why read a book about richard feynman?
because if it’s well-written
you feel like you could be richard feynman
and that would be cosmic

last day before vacation
so you know you gotta pay
an hour left on my shift
the patient was going full linda blair
arched pelvis grinding out of the bed
trying to pummel one and all
but when i came in the room
i triggered something special
YOU ****
i thought her head was gonna spin completely around
she punched me
people straining to hold her back
as she desperately snapped, trying to get a bite of me
GET OUT
GET THE **** OUT OF THE ROOM
as i got the **** out of the room
i explained to the nurses and doctors
i often have this effect on women

one corner of my job in the hospital is chest physical therapy
pummeling people on the back to loosen the junk in their lungs
a grueling effort requiring strength and stamina
i’d broken my arm, bike v. pothole, had been on disability for months
and now i was back at work for several weeks
but chest pt hadn’t come up
until this morning
i wondered how it would go
i positioned the elderly patient for proper drainage
and commenced beating the **** out of him
i snuck a glance towards his head
the old fellow was grimacing like an outraged skull
my arm felt fine and i thought
i’m back, baby

how do you tell time?
clock
calendar
school
TV shows
first times--
kiss
laid
driving
drinking
first love
last love
all the pointless jobs
timeline of the children
lifespan of the cats
initial failures of the body
fatal subtraction of loved ones
the creeping ugliness of the mirror

judgmental and uninformed
as enticing as bad teeth
but i would be too polite to point this out

just had a conversation
with our cafeteria worker/union organizer
he’s on fire in his 5 kilowatt way
someone took down his flyer
at the hospital starbucks
"it’s capitalism," he fumed
as he gave me my biscuit and gravy
and a LOT of bacon
since i’m a fellow traveler

the u.n. laid sanctions against me
presidents planted propaganda
missile defense shields were erected
all in vain, daddio

he was going 110 on his harley
smack into a guardrail
where he left his nose, upper lip and moustache
which they peeled off and took with him
here to the hospital, putting him next to a fella
whose girlfriend tried to shoot him, missed
then stabbed him and tried to bite off his thumb
and they're next to a guy who found out
that shooting yourself in the head
does not make for a pleasant morning

exit interview
with the manager
you’re both ******
he opens his trap and you snap
"shut up phil, and do what you do best
sit down and do nothing"

it’s a planet of limitless horror
governments massacring their own populace
neighboring tribes bombing each other to oblivion
school shootings inspiring other school shootings
and on top of all that
italian restaurants and wine
are overpriced and unashamed
someone had to say it

yet another victim
of what?
******* that passes for thought
circumstances set in motion
losers with nothing better to do
business as usual
morons who feel passionately
about their reflections in the mirror

just treated a covid patient, a bit of a throwback
a break from the warm weather trauma patients
scooter vs. car (awful), a kid shot in the crotch (ouch)
a paraplegic whose friends strapped him on an ATV
(it didn’t end well), a 17 year old girl shot
for looking like a "snitching *****"
a fella going 100 miles an hour until he wasn’t

ah, summertime

he sold *** in high school
it was so easy
he made thousands
and now he knows easy money
working will always seem a sucker’s day

a relentless weekend in the ER

i kid you not
a man fell off the couch
and we had to rush him to the OR
to pry off half his skull
and staunch the bleeding
to keep him alive

we had another fella
6’6 with the biggest head in the universe
probably 400 pounds
he hadn’t bathed in five years
he was a white man and his skin was black
the nurses scrubbed him clean later in the ICU
an epic endeavor
he couldn’t walk
amazingly he had a girlfiend
who shoved him from bed to chair
to toilet and back for years
supplied him with pain meds for years too
the big guy’s in big trouble now
needs a tracheostomy to keep him breathing
but can’t get one because his neck
is as thick as a chimney
and he’s young—35
his mother and sister came up from florida
they hadn’t seen him in ten years
and had no idea how he’d deteriorated

and let’s not forget the uber driver
who had a heart attack while driving
poor woman never made it
out of the trauma bay

now it’s monday
i’m eating a frozen pizza
watching Paris, Texas
Wim Wenders, Sam Shepard
and Harry Dean Stanton all agree
this world
and every world
is tough to navigate

don’t worry about choosing a tattoo
don’t sweat that you’re gonna have to live with it for life
yeah but no
it’s about who you are when you get that tattoo
not about all the people you’re going to become
that’s irrelevant
of course you’re gonna change
there may come a day when you can’t stand sadie
and groan every time you see her name on your arm
but there was a you who was nuts about her
and that man will always stand guard
over the tricep of your love

we shared manhattan
me partying in fetid basements
you dancing on skyscrapers
magic is a mild word
it’s a miracle we’re alive
so let’s hook up one more time
i’ll meet you at midnight
on the tip of the empire state building

