dive bar napkin chronicles

i just woke up from about a twelve week long self induced eggnog and scotch coma

2007-02-02T15:30:00.000-05:00

a thought how my last entry was going to be it for a while so i could start to edit every poem before hand in order possibly put a book together. but then i had these entries i've been brewing over for sometime now. so sit back. relax. listen to your favorite soothing music. mine at the moment is the new shins and clap your hands say yeah records. grab a colt 45. oh yeah and by the way, you thought i wouldn't mention it did you. you silly, silly person. 14 days until pitchers and catchers.

the boy and the girl who liked hard boiled detective novels

after nine days i have just now started to maneuver somewhat efficiently behind the counter, slinging any customer wants from cappuccinos, espressos and lattes at a small cafe in north beach to putting day old muffins and scones onto paper plates while they peck away at some paperback edition of "revenge of the lawn" by richard brautigan. i find myself stairing into oblivion on occasions or rather thinking of nostilgic times of pictures hanging from the walls here of dead poets and and misentropes of the 1950's and 60's. i imagine they would sit around about like today and talk politics, homosexuality and the general deise of america as they knew it and what they were going to do to fix the problem. i had just moved to san francisco a few days prior to getting my job. i was here for no other reason except change. until an affordable place to live opens up i'm staying downtown at a hostel. if you've ever stayed at a hostel, it's not much but i can lay my head down. i sold my car two days after i arrived. some extra cash and no need for your own transportation with the likes of the muni bus and cable car around. plus i bought a bike in chinatown.

i had only been to san francisco once before. to visit a friend. that was about four years ago this summer but they've since packed up and come back to where i just left. texas. things in my way of thinking go by way of fate. shortly after arriving i wandered into the cafe just minutes after this hippie girl had up and left after a homeless guy come in and pissed on the day old muffins and declared he was neal cassidy. one of the other employees told me just the other day she had just published a memoir about slinging cups of mud and her life and times in a cafe. go figure.

i took over her shifts the next day. it was a decent schedule. but it didn't matter i had a job without ever even looking. fate. i stuck close to the neighborhood after work and go to a dive bar called vesuvio cafe or hang around city lights bookstore and do some reading. for the few times i've been in the bar there's been these two same waitresses working. i was quite a bit older than jenny and just a couple of years older than abbey.

abbey was short, a little stocky, hair the color of a bluebird, piercings in every place on her body. never makeup and a new york giants baseball cap. after several pints of anchor steam, we's agree to disagree about the better old hard boiled detective novels and we'd argue over who was a better signature characte, raymond chandler's philip marlowe or dashiell hammetts sam spade. vwe both dig flannery o'conner, and black and white noir films. after several days and a few drinks she let on about the piercings on her nipples and clit.

jenny had the same weight as abbey but the five inches in height were the difference. jenny stood 5-8, bookish horned rimmed glasses and she had tall lanky legs that would make a blind man see if she was wearing shorts or a skirt. straight bleach blond hair. makeup always done. even if just a touch of blush. she wasn't shy but her personality was dwarfed by abbey's. whose could fill a room with her entrance. i found out during our conversations while waiting for abbey to get off work jenny's dad had taken her to giants games as a kid and baseball fever had stayed with her growing up. jenny read mostly just what was recommended in her book club but abbey had turned her on to richard brautigan. and after waiting on abbey to get off work, over several pints and shots we would talk of historical basbeall your or other goofy topics as abbey would call them.

the two girls had met at college downtown and needing roommates moved in together. abbey had been enrolled on and off and with the perpetual undecided major decided no more classes ever about a month before i arrived. jenny studied a good bit and had about a year left in school. they balanced each other out beautifully.

as for myself, i had made some adjustments in my life the months leading up to the move. i was feeling stagnate. twenty-nine years in one city and thirty being a loaded barrel pointed at me. i made a change. i had wirey build pot belly being the exception that made me resemble a catfish. i have 1950's vintage glasses and wear pearl snap shirts, jeans and hush puppies. i have an unkempt beard that looks as though i could pass for cat stevens and long hair i prefer to wear in a pony tail samurai style, and also a new york giants baseball cap. abbey and i called it vintage but we knew better it was affordable. jenny dressed smartly and had no ventalation in her jeans.

as quickly as i had gotten the job and had stumbled into the bar for the first time the three of us were inseparable. ecept when jenny had school work or classes to attend. those days more often than not abbey and myself would sit around the apartment, watch black and white noir films and get stoned. and it was those days that abbey and myself got closer.

nearly a year has passed. i now work at a secondhand bookstore and i've stopped living at the hostel. i now sleep on the roll out 1970's orange couch in their living room and pay a portion of the rent. it's a small one bedroom apartment in the city. the important thing is i don't come home to an empty apartment. jenny will be graduating soon and now has the bedroom to herself. abbey and i sleep on the couch. after graduation jenny plans to do what took me twenty-nine years to do. she's saved up some money and is moving to chicago. she said it had to be a baseball town. abbey and i have no plans to move anytime soon. we'll split the rent and abbey says we'll have plenty of room for more books once jenny moves. but she will be missed.

a year has passed now and we still talk to jenny a couple of times a month. she says she's coming to visit soon. once her job with the cubs and baseball season is over. abbey still works at the vesuvio cafe waiting tables. she still has all those piercings but her hair is now bleached blond. her pierced belly looks even more beautiful four months prenant. we'd stay up late at night discussing the future and possible names for the baby. we finally settled on gehrig for either sex. named after the greatest firstbaseman the great game has ever seen, lou gehrig. myself i still have long hair but my facial hair is at a minium and i still wear those same glasses.

i've now become quite the book dealer. i run the store when the owner is not there. i could always use more space but abbey was right we'd had enough room for more books and our apartment is sick with tewntieth century literature on shelves along the walls. there is a small hallway between the livingroom and the bedroom lined with modern library books, about five hundred in all, some firsts but not many. and there is a book of classic basbeall parks on the coffee table and a photography book of the texas hill country from the early part of the century on the end table. abbey has always been pretty and bright. her interests expand everyday. she still doesn't understand the first edition game. bernard malamu, she says reads as well in a paperback without the front cover as he does in a $3000 first printing. i can hear myself lecturing her, but as long as it's got all the words she says it doesn't matter. simply having such books in life in general and mccarthy in particular ffel good when break out ther beat up trade copies with dog ear pages and you know what you have when you pull your as new copy of blood merdian off the shelf.

when i'm not working at the bookstore i'm explaining the sacrifice bunt or hit and run to her as we watch a giants game on t.v.. we live a modest life. don't get out much and keep a small group of friends.

sometimes these days i find myself thinking of the collected short stories of carson mccullers picturing the cover of the paperback i was carrying around in my back pocket of my holy pants the first day i walked into the bar and met abbey.

i turn over in bed this morning and touch her belly, and smile.

burritos and rain

i've been carrying around these thoughts in my head now for about six months. i'm just now being able to scibble them down to try and make sense out of them. it sort of details my life and times as a resident of the city of san fransico.

it rains a lot here in san fransico. i knew this before i moved out here so it's not very surprising. but it still merits a complaint, just like the brutal texas heat does. every summer in texas it doesn't rain for 200 straight days and during that stretch the temperature tops 135 degrees on a regular basis. all the wretched while, the texas resident is in a constant lather, the local swimming pool is just a giant hot tub full of urinating children and sunscreen residue-truly not an adequate escape from the boiling caldren of the streets, and as accustomed to it as we are, we complain about it, like we didn't expect it.

in texas we have the annual heatwave, in san francisco there is rain, more rain and periodic fog that rolls in some mornings. such conditions make for lazy weekend days of television watching, reading, napping and boozing. so what the hell am i bitching for? it ain't such a bad life... i am getting settled in here now after taking several months. my bus is not as crowded as most, but makes frequent stops, making it difficult for me to read during my commute. like my friend kenny, i get motion sickness at the drop of a hat or the shift of a gear or the swerve of a wheel or the pounce of a brake...

burrito stands on every corner. well not really stands, but taquerias. the burritos here are good- possibly the best food i've had the pleasure of eating, well, scratch that. i cooked some pretty tasty chicken breasts the other night. but i digress. i haven't really journeyed beyond the burrito scene as far as mexican food goes. i am still very partial to tex-mex and the prospect of cal-mex frightens me a little bit, i will now take time out to issue the following PSA (as it relates to the subject of mexican food): if you're ever in san antonio, and you probably will be before me since i now reside in the city of san francisco. go check out the basement of the alamo and then go stuff yourself at mi tiaras near the riverwalk-the very best mexican food in the entire world. mi tiaras, no holds barred, serves up the best charrio beans, the best enchiladas, the best chile relleno, the best fajitas, the best tacos, the best carne asada, the best salsa, the best tortillas. let's see did i miss anything? oh, and the coldest negro modelo you have put in your oral cavity. and if your oral cavity forgets how good all of it was going down, your anal cavity will remind you when it's all on its way out.

on that sophomoric note and humor, i bid you adieu. wish you were here. i now have some reading to do, some coffee to make, a t.v. dinner to microwave, some nose hairs to clip and a semi fresh relationship to cotemplate.

sunshine acid

i am writing this two weeks into the new san francisco experience. have not yet been fired. then again i am a writer i cannot be fired, i am unpublished. then again, i sometimes free-lance write for the newspaper. since moving from texas i haven't been able to get a hold of any cheap lone star beer. it's dishearting. i was fired from my last job for drinking on the job though. but who needs those damned burocrats, anyway. one thing about my new job- climate control in my area is poor. need to purchase small fan to put on my desk. office taking on more of a sauna-like feeling. and i get hot easily anyway. as i peg away at sensitive keyboard, i sweat like a disgruntled migrant worker collecting sand for shopping mall ashtrays in the 120-degree heat of death valley in the days before smoking was banned in most pubilc places.

speaking of smoking its not good for you so don't smoke, stop. that's my PSA, something i will try to incorporate into my writings from the city of san francisco to loved ones, former loved ones and enstranged members of my defunct greenville avenue drinking tribe now residing with lost followers of the manson family and ex-membership service clerks of the defunct abba fan clubs in various municipalities nationwide.

so speaking of smoking you can't do it in restaurants or bars around here. on one hand, i have a problem with that seeing as i like to light up rolled tobacco on occasion in social settings like pubs, concert halls and houses of burlesque. but on the other hand, the california ban pn smoking in havens of public debauchery does provide a pleasant atmosphere for smokers and non smokers alike to pleasurably conduct the business of hard core drinking, shoulder-slapping, glad-handing and tall tale-spinning. its nice to not have to rub ones eyes in irritation while telling lies about my athletic prowess and relating bogus memories of my time spent as a scholarship student at the harvard business school to perfect strangers over cocktails. well, i've successfully murdered close to ten minutes i was scheduled to spend in a meeting concering my last music reviews for the newspaper. orginally scheduled for 3:30, but postponed until four. it is now 3:57, i pick up my satchel, i run now. as i left you.

standing on the corner screaming in the rain

my thoughts and adventures begin this week with a tale of a young man's cold and wet early morning commute to work in the cold and wet city of san francisco on a day when he forgot his umbrella and almost lost any sanity that remains within the four walls of his mind after all the pollutants he has put in his body through the years, not to mention all of the pointless, unimportant baseball knowledge he has imbibed from countless hours spent in front of the television, pollutant resting in hand, pollutant resting in nearby ashtray, soaking up the sights and sounds and metaphysical powers of the phenomenon we know as baseball tonight.

NOTE: this week a few unwilling and unsuspecting persons connected to the writer in some form or fashion, probably much to their shame or regret, join the legions of unwilling readers to this semi-frequent writer rant is forced upon without warning or apology.

before i continue with the new and most unfortunate things of my life in the city of san francisco and chronicles of my adventures (both real and surreal) in my new home, the city of san francisco. because my dog, chewbecca, no longer resides with me, but in texas, i no longer have a captive audience to vomit my many thoughts upon. that's where these rants come in. consider yourself important, you have taken the place of my dog.

anyway, i leave my apartment this morning and it's gushing rain. ordinarily, i would run back upstairs and grab my umbrella. only my umbrella wans't upstairs, it was at work. so i shrugged my shoulders and marched on. by the time the bus arrived to pick me up, i was drenched. the windbreaker i have been using as a raincoat proved about as useful as a condom in a monastery. as the bus approached downtown, it grew more and more obvious the rain had no immediate plans of letting up. it was if mother nature was determined to piss all over me for being a decidedly militant litterbug as a cub scout. by the time i arrived at work, i was soaked through. and as i write these words to you at 11:38 PST, my pants are still soaked in that most discomfort.

this story begs the question-why should i care?
answer-define "care" and then ask the question again.

which brings me to this weeks PSA: if you listen to yourself, what you just read might sound eerily similar to some of the things you feel the need to dump on co-workers, boy or girlfreinds, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, etc. on a regular basis things that those people really could care less about hearing, things that, during the course of hearing, allow their minds run adrift and think about something else, anything esle but what garbage you are dumping on them but so adrift that they are unable to issue such periodic acknowledgements as a nod, an "oh, uh-huh," a "really," or a "oh yea," "i know tell me about it." communication, or the lack thereof, is the cause of most of our problems, from war to divorce to business failure to the dissolving of friendship. the relationships we have are sacred, those with friends, lovers and work colleagues. it's vital we realize as listeners that whatever the teller or crower is saying. and if that person is important to us, we should lend not just our ears, but our minds to hearing he or she out, no matter the subject.

