Try Harder...

MINE...

(used with no permission)

ELVIRA
No--I’ll grant you, that’s foul: well played lad. But, no, this rank bouquet is far more pungent. Smells like sweat, tears, blood and longing, accented by strangled desperation and stunted ambition laced with a sticky film of broken, useless dreams.

SGANARELLE
Oh, that! That’s poetry!

POET MODERATOR
Ok, Roger, thank’s for kicking off our monthly drunken poet symposium with that wonderfully concise, reading. I want to welcome everyone tonight to our monthly poetry clambake where we all have the opportunity to share, through words, the joy and tribulations of what, our dear late founder Kevynn Malone, once described as our lifelong relationship...with alcohol. Though friends hurt you, lovers betray you, leaders lie to you and your pets die, there’s always one relationship we can count on in this world.

Snapping of fingers.

The Don Juan Project

The People On The Bus part one...

Me.

I was eighteen. That was a long time ago, I think. Maybe not that long. 365 days pass and then we allocate another point to the internal and external atrophy system. I was on a bus. The rest of my high school class that I recently graduated with was slinging down tequila shots in Mexican resorts while I was trying to not take poops on The Greyhound. My graduation present was getting kicked out of my house. My father and I had actually been getting along pretty well for the last couple of weeks. For us, at least. I was eating leftover chicken when he came out of his dark bedroom and into the dark living room and then walked into the dark kitchen that I was eating at. He plopped down an envelope with my name on it. Inside was a card with his signature scrawled on it, along with a check for three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars? Wow! He didn't get me anything for graduation, not that I expected anything, and for birthdays, I might get twenty-five or fifty bucks if I was lucky. I expressed my gratitude, thinking that maybe this was a combo-graduation-birthday-present-thingy. He told me that it was for moving expenses. I asked him when was I moving? I had twenty-four hours to leave, he said. Oh. He walked back into his dark room, and I sat in the dark kitchen, not really feeling particularly hungry anymore. I threw the rest of my food away and went into my dark room. Looking over a lifetime's-worth of accumulative teenage crap. Where the hell was I supposed to go? What the hell was I going to do? Did I really have to leave?

I did. By noon the next day, I'd thrown away mountains of stuff that really didn't seem as important to me as they did the day before when I had a place to keep it, and the rest that I deemed essential enough to keep got stored in a friend's parent's attic. I floated around the next couple of weeks at a couple of buddy's houses. Tried to stay out of everybody's hair. I didn't try to figure out what to do, because I had absolutely nothing to do. Where the hell would I go? I'd always told my father that I was going to get the hell out as soon as I possibly could but never really thought about what that meant. It meant money. A place to stay. A steady income. I ended up homeless and would sleep in parks or stay up at the only twenty-four hour donut shop in town. I'd smoke, write, and wait until dawn. Wander around maybe, until a buddy got home.

After a couple months of this crap, I finally decided to get the hell out of Dodge. I was losing sanity points. I bought a round trip ticket that was good for one year from Montclair, California to New York City. This was great because this meant that even though I didn't know what the hell I was doing, I could stay in one place for a short time if it suited me, go back to a bus station and get a new series of tickets printed out, and everything would be cool. My father, of all people, dropped me off. He was really the only one who could take me. He seemed sad, and this perplexed me. If he was so sad, why didn't he just let me stay for a few months, stop being the ass that he was, I would stop being the ass that I was - and then I'd get out as soon as I could when I was better prepared. I waved to him as the bus pulled away. He had his hands in his pocket and looked very old. I didn't know what feeling old was yet. I just felt scared. Confused. Unreal. Like a character in a movie or some cardboard cutout in a poorly written story. We were heading to Arizona, it would take all night, so I tried to make myself comfortable and quiet all of the hard voices in my soft head. I turned to my left and smiled timidly at the man next to me. We eventually introduced ourselves…

Oh, Kundun...