gotta keep my eye on the ball
the big picture
i helped a bunch of folks to breathe
probably helped a couple to live
at least for one more day
so i worked too hard and long for a shift
no choice, boo-hoo
my skills were sharp
and my back was strong
i was worthy

i want to slide downhill
with woofers in my ears
i want to either save the planet
or leave a large crater in it
give me blue neon city lights
and lulu singing to sir with love
i want the blues in every note
(but without the blues fans)
i want fat to be the new thin
and i want time to roll backwards
i want the folds of my thalamus to flatten
not a stroke but nirvana

five minutes into our morning shift
in the emergency room
we get a fella gunshot to the chest
it might be 7:05 am sunday morning
but it's still saturday night around here

let's see
russians annihilating ukranians for no reason
china supporting them for cynical advantage
india itching to massacre its muslims
republicans dismantling the electoral process
while their paranoid millions load up
a mass shooting in the pittsburgh north side
another ***** acts out in the NY subway
with smoke bombs and bullets
the devil visits an elementary school in texas
one fifth of reptiles are about to disappear
goodbye birds and bees
the environment disintegrates
and we crank up the heat

it's speeding
accelerating
you can taste it
the fever is peaking
exhilarating
detonation is imminent

they may resent that i appropriate
other people’s lives for this scribble
well this ain’t journalism
there’s no who when where
only OH ****
they may not have noticed
art takes no prisoners

gotta give it to the New York Times
every week they blindside you
with a new apocalyptic scenario
that you had no idea existed
when armageddon arrives
the only mystery will be which way we’ll respond
"didn’t see that one coming"
or "we knew but didn’t do anything about it"

i know why
you ******* around on your wedding night
it was a great party
the girls were all dolled up
and you were the center of attention

heard about the doctor running for the hospital elevator?
the doors were closing so he stuck his head in
decapitated
which is shocking enough
but imagine the folks inside the elevator

the rib dinner with your wife
the cuddle with your daughter
watching tremors with your son
that show you did at sonny’s
rereading wonder boys
the night you were ****** up on ludes with your poet friends
dropping glasses off the table to torture the waitress
these were the peak and you enjoyed it all
you just didn’t realize it was the best it would be
the best it COULD be
you didn’t miss the moment
you just didn’t recognize what you were seeing
you think it’s all-you-can-eat
but the buffet runs out
you think there’s always more
and there isn’t
but there is this

what’s happening in the Ukraine seems clear to us
but not to much of the world
World War I started because of a global chess game
hard to fathom from today’s perspective
if there are any survivors in the future
they’ll be scratching their heads
about why China/Russia and America
decimated the planet with World War III

she does the crossword puzzle
with such skill and intensity
it MUST cross over to other dimensions
she’s saving countless lives
on some transfigured planet
she has to be

as i play with the building blocks
of my perceptions and conclusions—
of course i’m an existentialist
i didn’t make the road
but i’m in the driver’s seat

instagram took down a photo of me
with fake dreads
saying "i shot the sheriff"
they don’t countenance violent content
evidently bob marly/eric clapton
aren’t famous enough to reference
lucky the robots don’t come to my door
and arrest me for ******
although my wife says they should book me
for the fake dreads

intelligence = pattern recognition
you’re intelligent to the degree
you perceive patterns
i’ve always believed that
but now i realize
patterns recognize patterns
they corrupt each other
it’s 2 a.m. and patterns diagnose me
they’re nodding to me across the bar
is it my imagination
or do patterns laugh at my simplicity
then stumble off in search of **** complexity
before last call?

"enough of this lollygagging"
i say to my wife as i leave for my hospital job
"there are lives to save"
and as soon as i lock up my bike at work
i run into a woman stuck on the sidewalk
trying and failing to make it up the hill
"my chest hurts real bad"
i fetch a wheelchair and push her up that hill
delivering her to the emergency room
man am i connected to the universe

when people make assumptions about you
you resent them when they get it wrong
and you resent them when they get it right

don't care much about the Olympics
but it beats Russia's merciless imperialism
Israel's inept butchery
and the United Fascists of America
so party on

all these people are trapped on the A train
they look half dead
maybe from the jobs they came from
or the subway
or the lives they’re heading home to
trapped head to toenail
but like all animals in captivity
open the cage door
pull them out
and they’ll hop right back in the cage
and call themselves happy

we make plenty of mistakes in our belief
intellectually we know these things are not true
but a deeper part of our brain is certain they are
we’re going to live forever
we won’t
we’re the same person we were when we were young
we’re not
our employer gives a **** about us
he don’t
our social media activity counts for something
not in the least
the president is more important than the first grade teacher
nope
he’s just some ******* who won the lottery
all these certainties swirling in our brain
gently nudging us over cliffs of absurdity