it is also vital as the crower that we realize the limitations of the listeners attention span. this should be easy since all crowers also function as listeners and vice-versa. we always function as one or the other. now then let it roll off your shoulders, i raise my glass of glen fiddich, here's to a better world, a world void of communication breakdown, thus a world void of war, of divorce, of premature ejaculation.

putting the years to bed

the ghosts of my past sit on bar stools of dive bars across the globe
and crush out lit cigarettes into ashtrays and down vodka tonics
and i have never been one to wear pressed trousers
or shiny polished buttons on a nice three piece suit

nowdays a better choice for me is to sip red wine at home
read the daily comics and mix and match a faded plaid shirt
with a arglye sweater with courdory pants
or button a baseball jersey of a past hero up and wait for dinner

and the wine of youth is as flimsy as a cocktail dress on a whore

i was drunk and no one could tell me otherwise and i played catch with myself and my rawlings glove

2006-11-10T21:21:00.000-05:00

97 days until pitchers and catchers

the unknown truth about us and paul simon

three guys sat at a bar
and talked about how they were the coolest hipsters on the scene
they were unknown writers, knew their shit
and could converse with anyone about lou gehrig to the string theory

the bartender came by and asked them what they were talking about
"just how we are the coolest hipsters on the scene," one said
"i can see you brought your fan club," the bartender replied
as he looked around and saw no one around them
"see she doesn't even know!" he said

"exactly, how many people would play diamonds on the soles of her shoes
by paul simon in an irish pub besides us?" i replied

you can bring me flowers

just because your beautiful doesn't make you interesting
inhale the atmosphere of people being different
figure out there is no connection
no truth and meaning to life

just take in the simplicities
read a book
go to a baseball game and eat a hot dog and stand
and stretch during the seventh inning stretch
lay in the grass in a park on your vacation
a piece of key lime pie

or learn how to play the kuzoo

the weekly shower

this afternoon i was showering with my old lady
she looked at me and laughed and said
"baby you can't be as old as you are."
"why," i replied
"because you're such a kid." she said
and i drifted off to trading baseball cards again
riding my bike down to woodards pond,
comic books, passing notes to girls in class,
rollerskating on saturday night
and riding in the backseat of mom's brown chevrolet
and dad turning up the radio to an old buddy holly tune

i laughed and lathered up

if i'd have worn a different shirt i'd have been in the picture

light the candles and flash the camera
flip over the matchbook and jot a number down
rumage into your front left pocket of your off plaid pearl snap shirt
and dig out your lucky strikes
you'll have a vodka cranberry as dinner

with this you're just out of the frame

a novel sitting on the nightstand

pierced and tattooed
bare feet in blue jeans with sliver polished toes
she reads a worn down paperback novel in bed
and drinking something out of a straw

she keeps peering over her book at me
then back to her book
the perfect arch conforming gently against the arm of the couch
she keeps staring at me over the worn down paperback novel

not being able to focus on my short stories by paul bowles
asking if she's read any of his other novels
one thing leads to another
falling back after relieving the stress in both of us
i start to drift off

still seeing those sliver toes propped over my shoulders
and that tom robbins novel sitting on the nightstand

smoking procedures

there are 73 of us that work in the bookstore
31 of us smoke
24 of us don't
and 18 of us smoke on occasion generally after we've been drinking

the 31 that smoke must go outside
for there is no smoking in the bookstore
somedays its cold and the smokers must put on a coat
and scarf and brave the cold

the 24 of us that don't smoke tell
the 18 of us that smoke on occasion
when their walking past the window
that they must be thinking to themselves

i'm glad i haven't had a few drinks

i thought only mighty mouse could save the day

a man in maine was returning home from the store at dusk
when two men armed with knives approached him
and demanded his wallet
he refused and one of the men jabbed a pocket knive at his smomach

the man being assalted used a milk jug as a shield
the knife pierced the plastic milk jug
and the assailant retreated
the man then whacked him on the head with the quickly emptying jug

the two men fled the scene in a car
and the man walked peacefully home
thinking of mighty mouse
and how a gallon of milk saved his life

he laughed out loud and said
"i guess milk does do the body good"

if a few words would have been different

for as long as he could remember he'd been writing his whole life for this chance
from the months leading up to the judges letting the rest of the literary world
know the three finalists and the moment the winner was announced, victor tremont
did more than write his way into history.

junius worth, one of three finalists,
suffered a set back known by many literary figures before him.
for victor tremont, then a 32-year-old author, writing "jesus rides beside me but
doesn't buy any smokes," meant winning the pulitzer prize for fiction in 1997. but for junius worth, his book "all i gots two fives," about a bartenders exploits of banging waitresses in public restrooms--left him an entirely different legacy.

those who knew him say he never recovered from missing the pulitzer that fateful year because he was never nominated again. mr. worth was a "wordsmith, his prose was only matched by hemingway in this century,: said mr. dillard, a literary critic for over 35 years. " but
that particular year he, along with the other finalists were over shadowed by mr. tremonts book. which happens to be the best novel in the last 15 years."

his wife, abbey, attributes not winning that year "an accident of timing, a twist of fate," he always said. he had been writing his whole life for that moment. "it was my best work. but i didn't get it."

he was a perfectionist, enslaved to details and committed to writing several hours a day.
he often told his wife, "life is all about timing." through the years he wrote several great short story books and did win the flannery o'conner award for short fiction in 1993 with a book titled
"wait just a second i've got correct change and other stories." but like many writers winning
the pulitzer would valadate his career.

his publisher remembers that, right after reading the book, he said, "this is the one that could take the pulitzer," and it was and still is a great book.

but from that moment on, mr. worth "was never quite the same, and never has as much confidence in himself," says his wife, who descibes him as "feeling let down. by fate. timing, i guess. after losing he felt like, why have i woked and struggled so hard to finally get the book written and then not get it?"

his editor remembers mr. worth as being "bitterly disappointed...that he didn't get more recognition. but mr. tremont's book is clearly the better book. things like that happen in this business, but he just couldn't deal with it." mr. tremont says, he wrote the "perfect" book, "and you have to give him credit for that."

obviously, mr. tremont's is judged to be better by all standards, and that's a shame because mr. worths book was and is great.

john mcknight agrees. he had been a pulitzer juror before, "if i would have been judging that year i would have been tempted to give a double award,: he says.
"both once in a lifetime books."

but mr. worth never felt redeemed. he died with a depression that went untreated. and wht? was he depressed? his wife claims, "it was mostly due to not winning the award that year."

the once-eager writer became a man with "no drive," she says. instead of writing being the passion it always was, it quickly became "just a job." a tendency toward being insane grew worse and worse by the year. "junius somehow felt god cheated him," she says.

whatever the cause, in the years after finding out he didn't win. he alwaysw had a complex. he drank harder, and chain smoked. mr. tremonts book was sought after from all over the world. and published in fourteen languages. and he made a lot of money. junius just had to sit back and take it, never fully compreding, i suppose, that it was merely timing, and there was nothing he could do about it. mr. worth was this great prose writer who took writing seroiusly. this was his way of life. he truly was a great writier.

mr. tremont has gotten to revel in his newfound celebrity. but after his book won, he found each book being judged by a harsher standard. every book he wrote was measured against fictions ultimate award and his first book. he estimates he has made tens of thousands of dollars off the book and was optioned for a movie. and he signed a new three book deal.

just a few months have passed since the mentally depressed junius worth "completely lost it" and shot himself with a rifle just as, hemingway, the man they compared his prose to did in 1961.

16 feet of freedom, jay farrar is my personal god and i watch atom ant religiously

2006-11-04T18:48:00.000-05:00

103 days until pitchers and catchers, more new ones and the last one are the vows from my wedding day

six feet of darkness

sometimes it comes and taps you on the shoulder
others it creeps up while you are murdering time
occasionally it hits you like a passenger train
as you drink a beer slumped down on the couch watching a baseball game
but it always comes in some form or fashion
and you pray to someone or anything that might listen

passing out with hemingway on your chest
hoping the sun will rise soon
but the time comes when it is easier to pass away
quietly in the night than to hope for impossible things

or loneliness

early in the morning
late at night
he would talk to the walls or shadows
after several drinks
and he would field questions from either or himself

barron
desolate
solitary confined
except for the bars

and the sun creeps through the blinds
like a criminal
and wonders through the day
nothing to do
nowwhere to go
no one to see

he walks the streets
cars, people, bikes fly by as if standing still
and he is not there
so as the sun sinks down again
he is now back inside his house and there's a knock at the door
turning up the radio
lights a non filtered lucky strike cigarette

it's night or loneliness

the dead minds of men, skim milk and the young lolita

it was raining and we were at a coffee shop downtown
you with your latte with skim milk and i straight black joe
we sat at a table near the front
"via chicago" by wilco came on the jukebox
we got up and walked to the middle of the front and danced

i thought about the moment and how it could be the start of something
shortly thereafter, you collapsed around my way of life
the innocense of your young body would lay next to my naked one
your pedals cloaked over me like a flower

we couldn't get any closer
and seeing your pictures now
takes me there
to then

you wearing my cowboy hat with your horned rim glasses
it was a different time and place
nothing else mattered
except when the next time we were going to see one another

it was poetry and everything else

all the sweethearts of the world are out littering the bars

as i lay in bed hungover
someone outside my window yelled out
"it sure is a typical, beautiful spring day."
and i thought back to the night before as i rolled over
about how three beautifully tanned girls at the bar
signed their tabs at the end of the night
as if they were synchronized swimmers

WEDDING VOWELS

without you, dearest dearest i couldn't see or hear or feel or think-or live-
i love you so and i'm never in all our lives going to let us be apart another night.

-zelda to f. scott

if you are not too long, i will wait here for you all my life.

-oscar wilde

as the years go by

i'm not writing this in a dark chicago blues bar
or from a boat basking in the sun off the florida keys
or even the right field bleachers of beautiful and elegant fenway park
although i have seen and been to all three

i am writing these futile words
just a few meager days before our wedding day
in our house that because of you now makes a home
where i have the nightly pleasure of hunkering down into bed next to you
after an evening of watching baseball, you knitting by my side
and of course the daily comics

and i should know who i am by now
but i feel i'm leading someone else's life somehow
yesterday i played the part of ted hughes
and you are sylvia plath
i hand you robe as you step from the bath

last week i was a six toed hemingway cat
living at his home in key west
and meowing at all the tourists
trying to tell them stories

two months ago on a hot summer day
i was a man in his mid-to-late fifties mowing his yard
wearing a brooklyn dodgers t-shirt
and thinking back on october 5, 1955
when vin scully spoke the words he had waited most of his life to hear
"ladies and gentlemen, the brooklyn dodgers are the champions of the world."
and on october 8, 1957
leaving a sad, broken hearted 10 year-old boy behind

and fifty some odd years ago
i was kerouac sitting in cafe trieste in north beach
having an espresso
and pondering "on the road"

today i lead my life as an aging hipster
with a pynchon for indie films, fiction literature and baseball
i now see the backside of six a.m. rather than the front
i drink oceans of coffee to come up
and vineyards of red wine to come down
i drape myself like wallpaper with the daily comics
i pull my trousers up high
buckle my belt tight and wear hush puppies
and worship at the alter of buddy holly

i am surrounded by two indoor cats
a dog that's six pounds of dynamite
and several feral cats who we have conveniently
or inconveniently named and feed on occasion
for when there are no mice to catch

and although age doesn't matter
i want to apologize in advance
for probably not making it to our 50th wedding anniversary
but i will try my best
in the mean time take solace in the road getting there

and when i am very old
and you have to help me with the crossword puzzle
you filling in the letters
rat, pig, bucky and satchel will no longer be in the daily comics
you will read me the new characters of the day

and many years from now when you are still my young beautiful bride
and it my time to go
you are holding my hand, my baseball glove is on the other
and my rangers cap on my head
i will tell you i am too young to die

but that you were the greatest double play partner one could ever have

i've gotten an old lady, my dog has a wardrobe and i past a lady driving and reading the bible in the car next to me and smoking a cigarette

2006-10-28T21:03:00.000-04:00

so after all that and the fact another baseball season passes and no world series trophy for my poor pathetic rangers but hey my buddy jay is happy the cardinals have brought home their 10th trophy to st. louis and it had been since 1982 for them. so congrats to them it's always good to see a team that hasn't won it in a while bring one home to their fans. especially great baseball ones like the cardinals have. so this off season as i ponder the 2007 rangers rotation. i will still kneel next to my bed every single night and pray to the baseball gods that next year will finally be the year. this will be a giant off season for the rangers with trying to hire a new manager and putting a contender together and signing the right free agents. so with all this maybe i will get back to blogging more so the two readers i have can have something new to read on more frequent occasions.

a new one &
110 days until pitchers and catchers

the woman at the bar is going to be yesterday's news

it's a greek tragedy or at least the events seem to be a writer of tragedies
very rarely do you see it
but sometimes and i hate to see it happen
grown bartenders crying
it's usually the waitresses
on a bad tip night or they're a month late

sip your scotch and water
that slut made too strong
she kills with kindness
then douses you in gasoline and lights you aflame

leaning against the bar
he'd talk as if knowing ernest hemingway
after the shift she has a small glass of wine
her cigarette smoke coiled upward from the ashtray

somewhere a girlfriend opens her legs
and gives him meaning
that's what you love her for
and when your sister visits
tell her it was just an accident

you were cold
i was colder

avenues

i haunt used bookstores looking for old magazines
in which the elusive j.d. salinger might appear
and i lap up hemingway's 88 poems as though a dog were at his waterbowl
he writes one dated key west 1935
as this one could be dated san francisco 2006

while you lay in bed half asleep our last night here
i sit in the buena vista
the first irish coffee house in the u.s.
peoples voices hang like smoke at the bar
and the golden gate bridge sits over my right shoulder to north beach at eleven o'clock

ordering bailey's and cofffee of course i think how i can never be your
ted hughes, raymond carver or even tom wolfe the lesser
and back in santa fe at the table next to us one morning, our first there
i overheard a women say baseball lends itself to the moment-a particular moment
more so than any other sport

i finished my last bailey's and coffee and paid the tab like many nights before
and thinking about what the women in santa fe had said
reminded me of something robert frost said "poets, are like baseball pitchers.
both have their moments. the intervals are the tough things."

