WRISTS SLASHED AND OVERDOSED

THE

CARRION

YEARS

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GvAwjGeORLJRWiEMicNF3bxMQ--YOdI3/view

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a blessing for the dead, who have no use for blessings

 

or this idea of children

locked in cages

 

a shotgun barrel in the mouth of

every politician who helped put them there,

and then a feast for the vultures

 

not justice but satisfaction

 

not poetry but retribution

 

good fun in the age of nil,

and what more do you want?

 

young gods are born every day

 

empires fall,

baby

 

a lifetime spent fucking waitresses in

the backseats of borrowed cars

might be a lifetime wasted,

but what else did we have going on?

 

how many years did winter last

before your father killed himself?

 

or maybe it wasn’t like that

 

maybe your mother finds him

under the kitchen table some random afternoon,

reeking of shit and booze

 

maybe your brother laughs

 

has a kid of his own by this point

and a taste for speed, and the

rumor is that we’re all screwed

 

the rumor is that we’re all

our own worst enemy

 

that christ never really

gave a shit about any of this

 

wanted money and power and teenage pussy,

and maybe he was killed for

being too human

 

maybe the most painful truth you can own

is that his death was

as meaningless as his life

 

the proof is

everywhere you look

THE EMPTY LAUGHTER OF IDIOT GODS

 

AND ALL OF US BORN

WITH THE COURAGE

TO BELIEVE IN NOTHING

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RQnsgyJ1ByCwRGhxlDELtvTWIqKH7KMf/view?usp=sharing

 

 

 

 

 

A FLAG MEANS NOTHING UNTIL IT'S BURNED

 

SCORCHED

EARTH

MUSIC

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T0M_1lbZD5eNfwfcS5HiZkPJsRiKzMp-/view?usp=sharing

 

 

 

 

 

WITH A HALO OF BLOOD

 

JUST

GOOD

POEMS

 

https://justgoodpoems.blogspot.com/2022/08/one-for-golden-boy-who-might-actually.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

EMPTY PRAYERS FOR LESSER SAVIORS

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gBWdEr5AdGtdEsDKDB-cfcuNpJoaGIVE/view?usp=sharing

and i'm the boy you can't ignore

 

there is a girl
who has had her hand
caught in the machinery

who has had her arm
pulled into the blades then torn off
and she will live for two more weeks
and then she will die

and there is a house
down the street from mine
where the children write
JESUS RULES
on the sidewalk in pastel chalk
and then the next day it rains and
summer is over

my fingers crack and bleed

my need for language fades away
and the silence in this place becomes
a tangible thing

my wife and son sleep
in the next room

my childhood keeps an
uneasy distance

 

what i remember
is my father drunk

not on any particular occasion
but always
and at some point we became strangers
and then enemies

 

no reasons were asked for and
none given
and i can't seem to stop
whipping myself for these things
i can't change

the sky has no color and
nothing i hold casts
a shadow

nothing i love is permanent

and what the hell can i do
with these facts but drown?

ondine's blues

 

this 13 year-old kid in his

front yard waving a gun

 

this idea of god

 

of men dying in prisons

 

and i will give you a broken pencil and

a blurred map of america and

what i want for you is to find the point where

these things meet

 

what i want is for my children to

never read anything i've written

 

to never find out my fears

 

and do you believe that we are all parasites?

 

have you filled your mouth

with your father's ashes?

 

or maybe there is only

the empty fury of his hands

 

the memories of slamming doors

 

of engines revving

 

your younger self small in the passenger seat

as the car takes the turns at fifty miles

an hour on the wrong side of the road

 

the person you've become

watching from a second story window

as the boy is thrown to the ground

 

watching as his mother walks away

 

none of us anything that

could ever be called beautiful

SEE WITHOUT SEEING

 

SO YOU’RE JUST GONNA SPEND YOUR WHOLE LIFE DYING?

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xw2y3-G0fhdSFGhauaT339JBgH_XC6cr/view?usp=sharing

A SUICIDE TO PUT YOURS TO SHAME

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18G3edUnaAb14or1bEiqibEC0ahKW-3Dt/view?usp=sharing

ARRIVING IN THE WILDERNESS

 

new work at

WRITERS

IN THE

KNOW

 

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ANxEN%5F3%2DQCRv8eY&cid=F62F90DD5F3FA824&id=F62F90DD5F3FA824%21136484&parId=F62F90DD5F3FA824%21135622&o=OneUp

 

 

 

mantra for beaten dogs

 

and this isn’t the news of yr

mother’s death, but

maybe just an early rumor

 

last days of winter or the

first of spring,

frozen clouds in a blue sky, the

inevitability of another new war

in another doomed country

 

couldn’t feel my hands as i

reached into the river, but

i knew they were there

 

knew the children would be

crying when i found them, knew

they’d want reassuring lies, and

if i stared hard enough at the sun

i could almost make myself

believe in a better future

 

if i sat perfectly still in my

father’s house, i could still hear

him tell me what a

disappointment i was

 

can feel what little warmth is

left in this day fade with

the light

 

will laugh at the thought of

outliving every motherfucker

who ever tried to fill my

heart with fear

maelstrom

 

this impossible sky

 

this exact moment

 

a woman locked in her home for

twenty years, or pollock

dead for fifty

 

said he couldn’t see the light,

eyes wide open, middle

of the afternoon, and then

the north tower fell

 

can you accept the fact

that reality happens without you?

 

jesus christ

 

i turned away for just a second

and next thing i knew

i was 40

 

i was married and then divorced and

the treetops were a shade of green beyond

the limited grasp of words

 

the sun was everywhere

 

was everything

 

thought for the hundredth time

about driving away,

but the children were crying

 

the truck was in the shop

 

this exact moment, you see

 

the shadows of houses stretched to

their breaking points down quiet streets

 

the shadows of birds held trembling

in my cupped hands

do you see why poetry is a

dead-end option?

 

do you understand the amount of

pain you’ve caused the

people you love the most?

 

religion is what matters, not the

worship of false gods invented by

cynics and power-hungry whores

 

we need to breathe,

we need to eat,

      need to accept the

inevitability of tragedy

 

we are sick with laughter as the trigger

is pulled, a man murdered on the

steps of a church, a dog beaten by

laughing children until it bleeds from

its eyes, and i remember being

blind on the afternoon you finally

broke your 20 years of silence

 

i remember the future

in no uncertain terms

 

in your absence, i

learned to invent you

 

a game of course, which means one of

us wins and one of us loses

 

a target painted on the back of a man

who believes in something more

than words printed on chap paper

 

an impossibly sky

 

blue without remorse,

and my hands are numb

 

are cracked and bleeding, and i

watnted to tell the story but

i couldn’t remember the ending

 

the children were asleep

 

figured it was best just to

back out of the room quietly

the house is falling, but we are born fearing beauty

 

or else it's a

different night and you

sit at a table getting stoned with

some friends while your

children sleep

 

you wake up sweating and disoriented

in a dark room

next to someone else's wife

 

you hear sirens or the

sound of crying from just

beyond the door

 

you hate yourself

 

you are hated by others

 

welcome home