that macking wasn’t easy
the poor kid had it all
and had nothing

swedish death metal bands and i
see the world through the same eyes
but i don’t burn down churches
i do things sunnyside up
it’s how i’m built
i help people breathe when they can’t
that’s how i make my millions
i scribble pictures
post poems on lightpoles
make music videos by the hundreds
throw abstract shows
and whip instruments incessantly
to hear them squeal
i brought a family into the world
took care of them
and now admire the amazing trails
blazed by our kids
while swimming in the wake
of my intrepid beautiful
intellectual juggernaut wife
i do sit-ups, lift weights with my
permanently damaged bicycle arm
feed a couple of cats every frigging day
and am probably the library’s
number one customer

the showbiz failed in room 63
"you look like you don't like your job"
said mrs. patient
i laughed
"i love my job"
"you don't look like you love your job"
"this job is great"
"i don't believe you
if your job involves other people
you should get another job"
i laughed again
"i will consider it!"

i could brag about my night
but to who?
what sentient being is epicurean enough
to appreciate my palate?
cosmopolitan enough
to follow my exploration?
who has mastered the physics
to dig my trajectory?
there’s only one
back to the mirror!

the doctor said the worst thing you can say
to a family member
"this hospital is full of incompetent people"
he just made life impossible for the rest of us
now everything we do is wrong
you have to paint a picture for the clan  
and that is not the picture you want to paint
the love families feel for their sick ones
metastasizes into worry so severe
that we get splashed with its acid
their love is a blast furnace and we get burnt
it’s sublime to be around such love
but it’s a colossal bump in the road of therapy

had a ****** french meal
dull, heavy and not cheap
but like opera
french cuisine is out of my ken
maybe it was marvelous
all i can say is opera’s not for me

as american society continues to disintegrate
to absurd levels
i predict the new of threshold of battle
will be traffic signals
"how i drive is MY business
red lights are for democrats"

glorious twaddle
launching a generation of ***** feet
book upon book of wishful thinking
a saccharine boozehound
trying to convince himself
of i don’t know what
i say this with affection
i lived it and loved it
but it made zero sense

summer was sunnier in the 60s
and the 60s were made for kids
my folks had backyard BBQs
with the tijuana brass in constant spin
i don’t know if it was my mom or dad
who put it on, but they both dug it
them and their friends and neighbors
me and my sister too
best part of my short time with them
i grew up, had a family, threw BBQs
merriment with wacky musicians jamming
between burgers, feeding
the most cartoon characters in town
i’m glad my kids have magical family times
to turn back to, as i do
every time i hear those spanish trumpets

sorry but
you gotta crash every once in a while
or you’re not really riding

what we believe
and why we believe it
is a bowl of spaghetti
we're persuaded before we hear the issue
it's where you were hatched
who hatched you
and the other chickens in the coop
we'll believe the sky is green
if it's pinned to the top of the internet feed
to put it charitably
we're open to input
and it doesn't matter anyway
our decisions rarely coincide with our principles
we choose whatever door is nearest
and scoot on through

dear ultimate phone number marie whateveryourlastnameis who

just graduated somerset high school, imaginary aroma of whose
thick, ready thighs and *** (and car!) woke me up this morning
at a boil, who told me anytime I want and wrote your number
on a slip of paper that I stripped my entire room to find, even
unhooking the radiator cover but no good:

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

can’t complain about my two days off
cold january winter but i biked through the city
drank wine at cappy’s
hit up the library
brought the soup tour to the african veldt
posted poems in a couple of neighborhoods
recorded foppish puppyism with a cosmic *****
shot a famous vid of me singing lynyrd skynyrd
wrote three poems of utter profundity
posted a tiktok art vid
saw the latest matrix
(most interesting thing about it
was which aspect ****** the worst)
worked out
hung with my bride
played with the cats
watched tv
ecstasy x 2
nope
can’t complain

she was SUNNY FLOWER
a happy ukranian four year old
she had down syndrome, just learned to speak
she loved to push her own carriage after school
through the park, next to her mom
mr. putin
why did you guide your missile
to that beautiful little girl with her winsome smile?
why did you mince her to jelly?
don't you think
you should cut your own ******* throat
in penance?

once upon a time
i woke up in a garden of dried *****
from a tuinal OD
an uh oh moment
and if i hadn’t woken up
well no one held a gun to my head in union square
(an actual possibility in those days)
now at work in the hospital this morning
we just gave up on a 20-year-old athlete
OD’d on pills, arrested, dead before 8 a.m.
mom, dad and older brother are wild with grief
uh oh