the elevated train clatters toward wrigley field and the conductor monotones "addison is next, and stand clear of the opening doors, it's a beautiful day for a ballgame."
hours earlier in new york the yankees are playing in the house that ruth built
and in boston johnny pesky waves to the fans as he throws out the first pitch
as trains in those cities drop off fans near those sacred ballparks

i button my coat as i leave the warmth of the bar
the streets here run as grids
and the ballpark is downtown
and there's so many cafes they punch drunk you

i walk to the cable car exchange
and wonder how in a free society
some people don't want to experience a hot dog at the ball park
or the seventh inning stretch

i hum "take me out to the ballgame" as i pay my fare

rocky and bullwinkle were the precursor to the simpsons and i pound my mitt nightly

2006-07-23T03:27:00.000-04:00

the rangers are so close to first and this poem is so new as me pushing the publish post button.

whenever you are ready, i will follow

the weekend you were gone
i covered that particular saturday morning
with rocky and bullwinkle & friends
& an old billy wilder movie "the lost weekend"

i sipped my coffee, with contentment to be alive
content to be a part of something
choked down my spinach scone
and petted the cats

later that afternoon i was off for my usual early evening jog
it hasn't rained much here lately
but today it did but only for a short while
and when it did i thought about that unusually short stay in paris
for hemingway, nine days, in 1934 when he met katherine anne porter for the first time

it had been an early cold, evening
when sylvia beach introduced them inside
the ledendary shakespeare and company
he rushed in wearing an old raincoat
and a floppy hat pulled over his eyes
as she and katherine were chatting
and told him
i want the two best modern american writers to know one another
standing still, hemingway looked hard and expressionless at porter

though time has proven that that their skills
as short story writers are equal
he felt challenged yet again and offended
to have this unknown writer & a woman compared to him
she thought to herself she had seen all the bullfights she had wanted to she in her lifetime
she preferred joyce, yeats and james as writers

they faced each other for a full ten seconds
and not exchanging a word
he turned silently
and hemingway bolted into the rain from the shop

during my jog
i stumbled across a tattered copy of ralph waldo emerson's essays
in the dirt
it was quite the romantic find
when i got home i read it & started to underline it immediately

tonight i dream of how it would be to sit
in front of my underwood typewriter
to tell the reader when my feet stopped pounding the pavement
every single night to the bars
i got a call from hemingway himself
telling me thanks for all the extra booze that was now available

i'm staying in at night
a newly mellowed recluse, i told him
that's good enough for me
so i'm turning the streets back over to you, hemingway

sunday morning, coffee for one
and the lonely breakfast table starts the day
my cereal sits getting soggy by the minute as bucky and satchel try and make me laugh
and this morning i realized i don't want to be here anymore

fed up with the situation
i want to be in the south of france serving some snobby frenchman
overpriced lattes and scones in a cafe
and after work be able to climb on my bike
meet you at our small apartment
and get drunk on cheap french red wine

but i sit here on a sunday morning in america, alone
thinking of how i murdered my last few hours of my 33rd year
ordering a scotch and water that was well above my head at that point
and how there will never be another new calvin and hobbes

i think about punching the wall because i am so old
i promise not to punch too carelessly
and how i would scrape together all my nickels to buy success
if i ever had the chance to write like raymond carver

i finish the sunday comics
this time without much laughter
rat and pig have proved futile
and as i finish off my afternoon
listening to vin scully call the dodgers game as i doze off on the couch

i know already my life with you has been beyond beyond
and there's nothing beyond life i'm seeking
i just don't want to leave it behind
although i wouldn't mind being dead

if i could still be with you

three reasons god made trees: to give us books, to give us baseball bats and to give us shade to read books about baseball

2006-06-24T19:35:00.000-04:00

just as god created adam and eve. the beginning ones.

second best

i was drunk again late one night
lying in bed trying to sleep
feeling as if a cat had shit in my mouth
when the guy who lives across the street
started yelling at his girlfriend outside
cussing at her and then pushed her down
i watched this go on for several minutes
possibly going over and punching his lights out
but then he would know where i live
so i rolled over and caressed the girl next to me
the next morning the phone rang

and it was my girlfriend
at that moment i knew i was just as wrong as the guy across the street

i bet she's pierced as well

i noticed a girl in a cotton dress
at a bar downtown
and she would be absolutely beautiful if she'd left
the tattoo shop an hour earlier

insomniac alcoholic

he held the soaked drenched sheets with his trembling hands
as he lay there admiring a picture of marilyn monroe
on the wall at four in the morning
with an empty high ball glass next to his bed on the nightstand

up stand the crown

the ashtray says he'd been up all night
and he smashed another butt out at 7:13 A.M.
opened the icebox for another vodka and swallowed it down in a cracked cup
after another day and night in dismal paradise

three martinis, fourteen white russians, twenty-seven cigarettes
and a scrapped up back from being pulled along the street by a friend
because he wouldn't get out of the middle of the road
after his vodka he got in his car, not even changing clothes

drove to the bar that allows drunks to come around at seven in the morning
drains his eyes and wipes them on his shirt sleeve
as he pulls in the parking lot
he opens the back door, sits down at the bar and puts another drink to his mouth

fumbles in his pocket for a cigarette he looks like a train wreck killing 53 people
typical state
he finishes his drink and orders another round
should have stopped hours ago

but he just can't stop

please send the priests and paramedics

i stay up writing and it's 4 A.M.
no one wants to listen or to try and understand
the neon signs outside the bar appear as christmas lights to me
and everything recreational for me
all comes down to the drinks, the drugs, the women
and the nights in a bar downtown that invade my life on a regular basis

these virtues make up everything that stitches my soul together
but few people like me yearn for the cities darkened moral fabric
i think back to earlier in the evening
looking at pathetic patrons of the bar
wondering when does it change
times, thoughts, and the effervescence that dictates the turmoil that is my existence

and at around 12:30 A.M. lucille the waitress brings me a budweiser
she is in her seventies and cannot hear
she reads lips
but i had asked for a shiner bock
my friend was drinking budweiser
she gave it to him and said that she just drove him to drink
i told her she had just led a horse to water is all

as last call was over the neon lights dimmed against us
like the fading memory of an old carmen miranda movie
it's now 4:22 A.M. and raining again
as i finished that last sentence

and the masses are asleep

i need to discontinue to stopping my car like fred flintstone

2006-06-17T19:28:00.000-04:00

alas, another new one. if you can read this please comment

i would follow you into the dark

this morning although i am not sitting there at a table
having a waitress with a foreign name bring it to me
i drink cafe du monde coffee
so instead of beignets, i have apple and cinnamon oatmeal
with a side of berries and cream yogurt
all the while, i sit and pour over
the weekly movie section of the paper
trying to figure out which indie i will take in this weekend

another part of me feels saddened
by the fact that calvin's parents could never see hobbes
as nothing more than a stuffed tiger
i take another sip of cafe du monde coffee
look up and vision numberous strangers walking slowly by
on their way to the next point of destination in the french quarter
and local artists applying their particular craft
around the park in front of the st. louis cathedral there

and i think how i wear my hush puppies
as if they were $200 winged tipped shoes
and until you walk a mile in them
you cannot have any idea
what it is like to slide into bed at night next to you
lay your head down and know
the mona lisa weeps for your beauty out of envy
that the sun rises and sets
knowing it cannot compete with you

i will tell you this
all relationships die
some quicker than others
for instance my putting pen to paper
this is it
these are the last words i will write down

i can no longer tolerate melville sitting up in his grave
and laughing at me hysterically
so tonight in honor of melville and all the others
i will light a cigarette and take another sip of a 4-in-the-morning beer
i only put pen to paper now to echo these final words to you

i am embarrassed by my sentimentality and paltry poet within me

i don't believe even a hobo would eat lindsey lohan's ham sandwich

2006-05-25T21:06:00.000-04:00

another new one, enjoy.

the ballpark is lonely after the game when the crowd leaves
and i drink good coffee in the morning

these crooked words of poetry
lay down on the page
as simple as clark kent is able to change
into superman in the phone booth

i stare at framed pictures of the "say hey kid," musial, aaron,
mantle, nellie fox, jackie robinson and other baseball heroes
of my fathers generation as they lay quietly
on the pale white walls in my apartment

i sit with my hands folded in my lap
on top of "the complete poems" of anne sexton
with frayed cuffs on my trousers
a terribly colored plaid pearl snap shirt and hush puppies

recalling how i made my way into a secondhand bookstore
not far from the home of hemingway when he lived in key west
and all the books in my house sit motionless and hardly examined
on their shelves like photos of dead relatives
dearly loved and deeply missed
that the wall of books between myself and the world gets taller every year

i thought of an empty ballpark
with just myself, my dad
and the baseball heroes of his generation
playing catch

i doze off and dream that i'd died
and people of genuine achievement would get noticed
while the media would stop rewarding the spectacular idiocy
with fame and fortune
that my book was found among my things
and in the years that followed of my life
i became famous

i want to be famous
larger than life
i want to walk down any street in smalltown america
be spotted and have that person believe i'm bigger than the pope

i snap to
thinking about my favortie hitchcock movies
had been "rear window," "rope," and "north by northwest"
how i'd seen each one a dozen times or more
or how i usually fall asleep at my desk
and wake when the cat
stalks off at the first sign of daylight

and whenever i went out to play
my mother knew exactly where i was going to be
playing catch
against the garage wall

and the fact when i was a kid
one summer
i wore my superman underoos
for 44 straight days

i get up and walk into the kitchen
where you are clanging morning dishes around
coffee is brewing
and the comics sit on top of the rest of the paper

i put my hand around your neck
like eva marie saint does to cary grant
in the train car scene in "north by northwest"
i then pour another cup of coffee

and i tell you these things an artist friend once told me
"dead poets are like dead artists,
the great ones worked themselves to death,
copping out is a waste of time."
and poems in a way are spells against death
they are milestones
to see where you were then from now

i took a sip of coffee and said,
"do you know that when i was a kid i promised myself one thing?
that i was never going to stop playing catch when i grow up."
and with that i went into the bedroom, grabbed two gloves
and we headed to the front yard

i stink of baseball and i can't believe the fact charlie brown let lucy swipe the football out from under his feet all these years

2006-05-22T21:31:00.000-04:00

and with that here is a new one

give me a moment

i'm not going to sit here and tell you about how coffee might become
extinct if not for a waitress in a cafe in thoreau, new mexico
or how it smells like a fifty foot long breakfast table
or how simple life is like driving through new mexico in a borrowed jeep,
sitting next to a girl
that has been done, and we have richard brautigan to thank for that

but i will tell you about is how a copy of
"everything that rises must converge," by flannery o'connor
sits on a shelf in a second hand bookstore in santa fe, new mexico
and that jim harrison and ted kooser spoke at a poetry reading on
san francisco street on wednesday night

or julie the waitress with a voice that sounded like a liquor cabinet
filtered through a cigarette holder kept bringing you, specialty martinis
and i glasses of red wine
how our coffee cups from this morning rest comfortable in a cup holder
or the bottoms of my grey corduroy pants are caked with red clay dirt
from the indian pueblo

it has been said sometimes you leave a good woman for a bad one
in this case that is not possible
but i know one day you might possibly look at me and ask yourself
what am i doing with this aging hipster
at least i can remember you through "pearls before swine"
and that is love before and after the inevitable fall

tonight i think of a friend i haven't spoken to in over two years
simon and garfunkel's "bleecker street", ernie banks and let's play two
and how when your pants are down around your ankles that's when
everyone arrives, never a moment before when you might
have been in a position to receive them
i tried to steady myself against the wall

as i think of what john gardner said to raymond carver, "read all the faulkner you can get your hands on, and then read all of the hemingway to clean the faulkner out of your system."
and if i were hemingway i should go to paris and eat ketchup and fried potatoes,
write the great american novel and be done with it
and suicide is what hemingway and all the other writers do when the world gets so out of focus
they can no longer commit anything to paper

perhaps a great poet would have died young
like jesus for instance, he was a great poet
his stuff was apparently so important it is now written in red
after this life if there's anything
the first thing i want to do when i wake up is field ground balls from second base

and she is the photographer with great snapshots of our past
i try to make phrases that come out broken
onto a blank page to form poetry
and like philosophy, poetry is subjective
different forms speak differently to individuals

but know this, since i am the one putting pen to paper at this moment
i can tell you this

this, this is not poetry

i was in the beer line during the seventh inning stretch

2006-04-27T15:12:00.000-04:00

i have finally climbed out of a nine week long whiskey sour. i have worked on a few new items for those of you who care. which looks like not many since no one has left any hate mail comments about my whereabouts. and as any good american knows the great game of baseball has started and you will find the rangers only a game out of first place, as poorly as they have started. i can tell you only this. i have moved into a three bedroom house with the woman i am going to marry, been to nine baseball games, wrote some new poems, losing a great friend to the city of san antonio next week, consumed vineyards of red wine and like i said got lost in a huge whiskey sour. and with that some new poems, some reworked poems and such. but first a baseball quote that should have been left on opening day.

