I painted a caricature of my soul
on a McDonalds napkin, with my blood.
It looked like Van Gogh's starry night
swirled, dark, distorted,
beautiful –

so I squeezed it inside my bloody fist
then tossed it in the urinal
and pissed on it
because I know I'm not
a masterpiece.

I'm just a drunk
punching mirrors in empty restrooms
at 1 in the morning,
leaving philosophical quotes inside the stalls
with a red sharpie
among the crudely drawn penises
and phone numbers of whores.

But I suppose
that after years of doing this
someone taking a shit had to have notice
what I left
for him to see,
and sat there for a while
thinking
about the beauty of life
and what it all really means
after finally seeing through the cocks and cunts
that plague the walls of the world,
then wiped himself
of all the shit
and walked out
inspired.

I am an artist
not a masterpiece.
And that’s exactly how
I want it to be.

Burn

sticks and stones

might break your bones

but my words

will fucking kill you.

this poem is a bullet

in the chamber

of a sniper rifle

and you're just cruising by

like Kennedy –

I'm about to blow you're mind.

take everything

you thought you knew about

poetry

and burn it,

rip pages out from Shakespeare

or the holy psalms

then roll this shit up

and smoke it –

I'm going to hell

not after some divine sentencing

but on a meteor crashing through the heavens

through a storm of pearly glass

then into the ground and all the way

to it's burning core

where evil souls scream

in eternal pain

bang

they’re all dead,

killed on impact.

immortal my ass.

the only immortal things in this world

are words,

and they drive people to death

insanity

or sometimes even

bliss.

Buildings fall

countries and empires crumble

music goes out of style –

but a king could end a life

or start a war

with just his

tongue

and watch the world end

if his heart so desired.

this ain't no goddamn poem

it's a hand possessed by the ghost of

Genghis Kahn

writing these words on a restroom mirror

with my blood.

I'm the anti-christ of literature

the savior of no one

but myself

and maybe a few other fucked up souls

I destroy along the way.

I am here to influence your children

and make them forget Wordsworth

and float with me like a cloud of smog

over a field detonated landmines

and bloody limbs –

fuck the daffodils

lets kill them with this acid rain

and reanimate the corpse of H.P. Lovecraft

with the lighting of our rage

while Cthulhu rises up from the sea

into our wild storm.

so burn the flags

but never

burn

the

books.

burn the corpses

but never

burn

their

words.

burn your skin

with cigarette butts

so you can write

about the

pain.

burn your poem

into the sun

so the world can revolve

around you.

and burn your mind

with the fires of your
soul

until everything you thought you knew

is ash

and everything you can't help but feel

is the wind that carries

those ashes away,

and kisses your skin, as if to say

“everything

will be

okay”

Romanticized

A heavy woman

with heavier eyes

stares attentively at the endless array

of romance novels

while I peek up over the cover

of a Bukowski book

after reading another poem

about his many whores.

We're all lonely, aren't we?

I wish I had money for a whore

but I don't even have money for this book

so I’ve just been sitting here, reading it

for an hour or so

and people watching between each

shoplifted poem.

“Hey kid, buy the book or leave!”

*Sigh*

so without saying a word

I nod politely

and get up to put the book back

but head towards the childrens section instead

and set it on a shelf

in front of fairy tales with sparkly covers

and leave it open,

pages spread like the legs of a used up slut

with a beautiful soul.

On my way out

I notice that the woman has left,

gone home to lay in bed naked

with fantasies of Fabio

or some other long-haired douche

with a disguising accent...

And now I'm going home too

to get drunk

pop a couple xanax

and write this shit

like the stereotypical poet I am.

What romantic fucking lives we all life.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Because the chicken was walking home from work, dreading the fact that he would have to tell his wife and baby chicks that he had just lost his job, and the traffic zooming by looked like the best escape there was. So, he boldly set one little chicken foot on the hot black asphalt, closed his eyes and raised his beak, and trotted on out, preparing for death. But to his surprise, he made it the whole way across the interstate without getting hit. So in amazement, he fluffed his feathers and looked up to the clouds, with a tear in his little eye and said "God, you must want me here for a –" but before he could finish his sentence, a homeless man grabbed him by his neck, and choked him until the last bit of life escaped his eyes, and took him back home to his box in the alley and fed his children who haven't eaten in days.

