A Hazard, A Mission

Italian night train on its way
to a salsa-flavored laboratory

bodies tumbling on bodies
on flickering paper scrolls

eyes affixed on obituaries
while feet drag in tributaries

circulation like old smog songs
like college-soaked memories

midday MDMA slipping away
and LA is so slippery when wet

moist minds keep wits dry
and I know I need mine

true vamps incorporated
suckled moons appropriated

I'm on a fluorescent sofa
under incandescent lights

"Bad to the Bone" ring tone
plays behind the nurse's station

walk down the hall to draw blood
in Buffalo Wild Wings buckets

full body washed over top to bottom
like a tepid kitten in a warm winter

back end back channel back again
never front never front ever again

a pocket can be picked apart
in underground lottery novels

I knowingly write poor poems
because I am a poor man's novel

About Me (A-Z)

Anecdotes of antidotes; i.e. temporary pain relief. Basketballs dribbling like saliva from an addict’s mouth. Cars hugging other cars on state highways. Dead skin in the summer sun. Eradicating misguided antagonism. Freedom, according to America. Gangsterism in the biblical sense. Hope as a four-letter word. Ignorance, excavated. Jason as a form of premeditated nostalgia. Keith as a form of humble narcissism. Luxury as a form of anarchy. Man, anarchism is depressing. No, depression is anarchic. Oh my god, I am so ignorant. Quixotic is an overused word, or at least in most instances. Really, Kafkaesque is probably the most overused word among my peer group. Sifting through ethical quarries. Trying to take a stand. Universal codes do not exist. Varadi is a castle; no, it’s a hologram. Weathered internal compass. X-acto knives slicing particles, deaf and blind. You don’t have to do this anymore. Zero is just an infinite link.

All Good

This is
Nothing

People above
Called me on
My money

The struggle

You know
It’s all good

You never
Rhyme
To get paid

Remember
Flex
Love

You know?

Well
Don’t you?

All day
It’s Brooklyn

Keep
Girls
Write
Stuff
Too

Now
Down
To the
Weeks
To hear sold out speak

Fear life
In my ears

By the pool
I considered
Stereotypes

It’s all good
You know?

Super
Dead
Money

Lounging
Every day
Thinking
On my back

Show me
Every time my face is up

No wonder
The worst days
Sip
Like life

Cause
It’s all good

You know?

American Sign Language

I was a man by the time
I got cancer or whatever.

Nothing is a big deal
in the face of the sun.

Missouri is one big redhead,
and nothing feels good.

Play house in the charred desert
in fear of the unknown, Calabasas.

God! I need to retrieve my life
from the garbage disposal.

I buy Adderall and Drano
to clean my mind and space.

I eat French fries and hummus
because I’m an elegant diplomat.

I am waiting for the year 2020,
when neuroses will be revered.

Backyard Citgo

This possum won't stop looking
at me and my dinner,
and I can't stop thinking
about how I got curbed earlier
while trying to wash my car.

Someone is typing outdoors;
I can hear the keys punching.

This asshole is slamming on,
thinking about hitting the road
and howling at night like a gypsy.

Who the fuck am I to be judgmental?

I'm probably jealous of his idealism;
I'd be a coyote, too, if I could.

I'm too bogged down by donuts
I can't even eat, sucking away
at air I can't even breathe,
wading away through water
that will eventually grab my feet.

Banana Stains

Like a miserable Manhattan child,
my legs spasmed this morning,
projecting mercurial scripts
onto my lapsed sanguine mind,
and I forgot why I even try.

I woke up behind a face shield
an hour later with Caribbean grease
cloaked in the pocket of desire,
and I was assured by my defeat,
greeting the moon with my ass up.

Dark skies often arrive
before dusk even clocks in,
and I machinate for the future;
anxieties cannot be translated
like Proust or our fathers.

