Work Nights

Ar15s and AI griftings greet this 
Season’s beins.  We suck 
Screens, scrounging for validity.
Some accountability

Don’t bet on me: bad knees.
Bandages and ointments for
Four punch drunk knuckles
Knocking too loudly on doors.

Hard times.  Doors without homes.
City chewed us up and spit us out, 
but we
Withstood, pried open, crawled 
Back into that foul mouth

Bathtub John and Hinky Dink smoke
Rocks in the back of the gyros
Joint next to Tent City, which The 
City tears down next Thursday.

Folks cast out like cargo over
Board into the darkest seas

Everybody knows you caught a bloody nose, 
A clown punched down upon.
But kid, you gotta fill you heart with the fight
Of fifty pissed off fists, and work nights

---

Sad

Perhaps it’s the
Schizo-affective disorder
But I feel, finally,
That I’m getting on,
With my self,
Much more amiably
These arctic nights 
Ypsilanti to Escanaba
Underwater in an
Hour.  How come
They get so 
Much hearth
And home?  
But we’ve met our ending.

And to think things were just
Beginning to get interesting.

---

Sunday

Sunday and nearly 
Crying while half 
Watching football and
Listening to Snail Mail.  

Assholes
Gather around the 
Rathole while
Serpents smile
And saints go to
Waste.  

I pull my hood
Down to hide 
The world from
My face and
Petulantly await thy
Judgment.   

---

Break Glass in Case of Emergency

Declare global
Bankruptcy.  
Impossible to please
Unbearable to love.
What if we don’t believe 
In Hell
So we put ourselves through it
Just in case?
While you’re on vacation 
We’ve got indigestion.
We sucked it up
Like you said.
We can’t even plan a picnic 
In smog this pernicious 
While history mimics itself 
Recycling the cataclysmic.

---

Fortunate 

Drinking hot black coffee
At Matt’s and petting his
Cat I don’t need to worry 
Where my next meal is
Coming from today.  The
Land is fat.  Sobbing
And parched.  Wait
Until spring for the great 
Reveal beneath the 
Melt.
A revolution of
Joyousness because 
We’re alive, and
Not built on supremacy 
Over those less 
Fortunate—Every year
I choose to live
And not
To die.  
The robins are 
Out here now
In the cold
With me.
A paddy wagon prowls by 
The driver-cop’s hand
dangling from the window.
It’s a beautiful day
For the free.