One cent for every hour of my working minimum wage is yours.

god(s)bewithye

I am messy
Disorganized
Moody
Distracted easily
A five year old
An idiot savant
Nerdy
Remorseful
Hopeful
Hopeless
And remorseless
Stuck
And marching forward
I am
Spirited
And vicious
Everything
And nothing
When
My heart
Keeps pumping
Maybe this tells me something
Or maybe
Nothing at all

Enders Game...

I had a joke about low gravity, dropping things on your foot and The International Space Station - but I lost it. I think it was lame anyway.

Shiver Me Timbers...

My legs have been shaky all day
I think they know something that the rest of my body doesn't
I'm nervous for the future

Oops, did I say nervous?

I meant...scared.

Five Dollar Boom Boom...again and again and again.

My mom's from Vietnam.

I'm first-generation-born-somewhere-other-than-that-place-guy. My older brother was born there too. Why don't we have the obligatory X-Men-Cyclops eyes? Don't know. Don't care. I always look tired anyways, so it doesn't make much of a difference in the long run. I had a bad mother. She's nice and all, but sucks in a lot of departments when it comes down to the final inventory. No big deal. No bad feelings. No skin off of the Irish-Vietnamese back. Tonight at the bar, I was engaging in some type of conversation that I thought was important, when I heard my name being called...There was a small, smiling lady selling something. With my bad vision, I thought that it was roses. But it wasn't. She was lugging around a wooden display case full of bracelets. That was probably why the lady was brought to my attention. I'm one of the only guys left with a girlfriend. So everybody was directing the lady towards me. Nobody wanted anything. The bracelets were okay. Nothing special. What was special was that I bought one. That she was smiling, even though that she had to try to sell cheap trinkets of homemade beauty to a bunch or worthless kids. What was special was that she always had a smile on her face. What was special was that I could hear people making racist comments behind her back, even though two of them were black. What was special was that she danced to the live band that was playing as she left the bar. The only money that she had was what I gave her. She danced away with a smile on her face as people made fun of her. These are the same people who probably made fun of my mother years ago when she came to this country. The only reason that she was here, and the only reason that I exist is because she met a handsome white guy. A guy that gave up the job that he loved, to shack up and do the nasty with a beautiful girl. Nothing mattered. All that my father wanted was what was best for the both of them. The friends asked why I bought the cheap bracelet. I half-joked that I was watching out for my own. I told them that that was my mother who just left. They said, why, because she was Vietnamese?

I said no...because she was a person, you fucking idiots.

Roberta was angry because Liam kept on stealing her hairbrush.

She knew where it was. It was in the backyard, by the little storage house. Liam always used it to brush the next door neighbor’s pony’s hair. He was five, but that was no excuse. This was the second brush that she had to replace. The last one Liam couldn’t find. He said the ponies must’ve stoled it. But the horses didn’t steal it cuz’ Roberta found it by the play set a long time after. She tried to tell Dad about it, but he usually got mad if you tattle-tailed, so Roberta stopped and just made sure to punch Liam hard before dinner, but then Liam told dad that Roberta punched him for no reason and when Roberta was trying to explain, she got in trouble for being a “brat”, and that she was older so why did she always have to be so “violent” and then she had to go to her room and miss supper. Not that she minded because it was the same old, stupid fried rice that made the whole house smell like fish, anyway. The only good parts were the egg and the shrimp. Dad only made it because he made the same things anyway. He always made spaghetti too, which was good if you put a lot of sauce, cheese, and black olives on it. If they had it. But than dad would get mad if he saw that you put too much stuff on it. He’d tell you not to be “greedy”. Roberta thought that she wasn’t greedy. She was just trying to make it taste good and not like the noodles. The noodles were gross-tasting and why didn’t they make more of the other stuff? Why not just have it with the sauce and the cheese and olives, then? The only good time that they had spaghetti was when Liam was carrying his plate with the spaghetti and his milk and saw the Spiderman movie commercial on TV and dropped the plate of spaghetti on the carpet and then dad got mad. That was funny because Liam cried and had to rub the carpet good with a rag while everybody ate. That was the only time that the spaghetti tasted good. Roberta even had seconds.