Bear In Mind

Welcome to the West

State the untouchable
Slug your eardrum
Slug your chest

Sex in the City
Watch me
Clock in the game

Bomb-ass state

On a mission
Making money
Serving fiends

Shining like Liberace
Looking good

Throw a finger up
If you feel good

Dreaming
Screaming
For money and alcohol

Cowards die
Where we riot

Beyond A Dog

American cars
Always mimic
American values

Shame is contemporary
But it always will be
It’s a preoccupation
Go wreck a Ford every day

There is so much sex
In the streets at night
Get born and re-born
Until the darkness dies

I’m a dog in the morning
I’m a dog in the evening
I’m a Puerto Rican exorcism

Breed

Some dogs
play card games.

Some dogs
read good books.

Some dogs
lie in cats' beds.

Some dogs
eat dog shit.

Buddha Lounge

Rainbow juice thug
Try skinny dipping

Skinny hotel lady
Real tight stand

Late night crew
Hypnotize that body
Even our positive high
Cannot relax my mind

Forget me
Forget your world

Cut down
The private flow

Share a drink
Share a blunt
And then bump
On this deep shame

Gypsy freak scarecrow tonight
And Lord, let me simplify the sweat

I don’t quit
Why do you?

I’m calling nonsense
I’m feeling mystic
I hit that late night trick
And throw liquor on my mind

Checked Cues

A blind man
can see the future
more clearly.

A partial cripple
can hobble cobble
with empathy.

It's only time
that gets in the way
of objective goals.

City Limits

I shoot cans of Hamm's
with the trophy BB gun
a man hand-to-gloves me

there are stale bagels
hung from hemlocks
and dreads knot up

I hear a cardinal chirp
and a bear chortle
"neck of the woods"
isn't just a phrase
in these dragged parts

"Only In Dreams"
by Weezer is on
the yard jukebox
I mean boom box
but this is for real

thirty pack shacks
are a wild affair.

Corporate Poem

Even the most minute
logo disturbs my vision,
but like unperturbed men,
I accept the stamps of life.

Coterie

Lazy Susan isn't so lazy—
she moves like a jersey,
enmeshed and emblematic.

This structure taught me power—
I have a built a lifetime of mistakes,
and I'm only a third of the way there.

I drink coffee for dinner
and strategize alone,
with other bodies in mind.

These mugs are my veins;
I flow like a sewer clan,
whiffing semen-scented air.

Crackup

A chin
on the
forehead,
foregrounding
a future
of reciprocal
forbearances.

Cruise Lined Insides

The words of a lover
can be botched
just as easily
as a butcher's batch
of dimly lit displays,
splayed open for all
to see, if only for
a commercial moment.

Day One

Returned
Time

Death
Turning
Me

I am what?

You can
I can’t
I won’t
You can

Well
It’s simple
Motherfucker

Give
Don’t
Go
Weak

I hate money

Picture
Your eyes
Swollen

Acclaimed
Thug
Lot

Watching
A decade
In essence

Shit
Dreams

Jail seems
Good
Like
A plague

I hate power
I hate me

I was funny
Until I made it

Clever

But I’m the same
On top

You doubt
It?

My bad

You can live
My code

What
Threshold?

You make it
The answer

I like the way this feels

It’s paper
Friends
Or
God

Wicked
Pillows
Took my time

Stop

Doors cause
Me to catch jaws

I tried
Ambulances

They can’t understand fear

Man
World
Day one

Desert Lobes

Fit boys
Skirting
In sand

Explosive
Panache
In images

Leap into
The frame
Of fabric

Roll up and in
The frozen act
I am a stillborn

Directional Values

While in a lakeside town,
I ate eggs and other things
with a Midwestern Buddhist
and a Cold War protagonist,
and I revealed my suicide card.

It was hard, but they played along.

The enlightened one at the table
said she was conflicted by my words,
but in the end, said "people are people."

I looked over at the escape artist
and he said he thought I should live,
but also "to live is to be privileged."

I guess he was right, but fuck the UN.

After brunch, I decided
to go get groceries.

After shopping, I decided
to go get a massage.