"there is no sports event like opening day of baseball, the sense of beating back the forces of darkness and the national football league."

author george vecsey

the art of drowning

i cannot see you from the next room
but i can hear you
whenever you cry in the bedroom late at night
or when you set your diet coke down on the coffee table

i am not thinking of how late i am running this morning to work
with no conceivable way of reading the morning paper
or a short story by carson mccullers as her collected stories ride
beside me in the passenger side seat

today i think of you my own personal version of virginia woolfe
and good morning mrs. dalloway and how i am a thin as a reed
writer banging away at his typewriter
with his torn cardigan describe and move scenes and characters along

i wait, hunkered down thinking i'm hidden under pale, green corduroy pants
and a faded black t-shirt that reads "god bless johnny cash"
hoping to make a connection with you the way one might hope to be connected
by a long chain of handshakes to lou gehrig or f. scott fitzgerald

knowing this precise moment is the once every two months
where for a short while you you can no longer cope
and i take my arms and wrap them around you
hoping to take away some of the pain

hoping you know that i am fighting the depression with you

the dive bar napkin chronicle

i'm writing this hungover as hell from last night
it feels like an alley cat shit in my mouth
i sit at a bar at an undisclosed watering hole on greenville
it's 10:14 in the morning
there is spicy bloody mary at my disposal
and a bottle of aspirin in my messenger bag
bob the bartender asks "what the hell happened to you last night?"
i flip him off and tell him the world was going to end this morning
and to just serve my beer and mind his own damn business
opening a can of worms
he preceded to bend my ear
"i remember when i was your age. i'd be doing the same thing you're doing. diving face first into a hangover to piece together the events of the previous night. that's what i was doin' alright."
"nobody fuckin' asked what you were doin'," i said.
"sittin' in a bar before 11A.M. drinkin' with the other derelicts of lower greenville. you look like death came to your door this morning to relish in that hangover you got," he said.
"yeah, well i left a note saying i was back at the bar and to come back later," i replied

twelve hours later i sent my tab through and signed over my $43.50
a cab was called
i went home
and fully clothed i passed out
waiting for death to come knocking with roses in its mouth

tabasco on eggs over easy

it's funny some days in the morning
you pull out
and splash down onto beautiful flowers
below
then you go make breakfast and drink coffee

most of the time it's hard to find a friend

the sacrifice of inhibition
the sacrament of scotch
queen size mattress the alter
take off your clothes
this is holy ground

the girl who didn't like tom robbins style of writing

the boy was wearing a pair of saggy-kneed tan trousers
a holy blue t-shirt that read "jay farrar is my personal god" on the front
and light brown hush puppies
he had a big bushy beard that looked as a raccoon had passed out on his face
and glasses that resembled the style worn back in the sixties
usually a cigarette drooped from his mouth and tonight was no different
and his thin lips seemed too relaxed to hold it but they were quite the contrary

just as he stood there at the jukebox feeding it coins
flipping through songs of people he lived vicariously through
thinking there was a time that he had had a television set
and the last night he had it he was on the couch with his girlfriend
watching the foreign film channel
one of those subtitled deals where as soon as you finish reading the bottom of the screen
the pictures changed and right in the middle of a scene
she turned to me and said i want you to move out
at the moment a girl taps him on the shoulder and says don't i know you

the evening was full of shooting pool
him drinking cheap red wine and smoking non-filtered lucky strike cigarettes
and her being patient with his clumsy, foolish ways
as the night progressed he would recite her lines from books he thought she wouldn't have read
but she knew all along and played along because it was his way of pursuing
the late night had her driving him to her home because he was to drunk to drive
and she wanted company

stomping out the last cigarette out with his foot outside her house
inside she made him a turkey sandwich on wheat and soon thereafter
he passed out on the couch with a half eaten sandwich
she just giggled at his snoring, took the leftover sandwich, threw it away
and went upstairs to bed

awaking early the next morning, walking without briefly knowing his surroundings
not yet understanding what was left behind
headed to where knowing he could recover his thoughts
just after finishing breakfast lifted his two-thirds empty pack of non-filtered lucky strikes
from his pearl snap shirt front pocket and with it fell a piece of paper
he tapped the butt end on the table and lifted it to his mouth
first ones always best
stared at the piece of paper, put it back in his pocket
thinking we'll see the spectacle i made of myself last night later
after a nap he showered, watched jeopardy, read awhile then call

he thought the conversation went off as if butching an easy ground ball
after weeks of dating and generally wearing plaid shirts with a different style plaid sweaters,
vintage trousers and hush puppies she could tell he walked confident in lazy clothes
one night after consuming many glasses of red wine and she had eaten like fifteen christmas cookies at a party they went back to her place
after getting ready for bed
he read "when they were very young" by A.A. Milne
a prequel to winnie the pooh as she fell asleep
he whispered softly in her ear
you commandeered my heart long ago

and with that he got up and went downstairs to the kitchen
to eat the two leftover christmas cookies they brought home from their party

that sells for a few dollars at a time

look at the blossoming young flowers against the wall
standing under my spare art work
that sells for a few dollars at a time
they talk and laugh
and drink on daddy's credit card
a toast to them
what are they talking about?
who knows?
a promotion, someone's engagement, a life altering experience, nothing of importance?
nothing i care about?
bartender another drink for christs sake
and another toast to the blossoming young flowers against the wall
standing under my spare art work
that sells for a few dollars at a time

if i could i would flee the scene

so a few years ago i started writing
and without much talent
and writers need depression, anxiety, trauma to draw inspiration
but that's not my point

the wealthy keep artists around to amuse them
make'em laugh, they're eccentric friend
something like a fucking novelty act
folks will all explain to them

but they don't understand our kind
but the thing to remember is that artists are magical beings
and gods and artists are the only people who can grant another person immortality
live forever
and everyone wants to be like a god right?
whether they admit to it or not

the first signs of spring as the boys of summer report

2006-02-19T19:00:00.000-05:00

since pitchers and catchers have reported here are a few quotes about americas pastime. now only 9 days until the first spring training game.

"it's great to be young and a yankee."
-waite hoyt, yankees pitcher

"if you're not having fun in baseball, you miss the point of everything."
-chris chambliss, braves first baseman

"my high salary for one season was forty-six thousand dollars and a cadillac.
if i were to get paid a million, i'd feel that i should sweep out the stadium every night
after i finished playing the game."
-duke snider, dodgers outfielder

"the whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology."
-bernard malamud, author

"you see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end
it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."
-jim bouton, pitcher

"baseball is a lot like life. the line drives are caught,
the squibbers go for baseb hits. it's an unfair game."
-roger kanehl, mets infielder

"it's designed to break your heart. the game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face teh fall alone."
-a. bartlett giamatti, former baseball commissioner

"when i think of a stadium, it's like a temple. it's religious."
-jim lefebvre, giants coach

"the new definition of a heathen is a man who has never played baseball."
-elbert hubbard, author

"what's important is that baseball, after twenty-eight years of artificial turf
and expansion and the designated hitter and drugs and free agency
and thousand-dollar bubble gum cards, is still a gift given by fathers to sons."
-michael chabon, author

"baseball is the only thing besides the paper clip that hasn't changed."
-bill veeck, baseball executive

"baseball is dull only to dull minds."
-red smith, sportswriter

the one constant in all america is baseball

2006-02-15T00:01:00.000-05:00

it is exactly 12 hours central time until pitchers and catchers. i personally got ready by playing catch today and warming up the old arm. i can taste the stale beer, smell the hot dogs and hear the sound of the mitt popping as the ball hits the glove. as of tomorrow starts the run of every team reporting to spring training over the course of the next 3 days. hope springs eternal and every team is optimistic about playing in october. over the last two seasons the red sox and white sox have gotton rid of so called curses. whose turn will it be this season. god willing let it be the rangers. until tomorrow when i wake up with a renewed pep in my step. for tonight i will sleep in full rangers gear with glove and hat in hopes the baseball gods smile down on me in hopes of a great season. hopefully the rangers and i will see you in october.

no joke, spring is just about here. spring baseball is around the corner with pitchers and catchers reporting in less than 3 days

2006-02-12T22:57:00.000-05:00

last week i witnessed the dallas symphony orchestra perform the music to star wars. it was the first movie i ever saw in the theatre. my father took me back in 1977. i was like a five year old again as the main theme was belted out by the 70 piece orchestra and 30 piece choir. i absolutely teared up. now a couple of sketchy, early poems before i dive into my favorite part of the day, the daily comics

spark

this is being written down
moments after we have had sex
for the final time
you don't know this yet
your gentle head rests on your pillow sleeping

it's nothing you've done
or haven't done
it's not anything you could or couldn't give
the spark, it's not there between us for me

it's my blame to shoulder
but you're the one that's going to get hurt
i'm sure of that
tonight you told me you like me
i like you too
but that's not it

the spark it's not there between us for me
sometimes i can't even find the spark in myself
i won't wake to tell you tonight

it's your birthday today

and tomorrow you won't need this

and tomorrow you won't need this
me
there are things that i want
kind of like you
this
interested forever
and tomorrow you won't need this

casey is about to come to bat, it's cold facing into the wind & i drink good coffee in the morning

2006-02-06T23:37:00.000-05:00

9 days until pitchers and catchers
and opening day steadily barrels toward us

so as it stands today

it was late
i know so
the bars were closed
and we grappled at each other until we got naked

as i recited keys and collins loudly
to her displeasure
finally we stopped
we laughed as i opened two beers

i gulped mine down
she didn't finish hers

we started getting real friendly

and wolves: always wolves

smoking cigarettes
and drinking $2.00 martini's
she stumbled out into the streets
late at night

the blonde girl
with a tattoo on the small of her back
went home
and in the morning
he was gone
her not knowing, yet

the seed was planted
no cigarettes or $2.00 martini's
she stumbled out into the streets
early in the morning

the blonde girl
with a tattoo on the small of her back
went home
and in the morning
him not knowing, yet
it was gone

nothing to say, 15 days until pitchers and catchers and an empty pair of trousers

2006-01-31T00:58:00.000-05:00

empty pair of trousers

this relationship is animating my spirit
i could stay here
drink coffee, go jogging, walk the dog
have her nurse me through the bad moments

rub mint lotion on my feet
make me turkey grilled cheese sandwiches
lay in bed and talk to each other late at night
we'd read together

i know sometimes arguments would occur
that is the nature of things
a bit of screaming
the exchange of dirty laundry
dishes piling up
a bit of dramatics at times

i was high
my mind was in unchartered territory
it was late
i was tried

i went to bed and collapsed like an empty pair of trousers next to her

queen of day time is duped and millions of readers fall into a million little pieces

2006-01-26T22:51:00.001-05:00

james frey all i can say is your FUCKED!
tonight i will dream of snow and santa fe
and only 20 days until pitchers and catchers

on the farm with a portrait of her, and as was her fashion, was quiet

it was really home
in a sense
as much as a new home can feel
to a broken man such as he

his pajamas laid over the arm of the chair
there was a half-drank bottle of rancho zabaco wine by the bedside light
that both sat on the nightstand next to the bed
he laid in bed reading "if the river was whiskey" by t.c. boyle
and peering over the corners, occasionally

the portrait was in a brown wooden frame
that his father had made one cool, fall evening
it was placed in a chair where he could see it from bed
he was a week behind so there was a pile of the daily newspaper
comic section next to him in bed
"i can't ever seem to keep up anymore," he said, rubbing his eyes
and talking to no one

he reopened the bottle of rancho zabaco
then re-corked, glancing at the picture portrait again
"here's to you," he said, "and to hell with you, as well."
she looked at him with the same smile that made him melt
so many years ago, that makes him sobbingly broken now
he downed the glass, and poured another
the picture was the same
suddenly feeling warmth from the wine
realizing he had taken this bad hand and turned it into a good one

deciding to try and catch up on reading beetle bailey and andy capp
he opened the newspaper
it was fun, too
losing himself in the daily comic section
he forgot about the portrait on the chair
after catching up through wednesday, he put on his pajamas
buttoned the pocket on the shirt
and put the picture and her leaving to rest for good

i imagine i learn things to early sometimes
and somethings too late others, he thought
with that he picked up the flat, hard, old, cold portrait
poured another glass of rancho zabaco and replaced the picture
and started to read thursdays comics

he was reading calvin and hobbes
whom he liked very much
when he heard the front door of the cabin open
he grinned

calvin and hobbes were amusing
and he knew it was his new love coming in from feeding the horses

delivering my mail

at 8:37 this morning he took a pill to start the day
there was a bottle from the night before
among some scattered papers on the floor with some of his stories on them
there was a stack of old newspapers on the floor also
next to his mattress, which lays on the floor as well

he fuzzily got out of bed and walked the ten steps to his liquor cabinet
although, it's not really a cabinet
it's more of a table with bottles of alcohol sitting on it
he neatly poured himself three more shots of bourbon
into his darth vader coffee mug

one would think the way he lives is compulsive sometimes
he made a pot of coffee
and topped darth vader off with some
he turned on the stove
scrambled some eggs
drank his three fingers of whiskey coffee
and had an egg sandwich over the sink

after eating, he did some reading
he like to read
it calmed his soul
let's him leap into another life
it's much easier to live someone elses's, than mine, he thought

he reads for awhile
thinks' he's where he needs to be
to do some writing
he is now anyway

back to the liquor table and poured him another whiskey and coffee
he's been on the typewriter now for several hours
mentally exhausted
another pill might just do the trick

after a few minutes he wanders down the hall and downstairs to the bar
might do him some good
he needs a rest and some new material
on the way out he runs into the postman

double takes over his shoulder
and looks back at the postman
and thinks charles bukowski is delivering his mail

i believe cartoon characters really exist, paris hilton's ham sandwich for a gold statue and the great game of baseball is around the corner

2006-01-23T17:02:00.000-05:00

i am back from my travels in wonderful new mexico and let me tell you if you ever get the chance, i know the beverly hillbillies thought california was the place to be but new mexico is right there with it, it is amazingly beautiful. two thoughts about that place (1) everyone has a dog and (2) the older women there don't color their hair they let it go naturally grey. so let me say this the older women there are much more attractive than the dyed and tuck jobs women here in dallas get. also when in santa fe do as the locals do and go to catamount bar and grill and ask for julie and chef chris his cooking is genius. hey guys tip one back for us this week as we head back to work. they will treat you to a great time. but always in the back of my mind as katie casey was baseball mad it is now only...