Speech of the Underworld Laureate

I want to be nothing but bones, a skeleton with a wardrobe of tattered and tattooed skin, picked out from the morgue in the night like a resale shop for life. I want to walk the streets dragging a dead dog on a metal leash while I bark my favorite obscenities to the moon. 

I want to be one of them, a creature only visible in the night or in nightmares. A person who a little girl would see from the backseat window with dreary eyes on her way home from Disney World, while awoken by the dull glow of a strange city – someone who'd haunt the hallways of the magic kingdom in her dreams and dangle her innocence over the balcony where her Prince Charming jumped to his death after being raped by Jeffrey Dahmer in a mouse costume.

I want to die in an alley with a needle in my vein and a hooker's face in my crotch, after ejaculating my brilliant ghost all the way up to its throne of rooftops that crown the abandoned highrises that ooze darkness from their windows. I want to find Shakespeare’s spirit in the afterlife and call him a pussy. I want people to read my poetry and vomit, and teachers to hide my books from their students. I want to bitch slap Billy Collins with the hand of the underworld laureate, then sip absinthe mixed with lighter fluid from a teacup and ask him what he thinks this poem means.

For Angel

Angel –

no other name

could've suited you better

you beautiful, promiscuous

atheist

bound for hell

if it exists...

And while confined on house arrest

for snorting dust

you called me in the middle of the night

to spill your demons

to the only guy who never asked you

for sex

while I jacked off to the sound

of the pain flowing

from your angelic voice –

I was always a good listener,

not for anyone else

but only for you.

And sometimes I wonder if you knew

what I was doing on the other end

while your eyes squirted endless orgasms

of tears…

I was too scared to tell you.

But it doesn't matter

because you don't talk to me anymore anyway.

I like to tell myself that you were scared too

even though you probably somehow knew

what I was doing

by the way I would breathe

when I said “keep going hun, I'm here to listen”

and you realized

I was just a creep

like everyone else

But there’s more to me than that

I hope.

Doggie style

The old dog

watches on inattentively

while I bend my girlfriend over

pull down her panties

and fuck her

doggie style.

Spot hasn't humped my leg in years

and I think he's jealous

that I've moved on

to better “tail”,

but what he doesn't know is

I never liked it

and me screaming “NO! Get the fuck away!”

only seemed to turn him on more.

So now he just sits there

with gooey eyes

and patches of dead, hairless skin

while my bitch moans

my name

and calls me

an animal.  

Broken

When I was eight or nine

I started drinking

and smacking my pretend wife

when she came over to play,

me and my friends in the hood

would play cops and

serial killers

on the dark side streets

just north of Eight Mile

where the streetlights never came on

at night

where we never went back inside

to our parents, guardians,

or single mothers

who were strung out on meth

or puking up whiskey

after another man left.

My dad was always there for me though

he taught me how to love a woman

with my fist

and how to clean up her blood

after you busted her lip.

How to throw a bottle

through the window

then board it up

before the landlord started bitching.

But I don't know how to shave

change a tire

or what the difference is between a flathead

and a phillips

or even how to use a damn screwdriver

or wrench...

so tell me,

how am I supposed to fix myself

when I cant fix anything else?

Tattoos and Barbed Wire

When I showed you my body

I put down my hair for you

removed the piercings

and let the studded bracelets drop

to the floor...

You, the only one to ever see me naked

of both my clothing and my walls

saw Stephen

and realized that Chase wasn't nearly as strong

as he looked.

You saw the slashing patterns in the scars

that I told you were from fights,

and you realized they were only from fights

with tired old demons...

you saw how my pale skin looks strange

and unnatural without the counterweight of darkness

achieved so easily with black shirts and bandannas.

I was your other half

your yin yang symbol

that disappeared

behind the white backdrop of the world

when the dark parts of me left –

I don't exist to you anymore,

and I don't think I care.