While I was being touched,
I thought about the difference
between getting fingered
and getting a hand job,
and then I thought
about the difference
between work and play.

Down to Clown

Wearing khakis like a simple punk
I slide well enough to get real shit

Stack cheese and hold the world
Before I gauge a fool’s heart

Don’t fuck with the feds
They hook the unseen world

Philly’s a mad ass drag scene
Pimple kids and baguette kings

Crack is like Coca-Cola
And Billy is just a teen with style

Dozer

A man with a plant
Cannot be tamed

Branches and limbs
Are no different
Wave at nothing
Go unnoticed
The sky is your friend
Breathe with the wind
Get wet in the wild

Momentary gratification
Is a source of sustenance

Dub Sigs

As much as I care
about your fruit bowl,
I lose interest
in the famine talk.

I can see now
why Atlas shrugged.

That's not to say
Ayn Rand
was not a cunt.

I guess I'm just trying
to say I'm sorry
for all my neuroses
that have a Gotti vex.

At least I'm in Hollywood now.

Editorial

Life is us,
weekly.

Time is fed
in a bin.

Capture me,
caption-free.

Images last
regardless.

Ender, man.

In games
One always
Moves forward

Black and white
Are only signs
For lines to divide

Signals called
From above
Take notice

Translations
Are best made
From within

Flamin’ Hot

“Big Head Blues”
Stroke the swollen pulse
Endless, embossed puzzle
Pulling prisms, one by one
Sonic hedge funds
Elliptical reflections
Reflective ellipses
Cast bronze and “Pass GO”
Trumpeter playing extended melodies on a bassoon
Brian Wilson in a red coat
Blue tape bureaucracy
Smashing yellow-capped bricks
Tarred and feathered derricks
Re-LAX
Re-UP
Punch ducks
Beguiling Billy Blanks
Masculine Heroin
ATM TAG
Caffeine drip on the 4th of July
Nicolas Cage at the after-party
Swedish massage
Chinese massage
French blow job
Forever parked eminence
The ‘P’ Word
Raw Text Files
Weekend at Bernadette’s

Gold and Wild

Power combo
I drink Bud Light
And I write simple

Love is easy when naked
The digital sees everything
Live it up with somebody

Exercise the mind
Crooked scripture
Busts the deficit

Nothing is perfect
Nothing is infinite
Nothing is identical

Poetry is lecherous
Poetry is pessimistic
Poetry is Leviathan

Gospel

Washing cigarettes
into fabric as a familiar
act of Godliness

Watching street mutts
circle invisible prey
is an illusion of nature

Overhearing friends
try to locate themselves
on personal GPS devices

I stand still like a Frenchman
en plein air and in plain clothes
and paint over monochromes

Green Rewards

Every liberal arts girl you once knew,
who used to like blow and blew you,
now eats at Applebee’s; thank God.

And every time she got caught
in a three-way freeway squall,
you were dressed like Elvis.

This poem is like the time I almost died,
and you are like the cop who shot me,
and I am a black mark on your left lung.

Let’s breathe all of these messy headlines
into black and white categories; and hey,
categorically speaking, America sucks.

Grind Time

Got a wild-ass brain
Eating pain in the city

Hardcore tourists
Stripping jewelry

Trapping nightmares
Like a Tel Aviv pistol

Predators get Audis
Prey get felonies

And in hungry minutes
Money is the sweetest

Head Like

Head like
A clear stone

Get attention

TV
Zoloft
Job

Get raw
California
Get ghost
California

I got
Wires
Vogues
Control

I buy
Weed

Fuck blood
I’m life
I’m broke

Nothing like a war

We
Good

Shop
Straight

Not my job

Slash
Your dude
Serve the news

I’m another man

I made money
On a license plate

Shit
I got
A future

Drinking liquor
Wearing clothes

Hook a stiff ride
And
It’s all gravy

I’m a sport coat

Heart Stalking Brain

Numb spies
Swallow your trust

I’m on stunt vision
Riding ice type
Drinking ghetto grain
Choking in the fog

My American shit costs American bread
The phantom mall can’t stand for free

Bill Clinton don’t give a fuck
Hennessy in the morning
Cigarillo in his mouth
Nothing less than the best

Heavy Does It

We alone
Are together

Brother
We are
Spiritually
Precise

Together
We do it
Ourselves

Together

Hollywood

Dawn
Is
A
Holiday

Drugs
Film
Girls
Heat

Dusk
Is
A
Fantasy

I'll Be Dead Before The End

Every scene in sight is a crime;
smog shouldn't look like this.