23 days until pitchers and catchers

what we talk about when we talk about love

i might as well begin by saying how much i like you
it gets me right away, thinking about years from now pushing a cart
up a grocery store aisle clamoring over what type of cereal to buy
and don't forget the bread
so you immediately grabbed my attention

and the precision you used with those sharp scissors when you cut
out my heart and took it
i think about perfectly arranged words in a famous sonnet
in this condition i could write extraordinary love poems about
someone i met or exploiting the connection between sex and death

decades from now when we vacation in a foreign country we will
head down to a coffee shop and the waitress known as dot will serve us
we will slide into the flow of the morning paper, you with the editorials
me with beetle bailey
as bread, some oranges and eggs over medium are on the way
after breakfast we will stand outside the cafe
we will not have to find someone to take pictures because you will
turn the camera around yourself and snap the frame

today i think the stage is littered with literary bodies
it is sylvia plath in the kitchen with her head in the oven
anne sexton lounging by the pool having a cigarette and a stiff drink
flannery o'connor hunched over her cane because of lupus
or hemingway crippled with depression at his cabin in idaho playing with a rifle

it also seems i really have nothing up my sleeve except i would like us
to watch a movie tonight
and whisper in your ear that you are so beautiful
and i am a fool to be this in love with you
and that we have become beautiful without even knowing it

nothing amidst the wreckage of the years

he sometimes took pride in knowing the fact
he knows half the people in town
by their names and faces
but he truly had few friends and was a solitary man
he knows we are a lost society of lost souls
liars, con artists and manipulators

he was sitting at his kitchen table pen in hand
before a blank page all afternoon
it was hot outside but unusually rainy
the rain muted traffic and the lower greenville duplex
was so quiet, the wind from the isolating fan bothered him

he worked near the kitchen
as the room where his wife cooked calmed him
and made him feel less alone
his three prelunch drinks had him buzzed
but had been dulled by his can of luke warm soup
he had eaten over the sink

at 3 o'clock he stopped staring at the blank page
and turned on huckleberry hound
in between laughs
he thought how paris hilton
could never fuck her way to win an academy award
and laughed some more

after the cartoon he returned to the blank page
the vastness of the white page paled his spirit
yet there was a time when a line from a song, a voice in his head, a random memory
of the past transformed into a novel, a story or a poem

there was a time when he felt the mastery of his art
a time when he was a writer and writing daily, hours and hours on end
like artists with a blank canvas
he stared at the blank page and a silent room

now he sat there
slumped over in his chair and somehow fearful once again of the future
a man in his late thirties, with dark circles under his eyes
still as blue as ever though and thin, lips and mouth

all creatures die alone he thought
he gazed out the window at the rain
lighting a cigarette he let it droop from his mouth
and his thin lips seemed too relaxed to hold it

he then suddenly began banging away pen to paper
and said the words as he wrote them

in my youth i was a werewolf who stomped around like a clydesdale after i'd had a few drinks and how might i not slow the days ahead

2006-01-12T22:21:00.000-05:00

the fact that the queen of all book clubs, oprah called in to larry king live last night to help james frey cover his ass about his memoir and him embellishing the truth was indeed not about helping him but helping herself not to look like a complete idiot by picking someone for her book club that wasn't on the up and up. so she didn't want to come out and belittle him in any way, so she supported him. i guess the title of his memoir fits perfectly with his story "a million little pieces" and by the way that book was originally slated to be FICTION.

a couple of longer winded poems so don't hold your breath and
34 days until pitchers and catchers

tender goes the night when saved by the cemetary saviors

as of this moment the weight of the dark and gloomy characteristics of the lonely beings
and the tossed about lives of these derelicts
come and swarm around my table in the corner of the bar
as i sip on my red wine this particular evening

there is a decent looking lady in her thirties or so
with a giant chest at the bar ordering vodka on the rocks
who is sitting next to the young girl i vaguely know
and she is probably retelling her ill fated story
about finding her boyfriend overdosed on heroin two years ago

two barstools down there is a decrypted, elderly man
who keeps getting calls from the phone behind the bar
probably his wife or girlfriend telling him to get his ass home
or could be his drug hookup

down at the end of the bar there is a guy with dreads, scraggy facial hair
and a t-shirt with a playboy magazine cover with farah fawcett on it
talking to me about how he had a kid, a woman
and he made a good friend the godfather
he got sent up to prison in east texas and when he came back
had found out his old lady had fucked his friend
he told me his name was texas loser 13 after he asked for mine
we shook hands and parted

to the local guys on stage doing bad cover songs to pay rent
in a neglectful neigborhood
that can swallow up a person
if your not careful

and one of the guys in the band
coming off six weeks on the road
who took his girlfriend to get married
but said no

or the self righteous twentysomethings
playing and sitting around the pool table
watching me sit alone
reading in a corner
drinking red wine on thanksgiving night

and down here this neighborhood, like i said before,
can wither a person away
without knowing it mostly
except on nights like this

the two guys that own the liquor store just walked in
and bought me a drink

gravity is the enemy to defeat me

i floated on a inner tube down the frio river
which is west of san antonio last summer
it was 10:42 a.m. but i was already 5 beers in
when aphrodite led our inner tubes
toward several girls floating ahead of us

i handed out a couple of shiner bocks
one to a girl in pigtails and a straw cowboy hat
i had such a hard on
i damn near poked a hole in my jam shorts

two more hours into the trip we were all cozy friends
with the girls from houston
thanks to the aid of more beer and wetback tobacco
i had managed to score before the trip

several yards ahead there was a rope swing
and i was feeling like tarzan
wanting to impress the girl with the pigtails
i swung clumsily from it for several seconds before making tarzan noises and jumping in

from what i recall, man, did she had a great laugh
after some coaxing she decided to try
and made her way up the small hill
to the tree where the rope was tied

after peeking over the hill into the water below, she chickened out
so i grabbed her and pretended i was going to force both of us over the edge
and down into the water
that was really the first time all day i had touched her besides glancing her arm
splashing water in her face along the way down the river

immediately my pants stood at attention
because of those damn pigtails and cowboy hat
"what's that?" she said as she grabbed my swim trunks
"it's a snake. it must have crawled into my trunks when i was in the water." i told her
"really? i've never seen a snake up close before. can i see what one looks like?"

i was startled and laughing at the same time
at this point my hard on was killing me
but before i knew it she was on her knees
pulling my swim trunks down and her hand and mouth went around my snake
it was like she was bobbing for god damn apples at a halloween carnival
i thought, was jane doing favors like this to tarzan?
and if she was i would have been swinging from ropes in trees a long time ago

i could hardly stand up
between being bombed out of my mine
and her blowing me
it didn't take long
her blow job was almost as great as her laugh
she pulled my swim trunks back up and smiled
neither one of us said a word
we both just jumped off the edge and into the water

we all finished the last leg of the trip and said our goodbyes
"hopefully, we'll go down to the river again together tomorrow," she said
they turned in their tubes and drove off
we were staying in the cabin next to the place

i meekly made my way to a cooler next to the cabin and grill
knowing full well i wouldn't see her tomorrow
i sat down in a 1970's green nylon string covered lawn chair
and thought of those pigtails and cowboy hat

someone fired up the grill
i blurted out loud,
"you know kris kristopherson said it best. ""she ain't ashamed to be a woman or a friend.""
no one heard me, but it didn't matter

i lit a cigarette and sipped my beer
and thought how my night couldn't get any better than the day had gone
wiped out at this point
i fell out of my lawn chair

gravity is the enemy to defeat me today
somehow i managed to pull it together
and sat back up in my chair
not a soul was the wiser

stairing at the stars, sunburned
a smoke in one hand and a drink in the other
a beer tarnished straw cowboy hat on
dinner on the grill

i passed out

whoever wants to know the heart and mind of america had better learn baseball

2006-01-10T16:47:00.000-05:00

-columbia history professor jacques baraun

three things i found out today. one-at the beginning of the last century there were over 25,000 prostitutes in new york city. two-the prizes in the cracker jacks were not put into the boxes until 1912. and three-pitchers and catchers for the rangers actually report a day earlier than i thought so...36 days until pitchers and catchers. and the last installment of my poems i wrote while visiting st. louis and the cardinals last summer.

saturday evening post story

saturday in a hotel room in st. louis
it's 3 a.m. and the walls are sinking in around me
i was sitting on the edge of the bed
one hand was on a bottle of jim bean
the other held a gun to my head

i thought i might get famous
if i could just pull the trigger
but in my darkest hour
the 50 watt light came on

my eyes were unfocused
but it seems
you were in the corner of the room
playing "take me out to the ballgame" on the violin

i giggled to myself
set the bottle down
fell back onto the bed
and passed out

baseball is as simple as a bat and ball but as complex as the american spirit it symbolizes

2006-01-05T21:34:00.000-05:00

-ernie harwell (former detroit tigers radio announcer and hall of famer.)

now that we've got the most corrupt sport behind us. better known to most common folk as college football. it's only 42 days until pitchers and catchers and here's another poem i wrote while in st. louis last summer visiting the cardinals.

i am not a poet

i stare out the window, sad and lonely
listening to the cardinals game on the radio on my way home
wondering if you're thinking of me
i murdered the weekend with only thoughts of you
raymond chandler once said
"broken hearts are heavier than a dead man"
and that's what i have without you around

knowing i'm not a poet
i should be reading my book by joe r. landsdale
but my thoughts turn to you at your parents house surprising them
you're home this weekend
and i want to tell you everything

that standing under the arch
i thought of your smile
sitting in busch stadium
the smell of brauts was overcome by the smell of your hair
the crack of the bat and pop of the ball in the mitt
took a seat in the dugout because of your laughter

of course i was overwhelmed at times
with the stautes of the former cardinal greats
stan "the man" musial, bob gibson, lou brock, rogers hornsby
and you stood up to each one

struck out musial
homered off gibson
ran faster than brock
and turned the doubleplay better than hornsby

so go ahead take a look around your parents kitchen
look at the woodgrain there on the walls
the hardwood floor
besides being hours away today
one day i might be there walkin' and thinkin' about you

the day flannery o'connor rolled over in her grave, the death of a local football team and the simple art of baseball and love

2006-01-01T20:28:00.000-05:00

today in early-bird fashion, i flipped over to WGN in hopes a cubs day game would be on, but alas, it was too early for that not until april. however; there was a re-run of jeopardy. so i proceded to watch a little, and after the three contestants were able to answer question after question, there was this little gem "because of dying at the age of 39 in 1964, this southern author only wrote wise blood and one other novel." i have never observed blanker faces in my life, period. not even a guess, no stabs in the dark. NOT EVEN A GUESS! usually a guess is presented on each question. i kept hollering "flannery o'connor!!!" over and over, but to no avail, the idiots just sat there quietly, hands folded.

today the cowboys' season ended. the barbaric ritual known as football is over, at least for the home team. therefore, those overly excited cowboy fans who look forward to the rangers' demise after the all-star break every season can shut their pie-hole, because their season is done, finished, over, kaput. AND ALL I CAN SAY TO YOU OVERLY EXCITED COWBOY FANS AS YOU DROWN YOUR SORROWS AND AS YOU PUT AWAY YOUR FOAM #1 FINGERS, YOUR PLASTIC FOOTBALL HELMETS AND YOUR STINKING #8 JERSEYS IS: I DO NOT WANT TO SEE A FOOTBALL THROWN AROUND AGAIN UNTIL NEXT SEASON.

it's time to get out your gloves, bats and baseballs. so as i bid the local football season a hearty kick in the groin; i say, loud and proud...

