Pete

Pete looked at me over the fire with a blank expression. "Dude, that's gay," his face breaking into a laugh as he tilted his back to the stars upstate in New York. I laughed too because I like Pete. I'd heard so many of his sensitivities that if I simply said, "No, Pete. You're gay," he would probably slip into a days long depression, isolating himself to his jerk-off chamber, only coming out to smoke two American Spirits at a time. A little glass house.
Peter didn't want to believe that vulnerability is the kernel that makes any kind of love real and worth the effort. He knew that's how it was but he also knew that it was the pinhole that meant the dam was going to break. He pined for the whimsical bullshit he saw in movies and television (and fuck he watched plenty of that stuff) but was too afraid of baring his throat at a woman. Of looking up at the sky and waiting for her to suck every drop out of your veins knowing that if she did you'd just stand there and then die.
"Pete, love is about cutting your heart down the middle and making a space big enough for someone to crawl inside and fall asleep for awhile."
He stared at me, the flames casting deep shadows about his eyes.
"Sometimes they've been running for so long that a place to rest is enough to make them cry."
He lit another cigarette. He knew I was going now.
"You look down and see them there, curled up, and it's enough to make you cry too."
I like Pete. He's been my friend for many years and will be for many more to come. But it will take him even longer before he writes a love note to a woman he thinks he loves.

Women like fat

Hank and I were sitting at
the kitchen table
of his place.
Passing his wine back
and
forth.
He was pissing as usual.
A mighty scowl on,
somewhere in between
the wrinkles.

"Bitches are like fat,"
He finally said.
"They weigh you down,
and when you're old,
you're expected to have it."
"I don't know, man.
I'm skinny as hell but
have always had a girl
around..."
What about now, you
arrogant shit?"
He was lonely I could tell.
"Nah, man.
She left with some guy
from Frederick."
He just looked at me.
But maybe this time
I'll keep it off."
Got a good laugh out of him at least.
Old bastard...

"Enjoy it while it lasts,"
he said to me,
staring up at the clouds.
I don't think he even
knew I was there.

Critics

"What kind
of poetry
do you
write?"

"My kind
of poetry
you fucking
dipshit."

The butter to my bread

I can hear
all my women
singing like doves

Friends, some half-lovers
calling to me
telling me, laughing,

"Come on, babe!
Get your head
out of your
lily-white ass!"

Goddamnit, I love
them so much.
The butter to my bread.

Howlin'

I leaned up
and put my
book down.

She was laying on
her side
enjoying the sun

Her eyes moved
sideways at me
calm
and I kissed
her on the
head

The most beautiful
bitch in the room.

It was about 11
and I wanted
a coffee.

I got up, picked
up my keys and,
without a word,
walked out the front door.

From the driveway
I could hear her
run down the stairs,
frantic, panting

By the time I
was at the road
I could hear her,
heartbroken,
barking and barking
like the dog
she was.

The Friend, The Fool, The Lover, and The One

When I walked
out of work
on Friday
I could feel
it in the
pit of my
heart that
I was
going to get
laid.
I was going
to have
them all.

The story goes
as a quatro
The Friend
The Fool
The Lover
and The One

I only fucked
one of them
but
for some reason
I'm okay with
that.

Still trying to figure
out
which one
fucked me.

Probably The One.

A real patriot

We pulled in the driveway
It had been a long
day of romance -
Smiling at each other
and laughing at each
other smiling
and sitting quietly

Calm punctuated
by
small kisses in
the river,
a bridge of flowers,
ice cream, records,
napping in the car
and signing our
names together twice
in the guestbook

We got back to my
place and I was
hot.
Ready to go
I had thought
about it half the
ride home.
It was going to
be raunchy
4th of July sex
like the Forefathers
would have wanted it!

I got out,
"shall we go in?"
and started to walk in.

"I think I'm gonna go home."

"Alright,"
I said.
"Happy 4th of July"
and turned around.

Walked up the steps,
laid down,
and beat off like
the dummer boy
in Concord.

Angels and Demons

It had been months
since I had
seen her
and fuck she
looked as beautiful
as ever.
The smock hung from
her shoulders like poetry
and the same for
her dark brown hair.

We hugged and sat
on the porch. I
had a beer but
she said she
couldn't stomach it.