I have trouble sleeping now

not because I miss you

but because I don't wash my mohawk out anymore,

and it's hard to lay comfortably

with that row of hard black spikes

glued up six inches

from my pale scalp

like barbed wire around my prettiest dreams and thoughts

preventing them from ever escaping

again.

Soul

In 200 years

everyone alive today

will be dead.

The enemies who tore me down

will be frail bones,

the whores who left

before I could wake up to love them

will be unable to move...

But I, I will be a ghost

a vague memory

a whiff of strange perfume

floating through the pages

of forgotten books,

the sound of a keyboard

being struck in the night

while a few citizens of that strange new world

lie awake in fear

of the poltergeistic rhythm

that my words will refuse to stop playing

on a stage before millions, or in an attic

with no one.

Tonight I'm typing

a million miles per hour

and this energy

can never be destroyed

despite whatever lies after the day that the lighting

in my fingers finally burns up, and they are folded

around a rosary

in a casket

before a funeral of grieving family and friends

or a funeral of no one.

Self Medicated

I swallow the anti depressant

with a big swig of wine,

the one that's bottle warns

“do not drink alcoholic beverages

while taking this medication”

But after a few glasses

the wine bottle begins to say

“do not swallow anti depressants

while drinking this medication”

I start laugh, hysterically at my own humor

then shove my fingers down my throat

and puke up

what I hope is the pill,

and continue laughing

not because I remember the joke

but because my puke is shaped like Texas.

Then I remember a girl I dated

who lived in Texas

the one who got away,

so I drink a few more glasses

until I throw up some more

and the Texas looks like Alaska

or the pacific ocean.

Untitled

I think I'll drink myself to death

just like all the greats before me

like all the brilliant minds

who lusted at the world's beauty

then undressed it, to see it naked

and for what it really was...

the minds who threw it's leather lingerie on the floor

only to discover all the nasty soars

on its otherwise perfect cunt

dripping wet with beautiful oceans.

The world lost it's innocence

when mankind raped it

with filthy, greedy cocks, lubed with oil...

and now she's a crack whore

who'll most likely die

from the diseases we left her with.

So I spend my nights drinking

and writing

leaving this used up world

for the one I create in my head when I'm drunk

just so I can get off

without that disease spreading to my soul.

I'll probably die a drunk

but at least I'll die with a soul, unlike so many others.

My New Book

http://en.calameo.com/read/00290889095bff4bb8829

I lost a friend last night

because my poems are too dark.

She said they scare her,

and make her cry.

She said she can feel me slipping

with each verse,

and that she'd enjoy them

if they were written by a stranger

she never loved.

She said she feels her heart going out to me

but she had to pull it back

because she needs to keep it

for herself,

so she can see though her own issues.

No one ever stays

because once they see me naked

of my walls

they stare into my sheltered world

and see things that would make even the earth

cringe.

It's too late to destroy it,

because my thoughts have evolved

into a race of beings

far more powerful than myself.

They'll be the death of me,

but their empires will stand

long after I'm gone, before my time.

But every once and a while

I can hear one or two of them praying

to me,

begging for me to bring peace to this world inside my head

that I have no control over.

They don't realize

that I'm not a god,

and that their whole existence is nothing

but the product of years of abuse

from a universe they cant comprehend,

that I can't comprehend.

So I sit nailed to the couch, suffering for their sins

while pointlessly checking my phone

for a text from that friend that says

“I'm sorry”

Don’t you dare pull me

from the wreckage of my life

when I lose my high

and fall from the sky.

don’t even put out the flames,

I want people to see them

from miles away.

I want the explosion to shake

a thousand cities

and wake the children

from their nightmares of monsters

to a reality that drove millions

to suicide.

I want want the debris of my thoughts to scatter

and shatter windows nearby.

And when it's all said and done

I want the land to be scared forever

and cursed with my madness.
I want kids daring each other

to walk up to the spot

where I fell from sanity and tore up the field

they now fear.

Don't mourn me

for I will not be gone,

I'll be hiding behind the flames laughing

at all the different parts of me

killed by the impact

of whatever drug or drink

has rotted out my mind

to the point of brainless bliss.