46 DAYS UNTIL PITCHERS AND CATCHERS!

and another poem about the two things i love the most i wrote on my way to busch stadium this past summer:

a juggernaut of a mismatch

sitting in a car today for 10 hours
you fill up my soul
and instead of thinking of going to busch stadium for the first time
it's you and i framed inside a picture on your digital camera

on the mound mulder versus smoltz
edmonds could make a catch like mays in the '54 series
pujols could go yard
at this exact moment i see the arch for the first time in person

instead it's you and i
curled up on the couch, watching the rangers win a game
drinking mineral water
making a plan for a future trip out of town

now with busch stadium a few hundred yards to my right
where the cards won the world series in '67
and lost in '68
i think of the smell of your skin and the taste of your beautiful toes

the year that saw shoeless joe commiserate with the babe

2005-12-31T21:37:00.000-05:00

as the year counts down into it's meager final hours, with the first wave of baby boomers staring down sixty, 2005 is the year that gilligan (bob denver) left the island for good to join his captain (bob hale) in the sky and mrs. robinson (anne bancroft) moved away, major league baseball changed it's world series champions sox colors from red to white with both teams waiting over eighty years to be called champions, the voice of piglet and tigger, john fiedler and paul winchell repectively both passed away on the same weekend in june. it was though they needed to leave the pooh corner together. i wept and felt a little older afterwards. so as i pour another glass of red wine and prepare to at somepoint this evening dance the c3po with my piglet and tigger stuffed animals while watching gilligan island dvd's, and yell curtis wilkerson from the top of my lungs. i leave you with this, a poem about two things i love the most from when i went to busch stadium this summer to see the cardinals play before they move into new busch next summer, my list of top ten movies I saw this calendar year and books i read this year (although not necessarily published this year) in no certain order and please let this new year bring me a world series trophy

47 days until pitchers and catchers

movies
capote
murderball
good night, and good luck
brokeback mountain
a history of violence
broken flowers
me, you and everyone we know
kiss, kiss, bang, bang
the squid and the whale
my summer of love

books
the road to los angeles- john fante
oracle night-paul auster
the alcoholics- jim thompson
no country for old men- cormac mccarthy
the big sleep- raymond chandler
a new path to the waterfall- raymond carver
no heroics please-raymond carver
extremely loud and incredibly close- jonathan safren foer
only the ball was white-robert peterson
the iowa baseball confederacy-w.p. kinsella

for the love of the game
this morning driving to see the cardinals play in st. louis
i thought of the other morning when through a half eaten bowl of cereal
you went for the morning paper and straight to the comics
for pearls before swine

and how you liked the fact it was on the corner of the page
so you didn't have to open the whole paper to read it
we sat there and drank coffee
i explained what order i read the comics in to you
that's how we started our day

i drove you to work so you could give your daily imprint on the newspaper
and after a kiss i drove to houston to see the baseball hall of fame exhibit
i could write about a beautiful woman i just met
but i am too modest

baseball is an amusing anecdote
about beautiful women
and after this short time together
i can tell you this

i give you all i have to offer,
my free time
and with you on base and me at the plate
i'd sacrifice bunt you over any day of the week

not only does she like having millions of americans read what she tells them, her face is on the cover of every one of her magazines

2005-12-30T00:18:00.000-05:00

what would have happened if oprah had gone down in her plane on monday? who would have told america what to read? heaven forbid americans make their own choice. between the new york times best seller list and the queen of all book clubs, americans can't generally choose what to read themselves you find them wandering around the bookstore like zombies. stairing endlessly and picking up books wishing someone had told them what to read before coming in. now don't get me wrong. i have no problem with book clubs. it's the fact that someone that has that much power can stand up and just pick any book out of thin air and millions of americans will run out immediately after her show and buy the book no matter what it is. for example when she choose anna karina. do you honestly think most of her audience knew who tolstoy was before that or the fact that the fucking book is as long as the declaration of independence. or the time she choose carson mccullers, the heart is a lonely hunter. now that she's gotten away from dead authors who the frowl had no clue who the fuck they were and returned to the living ones the frowl can once again return to reading middle of the rung literature. so in case you're wondering what to read, tune in to her show and i'm sure she'll be ready to peddle some new book on you.

48 days until pitchers and catchers and one very early poem for your edification

feel like you're contributing to society or the fugitives have won

some days the quit is easier than the fight to toss it in
turn off the radio of life
old age comes like a thief in the night
and leaps into your bed for death

it shakes you violently
the obscurity of your life comes quickly as weeds cover the tombstone
and you lie like food unobstructed for the worms
it blankets itself around you

obscurity
death
there's no weekdays, weeknights, time frames or time tables
or different days of the week

but some days the fight is much easier than quitting
there's just a moment
relish in it
a stop frame in time

up on the rooftop there arose such a clatter, wait, that's just me breaking a irreplaceable crystal wine glass on the kitchen floor

2005-12-28T18:03:00.000-05:00

or how to make a fire without matches. i sprang up afterwards and raced upstairs as though i were an eight year old boy who was going to be in trouble. i was more hammered than three sailors on leave for the weekend. and while blurred visions of sugarplums stumbled through my head, the hometown team the rangers made my christmas by signing some pitching. kevin millwood will be the opening day starter on april 3rd. so while santa left me many other wonderful gifts such as baseball memorabilia, dvd's, signed books, stuff from kinky friedman's campaign trail and many, many other wonderful things the signing of millwood was the best thing santa pulled out of his bag this year. so as i sleep tonight with glove under pillow and rangers cap on my head, i dream of al oliver spraying hits all over old arlington stadium and 50 days until pitchers and catchers boys, 50 days

the sense of calm was enveloping

i haven't written anything in weeks
not a sentence, not a word
and haven't felt the slightest urge to do so
now after weeks of silence and epathy, i suddenly am putting pen to paper
stocking up on a fresh set of ideas

not just thinking about writing
but actually going through the motion
i imagined i was damage goods now
just a mass of malfuncing parts and for that left me frantic and cold

for comic relief i took up smoking again
i felt like i was back in college taking out my cigarettes
and packing them with my other hand
while i spent my afternoon in a air-conditioned coffee shop
ordering mochas and a piece of cake
as i listened in on conversations
and worked my way through a book of short stories by larry brown

traffic outside has hit it's rush hour lull just then
i suddenly realized how calm it is in here
with the sounds of the people behind the counter making coffee
and the customers slowly murdering their day

i was not the first or last customer of the day
but the calmness of the other customers was just so pronounced
the girl with the headphones is asleep at a table in front of me
and i can hear the scratching of a man's pencil behind me

whenever i think about that now
in the space of those first few seconds
the sound of that pencil comes to me first
among all the other sounds in that coffee shop

when the sound of that pencil seemed to be the only sound left in the world

a major move, at some point i was really hammered, just once though, and christopher robin under goes a sex change

2005-12-21T02:51:00.000-05:00

two things: my baseball weenie went crazy today as the rangers made a major trade, time will tell if it helps any but at least they're off and running towards spring training and also disney has decided to make another winnie-the-pooh movie with christopher robin as a female. A FEMALE. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? it's christopher robin not christina robin. now i love the big eared mouse and what he's done since steam boat willie but come on. political correctness is getting out of control. let's not change a.a. milne's classic please for the love of piglet leave well enough alone

57 days until pitchers and catchers

to drunk to read the harvard classics

not long after not remembering not talking
to the beer truck guy
i began to lose interest in those thursday nights on greenville
i suppose some of those bars we went to are still there

of course red the bartender
and the greenville poet
a black guy with few teeth are long gone
probably dead

i remember this one waitress named danielle
i used to sleep with sometimes
she had about a dozen tattoos
and short pig tails like princess leia

and when i'm in the neighborhood
i drive past the bar where she worked
the name is the same and the crowd has stayed the same age
but the years have past on me

those thursday's were great, though,
most of those thurdays were great
a tiny glimmer of hope
when most other things weren't go good for me

back when neighbors would jog past
and cars would drive by and crush the empty beer cans strolled across the street
from my door to my friends door across the street
and the front porch lights were left on
some nights for the whores coming over at 2:30 in the morning

other nights i just masturbated
and at the time i had a job
i could barely pay rent with
i lit a lucky strike cigarette, glanced back at the cars driving by

then went back inside and stared at the television set
afraid to turn on the a.c. because of the electric bill

32 christmas inflatables, number 7 was a retractable penquin, and only two nativity scenes

2005-12-18T19:09:00.000-05:00

went looking at christmas lights last night and that's what i got. must have been a neighborhood full of jews. two poems and exactly two months until pitchers and catchers...
60 days boys, 60 days

the poet and his life

you don't ask, but most days i don't remember
i walk the streets in my oversized khaki trousers and hush puppies
i promise to love more
if a woman ever comes again

so i have nothing against life
it's just deaths been here
for a long time
wanting to get rid of it

the poet stares at a blank page that screams silence

my room is crammed with hundreds of pounds of books
but i can barely put words on a page
i struggle to find anything to put down except i can visualize boys in dickies
with wallets connected by chains to their belt loops

and heroin thin girls in betty page ripoffs
wearing too tiny tees
and cargo pants lowered below their waist
as a tattoo of a colorful butterfly embrace the small of their back

silence is death
eating away at me
it sits on my shoulder
and laughs in my ear

stealing the covers, gay cowboy love and winter months without baseball creep by as slowly as a girl waiting for a dance at the 8th grade prom

2005-12-16T21:51:00.000-05:00

i went to see brokeback mountain today, and i must say it's a good movie, but i was probably the only heterosexual in the place. a lady from the movie house came in to try and pawn the book off on the crowd for sell in the lobby before the movie started. just as she finished some clumsy female fool from the back of the audience yelled out it's a great book as if she needed to let everyone know in the theatre that she was a reader. i thought to myself look lady it's not a book you dumb ass okay it's a damn short story that was published in the new yorker a few years ago so get your shit in one sock before you open your mouth to show what a dumb ass you are. and why is it anyway that the publishing industry always has to capitalize on republishing a novel with the movie cover on the front once the movie comes out? oh yeah to capitalize on the dumb americans who don't read that will want to read the book once they've seen the movie i mean they probably hadn't even heard of e. annie proulx until now. wait i forgot she's not on oprah's book club. i'm sure it's coming. by the way folks she's won the fucking pulitzer.

so for those of you worried or hesitant about going to see brokeback mountain because of gay cowboy love take heed my delicate flowers. out of over 2 hours of film there is only about 20 total seconds and about five minutes total cuddling and pecking on the lips throughout the film.
i am also a delicate flower but am secure enough in my masculinity to where i am not offended by such things i guess it also helps i'm for the left and not a conservative christian type person.
but to each his own just remember...

if you live in texas vote kinky
and 62 days until pitchers and catchers

turning the air down

the hour is late
and i should be sleeping next to you
but the ecstasy of writing has come lately
like a one for four night at the plate and you can't get into the hall of fame like that

so here i am writing this down at 3:37 A.M.
it's hot just like you like it when you went to bed
while your beautiful head lay there
i turned the air down and switched the ceiling fans on while i did some writing
so i too will be comfortable when i go to bed
just as you were

and you won't even notice
except for when i steal the covers from you in the middle of the night

cantaloupes, the great number 14 ernie banks and the fact i used to have pork chops on my face that could have fed an entire third world country

2005-12-15T21:58:00.000-05:00

nothing to say really except they ain't making jews like jesus anymore except for possibly larry david, a few more terrible poems that should have never made it out of my journal and
63 days until pitchers and catchers

a small firm cantaloupe

the young couple at the bar is making this lonely bastard sick to my stomach
it's fucking annoying me
get a room, go home
get out of my sight you clumsy fools

quit panting over each other in public like a starving dog over crumbs on the street
get your hand off his crotch you whore!
and stop caressing her ass
as if you were feeling a small firm cantaloupe to buy in the grocery store

although i must admit
it does appear from this point of view
to be a nice small firm cantaloupe
i wouldn't mind buying

sanctuary as i am dying slowly

these thoughts embark on the page sober
right now i don't know what to think
or how to behave
it's been two days

seems like opportunity will come knocking before i can do this again
i've had a nervous energy since the last taste
i thought it was trampling my soul
but it embraces it

it starves for the affection it feels when deep down inside me
engulfing all of my human endeavors and making me frigid toward others
slapping reality on their souls
not caring of the consequences, disconnecting myself from society

i got up and poured myself another drink

it's a great day to play two

i pushed the blinds away from the window
outside the lawn crew full of mexicans is using a weed eater
a riding lawnmower
and trimming the hedges brilliantly

the sun is just starting to break above the tree line
the head mexican of the crew and i look each other over
i give a nod and wave
his pants are too big and he's not wearing a belt

he's wearing a yankees baseball cap to cover the sun
like they are his favorite team and that they've won 26 world series and then a wave of gratitude comes over me
that i'm not him-that i'm me and that i've been laying next to you this morning

he hollers buenos dias and pretends to get something out of the truck
he's trying to let me know he's busy
he looks back up and breaks into a grin
i looked down at myself

i'm naked
i look back up at him and shrug my shoulders
it's morning and i'm hungover what could he expect
a hugh hefner robe and slippers on my feet

i shut the blinds
after you ask me to come back to bed
that instant
but i'm still standing there at the window with the blinds shut

i see the mexican in the yankees cap nod to himself like he's thinking
jesus, get back to bed amigo
i understand
he takes off his cap and wipes his forehead
then he sets about his business telling the other mexicans what to do
he starts edging the lawn next to the curb

i step back and cross one leg over the other
maybe this afternoon i'll watch some old seinfeld reruns
and then i'll do the crossword puzzle
and i certainly can't miss jeopardy, but if i do i'd just try and remember to watch it tomorrow

it was after 1:00 and i poured myself a glass of red wine
i try and remember if i read any of carson mccullers books
i can't rightly recall
but there was a story of hers i read in college "the court in the west eighties"

this lady lived in an apartment building in new york city
that was square and she sat night after night listening to the sounds of the other tenants
and watch the seasons change and the tenants change
she seemed so lonely
and it made me think of my own worst fear
being alone at an old age

i fumble with the cork to put back in the bottle
i walk past the bedroom and see my girlfriend folding clothes fresh out of the dryer
i'm into the library of the house now and i plop down into my recliner
flip on the television set and see a cubs day game on and forget about jeopardy

i sip my wine
it's bottom of the fourth
cubs are leading 2-0
and i think about what the great cubs shortstop ernie banks once said
"it's a great day to play two."

