A POEM - THAT WAS HOW WE DID IT THERE

THAT WAS HOW WE DID IT THERE
He walked in through the door
Saw me sitting there at the bar,
A glass of beer in my hand
Half drank, a shitty grin on my face.
“oh, jesus Christ.”
“hello, friend. I’ve been waiting
For you.”
“don’t you ever quit?”
“not unless somebody’s kneeling
On my neck.”
He shook his head. He knew the score.
“oh, fuckin’ A.”
He pulled out a stool and sat down.
The barman nodded and
Set about wiping a glass and filling it
Up with a draft.
I took a coin out from my pocket.
Got it set on my thumb,
Ready to be flipped.
I looked over at him.
“heads,” he said.
I flipped the coin.
It came up heads
And I reached into my pocket,
Pulled out a dollar bill
And set it on the bar
In front of him.
I set the coin up on my thumb again.
“heads.”
It came up heads again
And I pulled out another single,
Set it on the bar.
That was how we did it there.

A POEM - THE SELFISH ONE

THE SELFISH ONE
“what you do today?”
“nothing. Just sat around.”
“and yesterday?”
“same thing. Just sat around,
Tapped on the keys.”
“all alone?”
“yeah. I like to be alone.”
“hmm.”
“besides, you’re the only one I know here.”
“Good.”
“good? What do you mean?”
“I mean good. I don’t like
You talk to anybody else, just me.”
“aw, hell. C’mon.”
“no. you talk to just me.
It better that way, ha ha.”

A POEM - IT WAS MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW

IT WAS MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW
It was hard to put things together
In those days, those nights.
I woke up one morning
It was new years day.
Thought I’d call home,
Wish the ex a happy birthday
And say hello to my best friend.
Went into that travel service station,
Went near the phone.
There was a guy sitting there,
Shooting the breeze.
Not working, not paying,
Not doing anything.
He had his 9mm there on the table
I picked it up and looked into the barrel.
He took it from me,
Popped out the clip,
Gave it back,
A silent, scolding expression on his face.
“nice,” I said, admiring it. “niner?”
“yes. Nine millimeter.”
I nodded and handed it back.
Made a phone call.
That was how things went for me in Cambodia.

A POEM - THEY WILL FUCKING EAT YOU ALIVE

THEY WILL FUCKING EAT YOU ALIVE
We were at a rest stop.
I couldn’t distinguish his accent.
Australian or English but he’d
Been traveling for a while.
“man,” he said to me. “this trip,
This trip isn’t about diving, no.
I go to the Philippines once a year
To do all my diving. No, this trip,
This one, for me, is about women.”
“oh, yeah?” I asked, looking at him.
He had a mullet of dirty hair that
Was beginning to bald on top.
His skin was tanned and worn like leather,
And it was hard to tear my eyes away
From the beak he had on his face.
“yeah,” he said, enthusiastically.
“I’ve had twelve girlfriends,
And I’m not bullshitting you.
Twelve girlfriends since I’ve been
Here in southeat Asia.”
“no shit, huh?”
“Yeah!” he shrieked, then gave
A good suck on his cigarette.
“I mean, no women want to even know me
Back home. THEY RUN A MILE
when they see me coming!”
I laughed. I’d probably run a mile too,
If I was a woman.
“I mean, I don’t like to lie to ‘em,
But you have to, you know?
You gotta say, ‘oh, I’ll be coming back,
I promise. I promise.’
They all make you promise.”
I nodded.
“or else they’ll eat you alive.
If you don’t tell them you’ll be back,
They’ll fucking eat you alive!”
He nudged me with his elbow
And his eyes were bulging out of his face
And he lowered his voice and said,
“but, to be honest. I like that.
It’s nice to feel wanted. It’s nice
To know that they’d eat me alive, ho ho!”

A POEM - THE MORNING RECESSES

THE MORNING RECESSES
Back in the third grade
I was a menace
And my best friend Micah
Well, he was a menace too
Most of the kids were afraid of us
Because all we did was gang up
On them and make fun of them
And the little girls
They’d giggle and like us for it
Showed them we were the dominant ones
The alpha males, the leaders
So then we took to picking on them too
And at recess, while they were swinging
Me and Micah would find sticks
And run around the swing set
Banging on the metal posts
Yelling and growling
Just unleashing hell on them
But soon enough
The teacher would hear about it
And we’d get another demerit
Or a long lecture
But that just made us even badder
And gave us bigger reputations
To live up to
And the big kids liked us more
So there we’d be again,
Picking up sticks and threatening kids,
Banging our clubs on the swing set
Or the slide, or the monkey bars.
We never thought much about things
Back in those days.
You don’t think much when you’re young.
You just have these impulses
And you act on them.
But I never had the impulse to grow up,
Somehow that just happened along the way.
Maybe between recesses.

A POEM - FIGHTING IN THE ALLEYS, PUKING IN THE STREETS

FIGHTING IN THE ALLEYS, PUKING IN THE STREETS
The Kid was being pushed around
From one group of people to another
Because nobody wanted him to puke
On their car or their bike or them.
I was standing to the side,
Just howling and laughing my ass off.
“Look at him! Look at him!
Ho ho ho! He’s puking everywhere!”
We’d been thrown out of the bar by
The bartender and we’d just been out
Back beating the hell out of each other,
Rolling around in the dirt and broken
Glass and through the shallow puddles
Of piss and rain. I’d done my puking
Earlier, in one of the bar’s kitchen
Sinks, but the Kid had saved his up
To put on a great display in front of
The bar and all its patrons. Goddamn!
It was just another night in Port City.

