced silence
they tell you
you are free to do exactly what we tell you
I say
they are only as free to destroy
as we allow them
do not mock the solitary raised fist
we all have fists
brothers and sisters clinging to each other
against an unholy rip tide
you are right
even when you are wrong
Life is a blank canvas
filled with wonders and walking waking nightmares
life is simply just
whatever you choose to make of it
will you survive through fear and cowardly silence
or will your voice rise above the rest
a blinding phoenix which dares to contest the sun
for the center of the universe?

I told her
You don’t want any part of this
I’m a promise broken on the cracked surface
of loose lips going down with sinking ships
but I’m the rat fleeing the wreckage
to wash up on your shore
carrying the plague of free thought
and loud voices
she said
you don’t know what I want
and you don’t know what I need
and she was right
but she didn’t need to be my muse
all the others I’ve thrown empty and lifeless
in a ditch on the side of the road
which connects my **** to my gut to my heart to my brain
called the I-90 soul
and she says
yeah you go go ahead and pour another
poor ******* you
so down on yourself
because self-loathing
and low self-esteem
are in
and your calculated mask of apathy
is only to draw the people closer
So I said to her
I’m the spider in the web?
and she said
no you’re the abandoned dog
scavenging the streets
growling at strangers
when all you really want is a nice home and a good petting
Most people wouldn’t advise mistaking dogs for wolves
and she said I’m not the one who’s mistaken
listen to me woman
you might think that on the surface it’s all swagger, ego, and witty cynicism
but on nights spent lonesome
I waltz with my madness beneath the chandelier of the killing moon
I smoke and drink to quiet my mind
because no matter how prolific of a writer I am on a given day
I lose more words than I catch
and it drives me to dark corners of my mind
where razor blades and pills sound appealing
and let’s not get started on the selfishness,
she said who isn’t selfish
and I said you will always come second to the words
the only thing I know how to love
because I know how much I hate them at times
know how much I wish they’d stop
my head is full of drunk six year olds careening bumper cars into my skull
and they never go away
they just grow more quiet
and I go through periods of isolation
where any other human presence is just an obstacle of my test
my quest is never ending
just like the great human tragedy
So you don’t want me?
I do, and I want you to want me
but I need you to know
that you shouldn’t
but I’m selfish
I’m hungry for validation
and I can’t lie
the way you look in that outfit
looks like my next best poem
so sure,
be mine,
but remember that I warned you
the thing is about writers
we are as passionate as they come
but you won’t find a more fickle bunch