"amen, ernie," i say to know one in particular. "amen."

it is easier to pass through the eye of a needle than have a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven, and briefly i propose to vanish

2005-12-13T22:57:00.000-05:00

some things that should never have been put out for public viewing just about some of the first stuff i ever put down, but i've been consuming yellow tail shiraz. i just finished a wonderful dinner and i see hemingway in the corner dancing with a nineteen foot tall grizzley bear to music by ricky ricardo

and as i pick up my 35 inch willie mays wooden bat i think 65 days until pitchers and catchers

sexually undeprived

i shall say there is not a more exhilarating experience
than to caress a petite young girls ass in a thong
and sliding it off to discover she has a
shaved
wamp

bus stop discussion

marvel comics heroes
ran into dc comics heroes
at a bus stop on planet neptune
they briefly discussed who would win if they got in a wrestling match

after a short time
deliberating
they decided to stick together
and fight the bad guys

a donkey's tail

in biblical times a man being questioned of a crime was often taken into a dark room
where a donkey would be
he was told to grab hold of the donkey's tail
to answer questions

he was also told that if he was lying the donkey would know and make a noise
after answering all the questions the donkey never would make a noise
after exiting the dark room the man who answered, he was free, would then be asked to show the palms of his hands

it turned out authorities would cover the donkey's tail with soot
and that any man guility would be to scared to grab hold of the tail
so if the man's hands were clean
he was guility

without you i'd forget the sixth step or the way to first base

2005-12-12T23:34:00.000-05:00

only three episodes left so if you're not tuning in please do so before it's to late to try and save the funniest show on television arrested development. and also the rangers added a pitcher to the next seasons starting rotation so things might be looking up and as we all know there are such things as baseball gods so as i lay my head down tonight and try and sleep tight i will be wearing a rangers shirt and my rangers cap will be tucked under my pillow hoping the gods will come and visit me again tomorrow

66 days until pitchers and catchers

without your love or the guillotine

freud asked the question "what do women want?"
the poets in western civilization
seem to think you must compare them to something
to meet their expections

but i'm not here to compare thee to a summers day
or the hanging gardens
the sunset on the florida keys
or the perfectly turned 6-4-3 double play

i just want to say i'm not the hero or
superstar you once thought i was
at least not anymore
i'm not raymond chandler who can write his character phillip marlowe
to solve the crime by the end of the novel
i sometimes thought i could be

most of the time i'm not a complicated man
where you need a greek vocabulary booklet to figure me out
i'm simple with the basic here's what you get
and the writings on the wall

i'm next to nothing without you
like f. scott fitzgerald making $13 the last year of his life
and if i had to choose between being without your love or the guillotine
i'll take the latter

baseball, anne sexton's bones, and the insanity of e.e. cummings

2005-12-10T21:12:00.000-05:00

a couple of very early, raw poems and not so early, raw poems, bakers dozen in all while i smash grapes with my bare feet to be turned into wine shortly, and i just want to say today i believe in the church of baseball. only 68 days until pitchers and catchers

another poem

i sit and stare out the window
10,000 black sparrows sit a wire
awaiting instruction from the head of the flock on which direction to fly
hitchcock would have been so lucky

it suddenly made me ashamed of being a writer at all
and provoking such ridiculous illusions about it
so i bought her a drink
with no designs about taking her home at all

i clumsily fumbled through some poems
she was desperately disappointed
and tried to leave a 2/3 full drink
i begged her to stay "i just want someone to hear my voice."

she smiled half heartedly
and said it's not worth it
i finished her drink
and another poem

the best way to get famous is to die

dead writers usually become famous first
somedays i wish i had the guts
to call it a day
and end it all

then they could shuffle through
my stuff and find out
i make yeats work
look like 3rd grade poetry

that i had written the greatest american novel
since mark twain
students would study my work in their english classes
interpret what i meant on p.67 and p.93

i would be considered brillant by some
ridiculous by others
i would have an underground cult following like john kennedy toole
all the photos on my dust jackets would be of me when i was young and handsome

if i had the guts

the banging of anne sexton's bones

i dug them up
i just took my shovel right out to the grave yard and dug them up
i couldn't believe i finally did
i had been thinking about it for months

i was reading the book she won the pulitzer prize for live or die
when i finally got the nerve to go through with it
the striking photos of you when you were around
how sexy you appeared by the pool when holding your cigarette in your hand

and then pressing it up against your thin, pale lips
another alluring poem coming to mind as you smoked it
thinking of these things i just sat your decomposed bones, dirt and all
next to the headstone and went at them with no hesitation

all the while thinking of your poem angel of clean sheets
"i have known a crib. i have known the tuck-in of a child but inside my hair waits the night
i was defiled." i kept repeating out loud
as i had my way with your bones

your sex appeal was your defiant character and your verse
tonight my girlfriend asked if i cheated on her who would it be with
as i put my hands in my front pockets and felt the dirt from your gravesite
i told her if i had to cheat on her

it would be with your corpse

a long days scenario

today i've been drinking
like three beautifully tanned girls
laying poolside all day
listening to jimmy buffett

it happens to all of us

as i stumbled past and into the car
i put my hands on it
leaned over
and defecated

as i slowly looked up from the ground
i realized that a dog that was inside the car
had defecated as well
on the backseat

the girl next door

pretty much all the guys
have been in it
but me

the ballpark conversation

flip flops are in
they're the new thing
she said
well then jimmy buffett must have been on to something
back in the 1970's i replied
she agreed
as another ranger got a base hit into leftfield

sometimes this is how things go

as i lay there at 4:31 A.M.
everybody's talkin by harry neilson
came on the radio
i thought about the opening scene of midnight cowboy
and how i was whoring myself out as jon voight did in the movie
and got up from the girl next to me
went to the bathroom
and took a piss

the chess match

hey man you got any smoke
no i don't carry that kind of smoke on me
that's okay man
cool
man, i just got my ass beat again in chess
havin a rough go tonight
no it's just i can never beat this guy
he's continuously, always winning
remember to think two moves ahead of your opponent

and with that
i flushed the toilet
and was out the bathroom door
and back to my barstool

trying to save a mockingbird

i work at a bookstore near downtown
in the fiction section
i'm a book collector
and i think i have some decent stuff

today while shelving books
a lady comes up to me and asks for a copy of to kill a mockingbird
and if lee was spelled l-e-e or l-e-i-g-h
i just looked at her and said l-e-e

i said you'll have better luck in paperbacks
as she walked away
i pointed my hand at her
as if holding an imaginary pistol

under my breath
i said i don't know lady
is dumb spelled d-u-m-b or d-u-m
i cocked my imaginary pistol and shot her in the back

twisted view

i was in sixth grade
she was in ninth
my cousin was in ninth also

she kissed me
it was summer
melissa
the vision of her is still with me today

i was staying with him for the week
later that week
he said smell my finger
that summer i learned the birds and the bees from a redneck in east texas

insanity at the coffee shop

one day in a coffee shop
i ran into e.e cummings
he said he had read some of my poetry
he said he thought his was better

i had him committed shortly thereafter

always the next morning

being driven around this morning,hungover
doings things i had no interest in doing
i had no control, no way out
i had to sit there and take my medicine

i longed to get taken back to my truck
to the familiarity of my house and bed
and sleep
i'm living on sleep depravation, again today

my life has become an endless one night stand
going to bed 6:14 one morning
7:20 the next
leading into 5:32 the next

staying up writing
listening to music
watching movies
drinking, carousing

but i'm the kid that keeps getting his ass kicked on the playground
but keeps getting back up

strange and true tales of people who just can't take it anymore

2005-12-08T23:07:00.000-05:00

if you're sick of telemarketers, cellphone yakkers in public places such as in a grocery line while checking out, handicapped-parking violators, your roommate or someone close to you stealing your ben& jerry's ice cream or most importantly borrowing your baseball glove without permission you aren't alone from junk mail to spam to dog poop go ahead and nod knowingly at the parade of petty provocations served up on one's daily routine. so next time you or i see someone in the grocery store line talking on their cellphone about what was on today's broadcast of oprah while they hold a tub of ben & jerry's to replace the one they ate, follow them to their car that's surely parked in a handicapped space, look in their back seat and i'll bet you find a baseball mitt. ask politely if it's there's? and when they say "NO I BORROWED IT WITHOUT PERMISSION" loudly. then let them know in no uncertain terms you hope they have a good day and that they step square into the middle of some dog poop.

once again i apologize for any type o's my editor gets to them later

and without any further anticipation more early poems
and 70 days until pitchers and catchers

an empty book of stamps

his head was jammed from asshole to elbow with people
students, artists, drunks, bums, shitbirds
his regular gig was at a bookstore
and in his spare time he called himself a poet

he never knew how to say no
when he used to be half cocked on red wine
he'd let pretty girls read his compositions
he thought he was a better writer than brautigan

they couldn't figure out his thought process
they were just dumb whores anyway
and he had insomnia back in his salad days, so to pass time he'd fuck one every once in a while
tell them to get dressed and get out

he'd go to the icebox
open it up
to sour milk, hard boiled eggs
and a few cans of beer

he often slept on the sofa
rolled over on his side
his eyes covered with a pillow
not to let the sun disrupt his hangover in the A.M.

he'd crack open a beer
after the whore left
knowing he didn't need it
but wanted it

he glanced over at the empty book of stamps
on the kitchen table
raised his drink for a full minute, toasted
and smiled to the whore that just left

fun for you and i

i licked her pierced lower lips
as if licking a melting pink popsicle

hemingway never had this happen to him while fishing

in florida
late november
an angler was killed in a fight
over a fishing spot

a brawl had broken out among six anglers
vying for the same spot
a man of thirty-five died
on the matanzas bridge on the east coast

the cause of death had not been determined
three men were arrested
including the man's brother, 37, of peoria, illinois
who was charged with aggravated assault

i guess it's safe to assume we know for whom the bell tolled on that day

a buddy holly record played in the background
as i stamped a cigarette butt out on your front porch

my horned rimmed glasses lay steadily on your coffee table
atop a book of poetry by enda st. vincent millay
i focus in on the dim blurry stereo lights
i think about how they look far off into the distance

i take a drink of my water as i watch gillian's island
on television with the sound off
you walk in from the bedroom to check on me
i look at you and think i didn't feel anything when you did

it's over
you go back to bed
i pick up my horned rim glasses from the coffee table
and go outside and have a cigarette

a car drives by as i stamp out my cigarette butt
i was too drunk to drive home
i go back inside
and flip over the record

i turn off the television and sit in the dark for a while
then i turn on the desk lamp
flip the record back to the b side
and stare at the record go around and around

i laid my horned rimmed glasses
on the coffee table atop the book
by edna st. vincent millay
they sit more steadily than before

all the bright shiny dreams

when i'm up against it
it makes me feel better to know for certain i'm up against it
fenced in
and it becomes a stage of grave concern
swept free of all illusion when it attains a crisis
my life narrows like a beat up turned over red wagon in the middle of the street

spring cleaning the souvenirs

at times i'd sit them out on the wooden deck out back
in the same arrangement as they always sat
i slumped down in my usual folding chair
the one to the right of your chair

beer in one hand
cigarette in the other
the uncomfortably of the situation got the best of me
so i didn't sit long

and the amount of booze i'd had lead me to think
i saw you coming out the sliding door once again
and you used to think i drank
it's gotten to the point i don't think too good no more

sometimes now i find myself passed out on the floor or at your door
it's ended up with nothing
around me in the house but the books you left on our shelves
but they just reminded me of the situation just as the chairs

i boxed them up and threw them out
the 1970's nylon folding chairs
and the fitzgerald, the faulkner, the t.c. boyle, the rick moody, raymond carver and all the rest
none of them mattered

not having them around anymore mattered
nothing mattered
i composed myself after a few hours
and had a scotch and water

the chance to become sideways on many given nights has gone by the wayside of nickel cokes, and just not being able to take the hangovers anymore

2005-12-04T19:48:00.000-05:00

"My head hurt and felt large and hot and my tongue was dry and had gravel on it and my throat was still and my jaw was not untender. but i had had worse mornings."
-raymond chandler

after having a christmas dinner last night with some old college friends before we went our separate ways for the holidays, and consuming several bottles of red vino, i felt that quote was appropriate today.

how stupid i have not become

if it wasn't obvious before, this morning it was apparent
i shouldn't have gone for the extra glass of red wine
perhaps a cup of coffee or some water
when the tab was laid on the table at 11:15
but it's early so the hangover won't be bad

how i went around the table and realized
three wives that were sitting at it were pregnant
that this was the most at any one given time
and instead of continuing at a bar until last call
this was the earliest we have called it a night

and now, tonight i reflect back on past years and last night
how i am an aging hipster
wearing a vintage baseball t-shirt
and a pair of loose khaki trousers
and hush puppies

my orange tabby rolls over on his back
and i hear you in the kitchen
pouring bowls of cereal
the coffee maker dripping

the other night you told me to write you something
i said i have nothing to say
except music is suppose to take you back to a specific place and time
like the first time i walked into margartiaville in new orleans years ago
"nautical wheelers" was playing over the speakers
or listening to "the weight" by the band
driving to a labor day party with you in my jeep
with the top down

sometimes you think you've changed
but you haven't
you usually just trade one addiction for another
and last night was no different

we all traded last call at the bar
for an early night
less of a hangover this morning
and me, personally, i got up this morning with relative ease
even though i had that extra glass

next to you
the sunday paper
oceans of coffee, eggs over easy, blueberry muffins
and those oh-so-important sunday comics