It's January and I am warm;
the winter shouldn't feel like this.

Every day is a blow to humanity,
but I'm like Ali in my new locale.

Jobless

I sleep on sofas
Out of consideration

And my limbs
Are like stretched
Day-old croissants
On a cutting board

In the extra cold light
I think of Pittsburgh

Keith's Notes

A good painting
is a dirty joke,
only the willing
can remember.

A good photograph
is the summary
of a skewed reality,
momentarily paused.

A good sculpture
is the detritus
of a forced stance,
standing still for you.

A good exposition
is the accumulation
of thoughts scraping
the sides of everything.

Know Style

Natural college dodger

Keep it raw
Keep it dirty

Put down the padlocked dorm

Keep it raw
Keep it dirty

Swarm the Brooklyn disco

Keep it raw
Keep it dirty

Cement the psycho flow

Keep it raw
Keep it dirty

Knowledge Is Like A Tumor

I’m full
I’m living

I do this
Like a Buddhist

My behavior
Is very necessary

When you got dope
Tickle
My stomach

You know what?

I’m dropping English
Even if
I still smoke weed

A brother
On brain damage
The sequel

It’s easy
I mean hollow

Like
The words
Again

No help
No guessing

See
Society
Go
Original

Kill
Forget
Curse at home

Scared
Reality
Fiction

Take drugs
Go looking

And say
It ain’t about wealth

Move
Part of
You
Like
A bit

I got
A lesson

I got
It

Spring
Summer
Autumn

Knowledge is like
A tumor
In the neighborhood

Loneliness

Eating potatoes
Because I'm lost
And I found some

It's so American of me
To be so Jewish
When I'm in Europe

I think I'm in a gay bar
But there are no rainbows
I think I'll order a Budweiser

I can't help myself all the time
Sometimes I give in to gluttony
And sometimes I'm unclear

When I lack clarity or whatever
I throw away data just because
And the future is a waste basket

Trash tied to my arms with bungees
I'm reminded of Mike Judge jokes
And I'm all alone and it's okay

Lucky Strike

I was reading Chris Kraus
in a bar near Keithstrasse
when I heard a click
then a clack, and I caught
a man in boots snapping
filmic shots of me on repeat.

When my eyes rolled back
to the page they were on
before I inadvertently
became a German model,
a typo was staring back at me,
and I felt close to the writer.

I am a man of conflict,
at peace with empathy;
I am a man above all else,
full of carbs, craving to create
a life like the one that exists
in timeless black and white.

Memorandum

Do you remember electric freaks?

Nothing can save a population
addicted to sporty appendages.

Why is it that cold weather
always breeds cold people?

I want an art that flows like wine;
I want friends with ethics like mine.

Twombly is so Mediterranean;
he is a salty fish served daily.

Can we remember electric freaks?

Mennen Louvre

Philanthropy is a twisted device

Consigning power through pity
Consuming witless anxieties

The self is paved with plastic inside and out

We must lose our identities in order to give up
On the relentless speculation of the elderly

Youth crew is a forever flexible trend

Bracelets as amulets as bracelets
Live strong and live together

Cis boi livelihood at the Menlo Park Mall

Some men here smell like hot pretzels
Queerly knotted around holy ghosts

Never forget the power of antiperspirants

Momma

I dig out
The door

I drop
Everything

I fuck around
Get fucked up

I can’t shake up
The cash flow

I sip on dreams
Like cowards at 7-11

Never Never

Sup
Enron?