So don't you dare pull me

from the wreckage of my life

when I lose my high

and fall from the sky,

because I want to enjoy being charred

of every brain cell

and every agonizing thought,

until I'm finally crushed

by the settling debris.

Prophecy

Hieroglyphs on my ancient soul
foretell the end of me,
they say I'll die by my own hand
when I've reached god status
and every knee has knelt
before me
and I have nothing left
to achieve.
This prophecy has been written
on me for many lives
each ended by a pill,
bullet, or brilliance  —
I can feel it.
My fingers are my slaves
who type a pyramid of words
that'll hide my body
in a maze of booby-trapped metaphors
that no thief
would ever dare explore.
So shut me away
with my mummified poetry
so the gods in the next life
will worship me.
Let me hold the empty orange bottle
like a rosary in chalky hands
folded stiff
into forced prayer.
Let me rot away
and be forgotten
while my poetic pyramids
stand for thousands of years
in the sun.
Let tourists stand under their shadows
in awe
while my bones turn slowly
to dust
somewhere deep in the chambers
of their brilliance.

Sparkle

Lonely and cold,

I wait for love

beside the frosted window

while dreams of fireflies

sparkle in the snow.

I sip black coffee

from my mug, quietly,

so I don't wake them...

Because I know when summer comes

I’ll have found somebody

and I want to make sure they're all well rested

so they can swirl around my lover and me

when our soft lips spark

for the first time

like flint,

so I can watch them drown out

in that new lovelight

that'll glow furiously when dusk

cinders into darkness.

But for now

I'll have to deal with the darkest months

alone

while they lay on the lawn

asleep under the moon

with beautiful dreams.

God's Gleaming Eye

The painkillers in my pocket rattle

with each step
toward the unreachable moon
in strange harmony
with the untainted snow
crunching
beneath my feet.

Two or three
aren't enough to numb me
anymore,
no longer enough
to shut my brain off
for a little bit...
to quiet these thoughts
that stalk me
and whisper
how no one would find me
if I just lay here
on this nameless road
with a mouth full of pills,
face to the stars,
and die in the arms
of a snow angel
who'll carry me away to a heaven
I only believe in when I'm high.

I squeeze the bottle in my pocket
almost to the point of crushing it
as I turn away from the wind
and look back at the light of
my grandpa's cottage
drawing my attention
away from my midnight daydream
and the moon
that hangs like a sliver bullet
stained with the blood of monsters
from my mind.

How many times
have I walked this path high
praying to God's gleaming eye
for death,
as it winks slowly
with darkness
as if indicating something
beyond my comprehension...

All I know is
the cottage is warm
and I should go back.

Tumbleweed

I was detached

so I could wander

hand in hand with the wind.

Who am I now?

I feel so frail

and my flowers are long gone.

“Look what I've become”

I say to no one

as the buzzards cry.

Their shadows circle me

like dark moons in a galaxy

starving for life —

am I not alive?

I've never seen flesh

that was still carrying a soul,

but the wind tells me stories

of slinking through their hair

when the world was young —

I can smell their skin on its breath,

its breath that’s carried me

to the edge of the earth a thousand times

to find only stars

that those ancient, mysterious people worshiped

before I was even a seed.

Am I qualified to pray

to those stars that have lead us

to a thousand sunrises?

Will they even hear me

with this voice that is only a rustle

across rocks and dirt,

this voice that is literally nothing but a ...

my soul who shapes the clouds

who possess my dry body, and countless others all at once

interrupts me

and whispers yes.

I smell the gods in its voice now.

Winter Burial

While running my hand
across your casket,
I leave fingerprints
on the polished wood
that will be lowered with you
into six feet of obscurity,
telling no one, only the darkness,
that I cared enough for you
to watch your unbearable descent
in to peace
while the January wind
further numbed my core.

I have nothing
so these are the only things
I was able to leave you with,
but at least I know
no one will ever wipe them
from the cherry oak surface
that even my tears slid from
so easily when I cried...
But my hand
the hand that felt the last twitches of life
in your fingers
and squeezed them until the warmth escaped
has left such delicate mementos
that will never wither
with the expensive bouquets
and flowery wreaths.