74 days until pitchers and catchers

a hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the ritz

2005-12-02T21:54:00.000-05:00

my father was bent on getting me to learn to love america's pastime.
i don't know how else to explain the fact that i wrote my fifth-grade book reports
on sandy koufax, lou gehrig, and stan musial,
or the fact that i put baseball cards in the spokes of my mongoose bicycle
and always ate the stale bubble gum out of the topps card packs.
and over the years, i learned from my father a way to develop a deft way of telling a baseball anecdote to anyone who would and wouldn't listen.
i start with a slow curve:
"you remember ty cobb. we saw his plaque at the hall of fame in cooperstown..."
then a spitball:
"he was nicknamed the georgia peach, but there was nothing sweet about him.
cobb was the nastiest player who ever lived. he used to sharpen the spikes on his cleats so that when he stole bases, he'd tear holes in the other player's flesh."
finally, sensing attention was waning from whoever i got to listen, i would plea:
"okay, just stay with me here. it's almost over. just let me finish."
this has been instilled in me since my first words: "play ball boys!"
and through those winter months when i can only read and imagine about the great game,
i can close my eyes on any given night and smell the freshly cut grass, taste the hot hogs, and visualize a beautifully turned 6-4-3 double play.
so in 76 more days when pitchers and catchers report,
i will again say, "play ball boys!"

in the time honored pantheon of situation comedies, the kramdens and the nortons bow down only to the ricardos and the mertzes

2005-11-29T23:18:00.000-05:00

rosa parks helped start the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat. rock and roll enters the mainstream as elvis signs with rca. youth culture begins to emerge, with the first saturday morning cartoon show with mighty mouse and the rise and death of james dean. U.S. begins to advise the vietnamese military. indie film movement dawns with the oscar winning Marty, a nonstudio flick. mcdonald's was opened. microwaves enter households. the man in the grey flannel suit by sloan wilson unnerves middle-class males. when did television come of age? no official answer, but 1955 put the still-new medium in play as never before with leave it to beaver, captain kangaroo, the honeymooners, i love lucy, gunsmoke, alfred hitchcock presents, the lawerence welk show, the ed sullivan show and the mickey mouse club.

the fifties are popularly remembered as a period of shiny complacency, but in reality, american culture was being shaken to the core by mid-decade. when we look back on america in 2005, it's clear that many of our achievements and difficulties date back 50 years.

a 1955 timeline

feb. 1
american military gains direct access as advisors to the vietnamese, in cooperation with the french

march 20
blackboard jungle is released. first major movie to use rock and roll as soundtrack

april 11
indie film marty, wins best picture at oscars

april 12
polio vaccine

april 21
inherit the wind after premiering in dallas opens on broadway in association with margo jones

april
mcdonalds opens

june 12
a good man is hard to find by flannery o'connor is reviewed

july 17
disneyland opens starting a boom in theme parks and changing the way americans vacation

july 24
margo jones dies after mysterious poisoning accident

aug. 28
emmett till's mutilated body is found in river causing outrage and sets stage for civil rights movement

august
japanese company enters u.s. market with early version of transistor radio with headphones

sept. 28
world series is broadcast in color for first time. brooklyn dodgers beat the yankees for the first time

sept. 30
james dean dies in car crash

sept.
the strange history of jim crow is published becomes the historical bible of the civil-rights movement

lolita is published in paris

oct. 3
captain kangaroo premieres on cbs
mickey mouse club premieres on abc

oct. 7
allen ginsberg gives first reading of howl

oct. 26
rebel without a cause opens

oct.
announcement of successful results of the testing of the oral contraceptives at planned parenthood

nov. 21
elvis signs with rca

dec. 1
rosa parks defies authorities, refuses to relinquish her bus seat and is arrested. this starts the montgomery bus boycott, widely regarded as the birth of the modern civil-rights movement

so as you can see 1955 was the tipping point in u.s culture history

79 days until pitchers and catchers

i believe in bluth, the whole bluth and nothing but the bluth, so help me Gob

2005-11-23T23:25:00.000-05:00

the dumbing down of america and the regression of humans has continued with the cancellation of another great t.v. series. despite numerous nominations and awards from critics, arrested development is no longer with us. although we can still get all the great reality t.v. we want because the idiotic general public wants t.v. they don't have to think about.

and don't get me started on movies and books how crappy movies can make $100 million the first weekend and great movies don't even crack the top ten and how novelists who should have been read years ago aren't until someone puts them on their bookclub lists. you have people that can recite lines from shitty movies like dukes of hazzard and have never seen casa blanca. people can rattle off john grisham books in order of their publication but have never heard of raymond carver or carson mccullers or john fante, three of the best writers of the last century.

i digress, this arrested development thing has got upped my ire. i mean this was a genius show. hopefully it will get picked up by FX or HBO. this show has a hardcore audience, although small, but its got viewers that will miss it wholeheartedly. if you have not watched the show, please watch the remaining 5 episodes starting december 5th, and maeby, just maeby, it can get renewed or another network will pick it up. in all, CBS, NBC and FOX just cancel all the good shows, then it will just be cable shows that are nominated for emmys in a few years. this is a sad day, just like when baseball season ends.

and now some early poems and
85 days until pitchers and catchers...

i get the feeling i wish i had a nickel

there is not a more inspiring time had
than cruising down interstate 25
doing 90 miles an hour
towards sante fe, new mexico

with the top down
one arm in the air
the other on the wheel
blasting the radio and singing at the top of your lungs the boxer by simon and garfunkel

possible parallels between a good book and a late night t.v. show

i just finished watching the yankees climb back into the world series
and now i'm transfixed between a billy collins book
and a old threes company episode on. t.v.
i sit and briefly think if there's a parallel between the two

it's late and raining and i've had entirely not enough to drink
laying on the couch there's a glass of vodka on the coffee table to try and get me there
i take a sip
and it dribbles down onto the book

i wipe it down
turn off the t.v.
and the only parallel i can come up with is i was reading a poem he wrote about his wife
and i would like suzanne somers to be my wife

i quickly doze off on the couch

to see what beautiful, nubile and young ladies can do

they make you feel like riding horses
or take a hike in a national park
look at paintings by bosch
read the daily comics and laugh out loud

listen to john coltrane
and you oughtta see the sight of a sunset from a 75 ft. yacht near saint somewhere
drink dirty martinis off the greek islands
and snorkel off the coast of the keys

they can make you give up freedom
and fitzgerald
and bach
and beetle bailey

my next glass of red wine

tonight drinking too much red wine
i think of those shirts with the little penquins on them
broken watches
fireflies on the front porch

a t.v. set i dropped moving last tuesday
coloring outside the lines as a child
or even today
i don't know why i think of these things

i could be thinking of billy holliday
or the young beautiful girls sitting against the gym wall waiting to be asked to dance
an old western movie
the next poker game with the guys, raymond carver, my next glass of red wine

the unexpected swim

in new jersey a temporary dance floor over a swimming pool at a nightclub gave way
early sunday morning, injurying fifty or so
who plunged into the water, police said
about forty people were taken to the hospital by ambulance

another 20 went to the hospital on their own
most had cuts, sprains
or broken bones
but mostly people just sobered up real quick

up and around the scene

wouldn't that be really terrible if you were really great at something
and only be worth a dime a dozen
i think i write as well as them but only sometimes
mostly i feel as though not a chance in hell

and the lovely young ladies are making the fat millionaires happy
and bad writings are like fucking a fat woman
when your drunk
ain't nothing you can do about it

i finished my journey on the toilet
didn't wash my hands
walked back to the bar, ordered another vodka rocks
and finished fucking another fat woman

when heidegger speaks of idle chatter think of jerry, george, elaine and kramer in monk's coffee shop discussing some trivial piece of nonsense

2005-11-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

went to see the richard avedon "the american west" photography exhibit today. the photos were haunting and intense. if you live in the area and have a chance to see it, go. driving to the exhibit, i passed by the rangers ballpark and sang "take me out to the ballgame" aloud... 88 days until pitchers and catchers. i offer this for the opening of "walk the line" this weekend:

THE EPISODE OF JOHNNY CASH'S NEW ALBUM

i was eager to hear the new johnny cash album
when i got home from the bar tonight
i hadn't the opportunity earlier in the day
those who know about the man understand

like most other nights
i ran into you at the bar
i was shooting pool
like most other nights

we came back to my apartment
and started to get torrid
soon you removed your top and bra
you began to play between my legs and couldn't help myself any longer

i had to hear the new johnny cash album
i raced to the stereo
my pants down, i nearly tripped
but it was there, laying in the case

i popped it in
you had just finished that womanly time
but you were getting into bed
naked as the first song began to play

i watched your gorgeous body
conform the mattress to it
i looked at the clock, it read 2:47 a.m.
and the mattress was happy

at 2:48 a.m. i was happy
i was maneuvering myself in and out of you and thought to myself
life couldn't be any better
i paused for a moment and said to you i think i need to be alone to fully appreciate this moment

i stopped what i was doing
pulled my pants up
zipped them
and showed you the door

I SLEPT WITH SYLVIA PLATH

i murdered it
the week you were gone
i laid it right out on the kitchen table in front of me
and murdered it

i gave up on you, me, us for a while today
but i see the girl
and she is pale and beautiful
her hand rests on my heart

while the gods of poetry hammer away at a typewriter
spewing words frantically onto a blank page
i think to myself i have never been fishing on the colorado river
or any other river or for that matter, in rain or sunshine

but you can be found in october or any other month
fishing when possible
and i am more likely to be in a quiet room like the one i'm in now
a room sick with books and pictures of dead authors on the wall

while all along i think to myself
daily our love sets in the most peculiar of ways
sometimes behind the clouds, sometimes in full display
it never set like this though, not before today

and like a murder's confession-
i love you

the sound of her heels on the sidewalk echoed among the old buildings of my soul

2005-11-16T02:09:00.000-05:00

92 days until pitchers and catchers

poem for a stranger

i turn the lights off and burn candles i get three-for-a-dollar at the grocery store
i have little, tin tuna cans for burning incense in, i light some
i keep my record collection next to my radio in cardboard boxes i get from work
i play them regularly

my prized one is an original buddy holly
the jacket and album are mint
it's worth at least a couple of hundred
price could vary depending on the taker

i have framed pictures of my baseball heroes on the walls
a collection of cigarette butts in a quirky ash tray from holland
that sits on a coffee table
that was made in the 1970's

on the bookshelves
i have award winning authors in hardback
sometimes i drink straight from the milk carton
the winnie the pooh shower curtain i own has been in three different places i've lived

i get up from the blue recliner in my living room
light another incense
blow the candle out
recline back in the chair

focus on the smell
and the darkness

the tenant was drunk last night

it's cold and raining outside
and a young mexican maid in a blue sweater
speaking spanish softly to herself
pushes a grey laundry cart with a defective wheel down a cement corridor
in front of the motel office as the motel manager watches a huckleberry hound cartoon
at 7:13 in the morning, drinks coffee and devours a powdered donut

this all occurs as i roll over in bed
hungover

long necks, short stories and the great american pastime

2005-11-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

just a quick post before leaving for the frio river this weekend. saw a good band, the drams, last night among a few cold beverages. if they are in your area while they are on tour well worth checking out. ran into some old friends at the show. i had known a friend of mine had moved to key west but i found out he is a tour guide on a family-owned, glass-bottom tour boat and he survived hurricane rita by hunkering down at a local bar and getting drunk with the bartender. god i've got to get back down there to captain tony's. also going to see more old friends this weekend. but what it all comes down to is ... 101 days until pitchers and catchers.

a toast from the grave

bukowski would be toasting me in his grave
watching another poet in a bar
knocking back a few
knowing he's doing the thing he loved to do

possibly the essence of his life
but jesus wouldn't be proud
whatever
jesus drank wine

so here's to bukowski, me and jesus

books drape my walls as it draws another day closer to baseball season

2005-11-08T22:04:00.000-05:00

jogging yesterday i saw a father playing catch with his son. it's nice to know right in the middle of the season of the barbaric ritual known as football that there are some red blooded americans out there with some common sense. 104 days until pitchers and catchers.

literary criticism

i lean forward in my chair
and put out a cigarette
as i stare at hundreds of rejection notices from publishers
i collected for my first short story collection

many to the effect something about not making the stories flow
and all i can think of as i look at a forgotten housewife's poem
in a year end anthology of best loved poems is:
that should be me

one day i'll get by writing and you'll play the violin in the parlor
and i'll talk of how books are the basement of civilization
when cultures cease to exist
and somehow their books remain out of sheer dumb solidity and you'll pretend to listen

although readers always seem scarce
you can divide us into two classes
those who read books
and those who do not

i saw once somewhere that one in two households in america
do not have books in their homes
and there are heads of english departments never to have read "The Catcher in the Rye" and yet there are past serial killers that have read it numerous times

leaning back in my chair
i light a cigarette
and think of how sometimes the chemistry in Shakespeare's words
did not flow either

brautigans sombero

2005-11-05T21:39:00.001-05:00

bird watching

i could never find my dads playboys
they were never in the usual places
under the matress, above the cabinets in the bathroom
or in the sock drawer

maybe he never had them, they quite possibly just never were in our house
so i took to his binoculars as a thirteen year old boy
peering at the girls jogging up and down the street
while i pretended to bird watch in our front yard

list of things that pleased my leisure

books, movies, t.v.

no country for old men, proof, the shield,
the professors house, jarhead, arrested development,
in the country of last things, capote, curb your enthusiasm,
extremely loud and incredibly close, good night and good luck, viva blackwood,
the big sleep, a history of violence, gillians island

107 days until pitchers and catchers