Look at
My mind

My body falls

God
I can’t die

How long will I live?

Relax

I’m fresh
I got my homies

It’s a miracle

Never want
Never need

I pray
I sleep
I die
I wake
I pray
I take

I know
The other side

New Level Step

Stealing
Steel
Earn your keep

Clear night
On the streets
So I can get some
Phones rolling

On a mission to tweak

“What’s up?”

I’m stuck

“Let’s do this”

Hit the curb
On better things

I’m breaking myself
Talking wealth

“Damn, what’s next?”

Seeing straight
All around
And pull out

Guns to my head
Let me contemplate
One in the hole

Explode

Switching back
Sit back and observe

I just left
The freaks
On the track

Back up

I just thought
They were
Desperate

But hell
You seem nice

Step to this
On a new level

New New York

Catholic volleyball players
are ruining the weekend
for these TSA agents.

What would make a soldier
think he's actually funny?

Was Bob Hope actually funny,
or was he just Jay Leno's father?

I did more drugs this past weekend
than a farm league player in Vietnam.

All roads converge in the sky,
and under the radar demographics
sometimes learn how to swim.

No ideas but in things

A squib pen
A finger tender
Limp or limber
I wonder what
Of prosthetic prose
Makes us American
A foil a folly a foliage
Based rendering
Of oneself rendering
Oneself helpless
To the empirical
Squall of ideas
Yet there are none
But in things

No More Twenties

I’m sitting stupid slow
Smoking in the shade

Pinky ring cushion
Polo sock pumping

Paid in codeine
Pint in the face

Got girls killing me
With cocaine on their brain

I’m like Big Bird on a yacht
Dropping homies in the mix

Got Miami on my schedule
But got my home fucking mellow

Octagon

Pens are violent
Pixels are graphic

I Saran wrap the raw

I’m stuck like a pimp
In a Mexican church

You scared?

Lukewarm preacher
Duct tapes the drill

What’s up?

I’m Swiss as fuck
In my Coogi sweaters

I express my shit

One Love, Motherfucker

Monday Armageddon
California earthquake
Myself and millions
And that’s for real

Celebrity seizure fuck storm
Cocaine and lambskin lies
Ghetto-master the thighs
I’m about that electric funk

Night fevers and dirty cops
Diplomats in boats
Eskimos on submarines
Busting ass in the world

Out of Order (It’s All the Same)

I was shooting my aunt’s gun
at empty cans of Sapporo
when I kicked back three cysts
onto the tip of my right elbow.

I realized at that moment:
“If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die;
I might as well enjoy this smoke.”

Mikey said, “Dude, stop being dead
before you die; it’s not how time
actually works in real world prose.”

I double pumped my dead aunt’s gun,
and I thought about her dead son’s gun,
and I thought about how Michael Jordan
was just a figment of my imagination.

Perpendicular Poem

When a gate swings open in the suburbs, does Jeff Bezos know? I'm having pains in the right side of my chest and I'm only 28. It's 11 PM and Mexicans are playing N.W.A. in the back alley. A stray cat approaches me and though I want to pet it, Jerry advises against it. How many times a day is too many when it comes to brushing your teeth? There is no such thing as world domination, but science fiction is proven. I searched Google to find out who is the world's most powerful man and 'Google' was the top result. I'm going for a walk because I can. My shoes have decided shoelaces are overrated. The moon looks like milk tonight and my milk is made of almonds.

Present Tense

A brief box of oranges,
perched upon a match,
lit like Genesis the band;
I can walk like a man
forever in the desert,
and I want to trip on sand,
like literally fall on my face,
because a gift is a hand.

Those were Andy's words,
with Rose in mind though.

Pro Am

Wake up to mad libs,
type embarrassment slowly,
consider the life of ambassadors,
donate at least six viles of blood,
eat an entire pack of Benadryl,
listen to melodramatic podcasts,
and feel better about my morning.

