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.