Three Poems

Apology to This Neighborhood, the Two Before, the Next

Hipsters get to say
at least I’m not trendy
and the trendy turn

it around and they’re
right too.  People go
to nightclubs.  They

stand outside, freezing,
wearing more perfume than
clothing, and shriek until

the cops come on
horseback and close
down the street.  Insert

terrible things here about
we all get what someone
else pays for.  Too bad

I never cared enough
about Chelsea
but nobody could

have made it better
than Schuyler anyway
so why bother.  Yes

we’re part of the problem
wherever we go
and it’s the only way

we manage to be punctual,
showing up just in time
for the real decline.



Socialism

Five equals four,
twenty equals
twenty-five, etc.
People will levitate
when they turn on
the news and learn
that somebody bit
the weepy dick
off Grover Norquist.
They slip into your
house, not knocking,
doubled speech sans
decent translation.
The moment is dead,
we killed and killed it
when it ceased to
be the movement.
I’d rather pay two
taxes than deal with
the awful fact of
William Kristol’s nipples
leaking inside his suit
like a pig’s snout cut
into unequal halves.
2008, you don’t feel
revenge yet but it is.
Jack Abramoff’s getting
serious action in jail—
admit it, certain skinny
lips can take a lot.



Revelation 3:16

A guy who was a regular
at the bar where I used to work

we called Peckerhead because
he looked sort of like a balder

Ginsberg, who looks like a pecker.
Well I have no idea how Ginsberg looks

now, but it’s probably pretty
peckeresque.  Peckerhead drank dollar

drafts and was no doubt ten times
smarter than all us smartass faggot

barmaids put together, maybe he
was a botanist or an actuary

or had some other clever gig.  I felt kind
of guilty about it, even though we never

called him Peckerhead to his face, as far
as I know.  Ginsberg died April 5 (1997),

birthday of Colin Powell (1937), so happy
b’day C.P. and happy d’day A.G.  Inevitably

we would get loaded during our shifts, before
we killed ourselves or caught you-know-what

or left town before either of those things
or worse happened.  Did I read somewhere

that Ginsberg fucked a guy who fucked
Whitman?  Fucked/got fucked by?  So stinky

who cares.  I must not see what fucking
is other than stinky.  If I had anything

to say about gender I’d already
be fucking you or paying Peckerhead

to fuck you.  I think he was gay too.
All the girls we saw after work

at the porn store, their skin was
the color of a three-month-old

plaster cast.  If I could make you
a real simile it would be like when

I turn into a boy I will wag
a pecker at you like a dirty mop

until it cracks and flops around like
my broken leg.  No girls better

go there, Peckerhead always said,
no girls in the porn store.




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