Projected Poem

People trying to tell me how to eat sushi
While I’m walking through Brussels sprouts
In the park by where I last lost my words

Wasted letters amidst toxic double entendres
And everything looks avocado in this light

I don’t think of nostalgia in terms of decades
I think of nostalgia in terms of bad ideas

Coming back to the haze of the place
Where I will always feel lost and found
My status always conflates on solid ground

This is the part where I guess I like to project

Reverse Revolutions

Times only change
In relation to time

Mockingbirds are reality
Or at least the closest thing
To poetry in a living organism

Organs soaked in Russian vodka
Brains drained in Arabic powder

Where is the middle ground
In lands unhinged on axes
Go left to get right or wait

Road Tonsils

I used to creep on speak
When I spoke of death

Where can I get smoke
And stomp low-key?

I used to ride and slide
Now I just call it what I want

Respect hard-ass
Punks and dykes alike

Roll On

You look good
Creeping

I make a phone call

The hollow points
Are too hard to lift

I have to put my shit in reverse

Medallions
Glare

Word to hyped bitches
I’m about to serve soda

Aerosmith
And
Chevrolet

Why don’t you let me roll on?

Rote Totem

I stand like a man
By variant definition

I am the truth
As far as I can tell

Green by some accounts
In the red in the flesh

Move on or move over
That's the new age mantra

Santeria Sequel

hot yoga march
"Too Wet for TV"
tan wrinkled scandal
Post-Manhattan Squalor
find me at the docks
and I'll find your thoughts
Jersey Shore prophet
any fortune will fit
taxi cab oppression
French-African assassin
male-ordered suicide
if you don't drive me
I will drive myself
bi-coastal bi-friendly
I've had enough
I can't get enough
I've got Bed-Stuy eyes
and Tang on my mind
upon my return
I will treat you to me
I will trudge on palms
like someone's ancestors
crushing narratives
once contemporary
now trapped in valleys
oh so many yelps
in the Greek seats
but so little help
in the Armenian Sears
linens and moth ablaze
well-worn mouths agape
well-sworn words at stake
and I swear on nothing
we're close to the end

Self-Reflexive Retrospective

Walking around,
window-shopping,
I've become a boffin.

How-to seize manuals
are automatic reading
in seasons of struggle.

My eyes are composed
of sand, Scotch tape,
and prismatic perception.

I am my own island,
sunken into an archipelago
of well-oiled messages.

We can relay and respond
like insects in a checkout line;
we are products and by-products.

Serum

Frozen yogurt
Is a fantasy
Like treasure

There are more
Lesbian parties
In Los Angeles

There are mostly
Gay men in Twinkie
Salad dressing

This decade will be defined
As the one when everybody
Was obsessed with kale

Tramp-stamped juice bars
Alcoholic dog parks
Alleys filled with breast milk

Here we are in hour-long traffic
Crushed grooves on the 110
A murder a minute per day

Breaking news in Florida
Breaking news in Florida
Breaking news in Florida

CNN runs so many stories
Into deep media ravines
Text drives the content

Back to me and mine
Today I lost my mind
I found it on Magnolia

I ran into spandex girls
With knotted hair
At a clinical affair

I was fed flowers
I dodged defeat
I pinched a hit

I hurled from
A one-hitter
On a bum's head

Breaking knuckles
In the wind of others
Can be a furious task

Shit Talking Man

It’s hard to fuck with the man
But I’ll be damned if I go soft

I’m as cocky as my name
I’m as fast as my weight

I’m heavy cause I’m a dragon
I’m off-track cause I’m a wagon

I swear I’m a filthy man
I can’t change my chill

I let you all feel something
Call me the neighborhood

Slow Drag

It’s hard to impress
With verbs and nouns
On that reefer route

Vogue in the ocean
Drink on the street

Dope comes around
Get good in the Jacuzzi
It’s natural by night

Fuck in the Cadillac
Fuck out the problems

Paint and skate
Block the brainless
Hustle on the run

Wealth goes out of style
No need to go in the ground

Soft Alpha

When I wear nothing
but my boxer briefs
on Sunday afternoons,
I feel in control and I like it.