And They Should...

carry our bodies down by the river after we die. There, they will bathe us, wrap us in fine silk and then let the slow currents whisk us away. They'll watch until we're out of sight - we might get snagged by a jutting rock or a stray bush branch - then, they'll wade into the cold water and free us from the tangles. They'll hope for unimpeded progress down the river...either that or a peaceful descent down to the river bottom. Either way...out of sight, out of mind, out of their hands - into someone else's. Straight down the middle or a slow descent to the bottom. Either way is fine.

Godspeed.

no matter what you think
the day is going to be like
no matter what your plans are
no matter what lyrics
you compose for yourself the night before

time passes
no matter what you think or hear
today is a symphony
that sounds far away from yesterday

talktalktalk
thinkthinkthink
bebetterbebetterbebetter
begoodbegoodbegood
belikewater
learn
live
breathe
focus
shooosh
so pretty, so pretty as she strokes your head
calm down, calm down
don'ttalkdon'ttalk
don'tthinkdon'tthink
bebetterbebetterbebetter
what'sgood?what'sgood?
belikevapor
rise to the top
realize that falling down
is natural
dripdripdrip
goes tears
dripdripdrip
thank you, says
everything beneath you

Sweating in orchestra pits

upside down

thank you, says
everything above you

no matter what you think
the day is going to be like
no matter what your plans are
no matter what lyrics
you compose for yourself the night before

time passes

I'm Not Going To...

Write just because I have a computer in front of me.

Last night was crap and I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. Too many memories. When I got home I was exhausted but found my roommate and his band rehearsing in the living room. I sat cross-legged on the table and listened while having a couple million drinks. It was probably one of the best things you could walk into...besides a porn convention, of course.

Yes...

Scrabble belongs in your bar.

So, shut it.

The Spaces Available In My Heart Are More Important Than My MySpace...

I'm packing on new days like a fine layer of moth wing dust.
Please treat me gently.
I may seem ugly.
But.
Regardless.
I might be beautiful in your hands?
Maybe a delicacy to some in other parts of the world.
Or a pest.
I can fly when I want to.
I can bite you when you sleep.
You can easily squash me, smoosh me or preserve me in a jar.

I'm attracted to your glow, though.

Be gentle, fucker.

Leaves Of house...

Get up, get up
says your trainer

I feel tired
you say
please
just let me
lay down

Oh, no, no, no, you big pussy
you're much stronger than that
why do you think you're here
in the first place?

Because I never knew what else to do?

Exactly, asshole
now let me stop that bleeding
keep your guard up
and punch, jab, punch, jab

He must be tired
you say
please
just let him
lay down

That's it, that's it
says your trainer

Each Day...

Each day is like a unique fingerprint, a strand of DNA, a snowflake.

Each night has been a "day"mare, a slow trudge through sucking muck, a lance splintered into the soft flesh and steel of charging calvary.

Today and all the days before this one have been tough and far too easy to bend and shape to my dreams if maybe I wasn't so whimsical and soft.

I have an atrophied heart stricken with bouts of emotional Tourettes Syndrome and a will made of petrified Silly Putty.

I am me, just like before. Stronger and weaker - for better or for worse.

I don't miss myself or miss my missed opportunities.

I just want more hits as I'm swinging and a lot less misses, Missus.

Love and kisses.

Yes, This Site Is Boring.

I know this.

But, at least it's FREE boredom.

As Far As This Last Year Goes...

I want this next one to be totally Boo Radley as opposed to this years horrific Liberace naked jumping into a pool.

The Horror...

Christmas sweaters...EVERYWHERE!!!

Egg...

Everything that I wished for before I now have
and everything I now have is nothing compared to what I had.

Alto...

I collect brilliant scraps of life
like you do tickets

I'll start writing my shit down when
you learn how to FUCKING drive

Truth...

Having a hole in your sock
sounds much better than
having a sock in your hole.

Christmas Craptacular...

Downloading songs for my work's iPod. I'm in hell. Bing Crosby helps, though. Sammy Davis Jr. does not. I want to shoot him in his glass eye.