We went 0 to 60
with the therapist
shit.
Her split
and all of mine.

It didn't take long
for us to start laughing.

It got dark
and we read poetry
to each other,
Bukowski and old Saigyo.

I apologized for trying
to kiss her on
New Years.
We were intimate but
she kept her foot
on the clutch always
(she knew I wouldn't)

She wouldn't accept it
"There's  nothing to
apologize for."
She said,
"It had been ages
since I'd been
listened to.
Really listened to."

I smiled and sighed.

"We'll have our day"
I promised her.

She had the eyes,
the face of an
angel,
But I could see
her get mad.

"What the hell
is that supposed to
mean?"

She knew what it
meant and I felt
bad that she couldn't
just accept me being
a chickenshit for
right now.

Real truth

Every poem I write
that turns out
longer than five
lines will inevitably
be >5 lines of
shit

Freedom

That engine would roar
beneath me
Like a demon or a beast
screaming
And I would take off
farther away than you
could even imagine
the front tire would skip
and I'm nothing but
the tail lights that
leave you
and everything
behind

When the young ones start to die

How sad it is
When the energy of beautiful
young bodies and minds
go to making statues of themselves.
Racks of polished ideas,
thoughts and attitudes.

When I wake up,
tingling, I shudder
and wonder, afraid,
"What kind of man
will I be
today?"

Love like water

Sometimes I feel
like water in a
bag.
And
the more women I
have, the more holes
pour me out.

Bitches

I've always loved bitches
Whether they had two legs
or four.

Bonnie & Clyde

She and I were
a catastrophic thing.

Two of the most beautiful
My dark eyes
and her bright browns,
big
always asking.

We laid there in the
bathtub in the middle
of the afternoon
White tiles under a
white ceiling

Side-by-side
one gazing, one sleeping

It would have only seemed
right for an end
as beautiful and level as our love,
a hail of assassins' bullets,
a quick blackness
filling the hot water
ruby red.
An end like Bonnie & Clyde
But in the steaming
serenity of a white bathtub

He is like a bird

"What a beautiful young man!"
She though, gazing at him
as he laughed.
"He is like a crow!
A hawk! A sparrow!

He is free and flies
and he comes down
and sits with me.

How I love him so.
How I need him with
me.

He will teach me how
to fly.
He will tell me everyday,
'Fly, like I do.
Go up and touch the sky.'

I will put him in my
home with me."
She thought.
"He will teach me to
fly.
He is so beautiful
when he flies."

Our dance

Here we are
dancing again
around and around
the room
Our feet slip back
behind our legs and
our knees buck like
stallions and our backs
bend and arch like
trees in a storm

When I look down
I see you in
my shadow.
I've been here
holding your hands
looking in.

Those tears that I
see you cry
I cried
And those screams that I
hear you scream
I screamed

I have been you
with
you then me
feeling nothing.

Love murder

Whenever me and my women fuck
for the last time
it is really a brutal one
(as in "brutalizing")
like gore or a horror

With Shannon
she had come up
and we sat shooting the breeze, laughing
and smoking a joint

We train wrecked for
three or so years and the
fucking thing still hadn't
pulled into the station.
When we fucked I was
massive looming over her,
her light moans becoming
deeper and her breathing,
staring had a resonance
I am big and did full
strokes, time warped by the
weed.

Yasmine wanted a wreck
from the get go.
The train hadn't even boarded
yet and she wanted it blow
sky high
I can't even remember the
sex from our first time,
just her saying, "slap me,
slap me, slap me.
Slap my face."

Sofia could always handle all of
me in bed.
I think her body was particularly
responsive to me, because
I am big.
Some people are born to
love sex and she's one of
them.
In our last fuck
she grabbed my hand and
moved it up to her throat.
"Squeeze," she said as her
eyes tried to be mine.
With the other hand she pushed
my fingers down her throat
and sucked long pulls
closing her eyes.

I never had a fetish for
this kind of thing.
I just became a little
less nervous about it when
I heard those long moans.
It was like murder they
all wanted. 

"Will you hold me?
Or do you want me
to leave?"

"I never want you
to leave,"
she said,
confused.

Redemption

From my window
a rolling crescendo
of cars passing
and swinging feathers
twirling lazily
in the breeze.
The burning heat in
this small room
is a compliment
for all my shallow sins
today and all my days before.