Sugar Water

When I was young
My earth was an old woman

I gave blood
Everything was real

Back step for life

Family ain’t family
On TV

Real jokes
Real shit

I caught myself

Summer, 2013

I got a PhD in puréed poetics
shuffling along the East River.

I disseminated my dissertation
on the Williamsburg Bridge,
high on antihistamines
and hot rubber fumes.

A Chinese man on a road bike
stopped to ask me my sign;
I asked him if he was thirsty.

He called me a homo sensual.

I told him, "I feel you, man."

He yelled, "HOME ESSENTIALS!"

I walked back toward Astor Place,
roamed around KMart for an hour,
and then drank a few Scotch drinks
at the Scotch bar on Seventh Street.

Walt Whitman was in my hands,
Lou Reed was in my ears,
Keith J. Varadi was on my mind.

There is a time for words
and there is a place for actions;
the summer of 2013
was where I began to swim
on the axis of myself.

Swap Meet

I get no love in the cut
I get no relief in the high

Money is still the same shit
Get a calm perspective

Peace in Long Beach
Police in Beirut

This town is hell with a window
These cops are happy triggers trying

Laugh in my living room
Cry in Los Angeles

I’ve got furniture if you want to fade
I’ve got a car if you want to scoot

Task Force

Pardon my shit
You gotta
Beg for that shit

You pay for God
You pay for a Phantom

Chrome ghost tags
Up in a pawned closet

Half a million knotted
Paranoid and pardoned
Blue in the face, you got it?

Tea Party

I took Viagra
as a joke
in Boston,
and smoked
a pack of Winstons
until I passed out
watching reruns
of "Friends"
in a Holiday Inn.

I woke up
in a tuxedo,
eating French Toast
with a Vietnamese maid
and her three brothers.

The End

I heard a Spanish man
say 'Auschwitz' over tea,
and I thought to myself:
"Is this the end of it all?"

Today's Headline

"A lessee for life," says the arsonist with no home

Tuesdays Are Okay

Pizza for brains
And grass for guts

Midnight is a mindset

This car is dead already

Cheyenne is a town
It's also my bartender

Valley Life

Someone says bimbo
I think of white bread

Someone says Simon
I think of misogyny

I buy my groceries at Trader Joe's
Mainly because it's convenient

I bought a six pack of Simpler Times
And imagined myself at a race track

I sat by the river all day today
And dried my skin out whole

It's true that nothing smells better
Than air conditioning on a hot day

War

Backyard tumbling tonight
And the Berlin Wall fell again

I smoked the last of my weed
And my piss smells like baby food

I'm a real painter now
Says my best friend

I'll return to the Grease Swamp
To soak up pale sunshine
And romp in the harsh moon

I'll be better at deflecting
In the decades to come
And I'll ride defeat by horse

We Against Us

Tub full
of Vaseline;
eggs frying
on the ceiling.

Silent alarm,
verbalized unrest;
time is still
ill in the West.

Back East,
it's the news
that counts
lives as it goes.

But standards
stay central
every mile,
every border.

West Coast Boy

Out of the book
Banging in the back

I’m a regime

Deep heat
Making murder

I’m a war

Touch what you heard
Fuck in the kitchen

I’m a model

Try to Ziplock
Get detached

I’m a martini

Charles Bronson
Scratched at compliments

I’m a chicken

Lonesome Armageddon
Cut you down to bunker shit

I’m a shoulder

Vigilante grill
Split the flame

I’m a motherfucker

West Coast New Year

Axe the mane,
go below &
ice the plane;

there is a code
in the vortex &
the hub is near;

my neuroses
are under siege &
Arizona is a dream.

What Is Life

God
Cops
Rules
Word
Garbage

Know what I’m saying?

Cash
This
Cash everything
Take a joint
Get the money

New York Times
Staying alive

Old man
Moved
A youth

To drug
This one and that one
For fun

But it was just a dream

Started smoking at sixteen
Doing hits
Making fire

No question
White boys
Got life better

Rough
Route
All out
Catching
Every week

Respect
The now

Around
The
Dollar
Long years
Got me
The street

And the world is
A man
Failed

Drugs
Clutch
Me

Going
Back
So
The world is
No different
From every day
In the
Smoke

I guess
That’s the time
It’s worth

Give up
Maintain

Overcome
Cops

Stray on the
Proof
Kick the truth

Running wild, drinking beer
Trying

Now
What is life?

Where's the Tylenol?

1. “Primary Colors: Book of Revelation”

2. “Mimosas are like chicken soup broth for the teenage souls of grown-ups.”

3. “Some adults prefer no turkeys at the dinner table.”

4. “French fries are kind of a retrograde side.”

5. “Porno for Pyros are playing in my living room, and like a good Floridian, I set my television on fire.”

6. “The most popular album in the Middle East this past decade: How The West Was Won."

7. “Who said Muslims ought to be politically correct?”

8. “Red and green are seasonal colors for a reason, no?”

9. “Some dogs look like deer, and I wonder who really wants to control beauty?”

10. “Jamba Juice is a surrogate for eggnog in some Manhattan neighborhoods.”

11. “Anderson Cooper always refuses leftovers at Thanksgiving.”

12. “Anderson Cooper is an atheist.”

13. “Bob Dylan was an anti-Semite for Halloween this year, and his dog was Johnny Cash.”

14. “I wrestled Ernest Hemingway and I got ringworm.”

15. “A former linebacker for the University of Pittsburgh once criticized my rhetorical skills.”

16. “The best way to get someone to call you back is to ask them via text message: ‘Who is this?’”

17. “This past summer, I drank soju at a day spa and wrote caricature haikus about all of my ex-girlfriends.”

18. “Enthusiastic drunks are all saints in this shit world.”

19. “Mel Gibson is just Woody Allen with muscles.”

20. "The Social Network, starring Jesse Eisenberg as Clement Greenberg.”

21. “Who do you know at this party who could get us some coke?”

22. “In the wintertime, I spend my after hours at lesbian bars.”

23. “Amidst constant bickering, an orange grove sunset floats across white noise landscapes.”

24. “Father-in-laws can be like insurance agents, mother-in-laws can be like first floor apartments, and holidays can be like natural disasters.”

25. “Palm trees are the most supreme sedatives.”

26. “Can a polar vortex kill Ebola?”

27. “Gawker's December horoscope predicted many deaths last year, and Gothamist reported on some of them this year.”

28. “What was it Barthes said about Black Friday?”

29. “Watching basketball at noon with apathetic relatives is a personal pastime.”

30. “Thinking back on my first Irish-Catholic Hanukkah in New Jersey, I miss the East Coast.”

31. “New Year’s Resolution: Hillary for President”

“Why do your eyes sound like steel?”

Never listen to a hand
Face in, face out
Finger the goodies
Like an orphan hustler
Burning monster bullets
On an ADT trigger home

I will rob the Koch Brothers
And heckle cops like it’s 9/11

I will play the martyr
I will share my riddles
I will turn out my wits

Dying young is just luck
Powder squeezed my pocket
Got betrayed in the afterlife

Sympathy is so hurried
Common sense is so tight
Drugs are so in my truck

Wind Jammer

Bolting Los Angeles County,
I rip toenails like Tom Green.

Teeth are dead from the start,
and sleep is but a luxury.

Some mystery Japanese clinician
mailed me a Cottonelle shirt today;
the box was postmarked from Jersey.

I will club the shit out of old lands,
sweeping trash with my shoes;
I am orthopedic for life.

Word on the Loot

Snoozing grill aside,
I'm express out the gate.

Antenna weigh down
is a cavity condition.

Overseas frown flex
patrolling the ego.

My meter is up,
and my motor is off.