A POEM - POOR TOM C.

POOR TOM C.
I lived with a guy once,
Name was Tom C.
I’d go out drinking at night,
Blow all my money at the bars,
And stumble back home
There he’d be, passed out in his arm chair,
Where he’d been sitting all day.
A dozen and a half empty Bud Light cans
On the floor at his feet,
A burnt out cigarette in his hand.
I’d walk past him and collapse into bed.
In the morning he’d ask me,
“how much money’d you spend last night?”
And I’d say, “I don’t know. Too much.”
He’d smile this goofy smile,
Like he had it all figured out,
And he’d say to me,
“see, that’s how I’m gonna make it big.
I save my dimes. Every one of ‘em.
Growin’ up, my uncle always told me,
‘save your dimes and you’ll make it big’
And that’s what I do. I save my dimes.”
Finally one morning I’d had enough.
“Tom,” I barked. “A dime ain’t gonna
Get you shit in this world,
Especially since the ones you’re saving
Are only change from the money you
Spend on your cases of Bud Light.”
He glared back at me,
Anger slowly turning to disgust,
Then to surprise and finally remorse.
“shit,” he said. “maybe you’re right
About that one.

"I WONDERED WHAT THE HELL IT WAS,
THAT MADE THE CHILDREN SCREAM AT RECESS."

A POEM - THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN A TROUBLED MIND

THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN A TROUBLED MIND
It was late in the afternoon
And I thought it would begin to cool down
But it kept getting warmer.
When I went out on beer runs
I didn’t wear my sunglasses
Because my face immediately
broke dripping with sweat
And the sunglasses just slid
Down the ridge of my nose.
I’d weaseled myself into a double room
For the price of a single,
Three dollars per night,
Because I demanded a working power outlet
Which the last single room didn’t have.
So I sat on my bed,
The keys set down on a low table in front of me,
Twin fans blowing into my face.
I was slurping down cans of Black Panther,
Some Chinese form of Guinness Stout.
Behind the guesthouse was a school,
And outside the children just screamed
all day long,
A sea of blissful shrieks and cries
and yelps and squawks.
I wondered what the hell it was
That made the children scream at recess.
Outside on the dusty, broken road
Motorbikes whirred by and little girls
On bicycles coasted past, dreamlike.
I wiped the dust off the mouth
Of my can of beer, took a hit,
And watched the dust build up again.
I’d just read Cormac’s THE ROAD
And was beginning to wonder if it was just a book
Or if the dust was the ash
And the end of the world was just outside.
I was speaking with nobody those days.
The odd ‘thank you’ or ‘nope,’
But that was about it.
I thought about disappearing,
Just fading into the woodwork,
Drinking myself back
into some tropical, languid stupor,
giving up communication and connections,
never returning or even trying to return
to that life I used to live.
The life I had, but more so the life that had me.
Then I wondered if it had already happened.
And I realized, after some deliberation,
That it had.
It had happened long ago.
Maybe back in Bangkok,
Or more likely Syria or Istanbul.

A POEM - THE PAIN OF FORGET

THE PAIN OF FORGET
I’d say that more often than not
I’m writing away in my head
Big, important words
Swollen with the truth.
But the problem is that writing
These words in my head
Is like writing them on a waterfall,
Committing them to immediate dissolution,
And there is nothing more frustrating,
Than sitting down to work
And looking bleakly onto a blank page,
Frowning and sighing, saying out loud,
“now just what the hell was that,
That poem I was thinking about before?”

A POEM - A SHORTER VERSION OF THE TRUTH

“That’s your problem,” she said to me. “You just want it all.”
“That’s not true,” I snapped back. “I don’t want any of it!”

A POEM - THE SOUND OF THE ONLY FRIEND I EVER HAD

THE SOUND OF THE ONLY FRIEND I EVER HAD
In the darkness of the early mornings
Lying in my bed
Enjoying the coolest moments of the day
I’d just listen.
First the sweeping would begin
Quick slashes of straw against pavement,
And bits of trash being moved along.
Afterwards the sound of running water
Then that water being splashed
Over the sidewalk and the courtyard
A few voices would cut into the quiet
And soon enough the clinks and bangs
Of metal being dragged and assembled
The vendor stalls being rolled along
And racks and booths being built.
Then a pot being set on a skillet
the hissing and cracking of oil,
And the morning meal was underway.
A television would be turned on,
And soft, quiet soap music
Would sift through the guesthouse,
wander out through the windows
And doors and cracks in the walls.
And suddenly a faint scratching,
On the packing tape that covered
The entire bottom half of my window.
I listened for a few moments,
Realizing it was out of the ordinary.
Then I pulled back the shade,
And through the brown plastic
The outline of a cat, a kitten perhaps.
With a smile I popped out of bed,
And just watched sneakily,
The silhouette of his little paw
tapping and scraping at the tape.
Then, with a great smile on my face,
I gave a quick tap back,
Right against his paw,
And the shadow snapped and disappeared,
Not leaving a sound of his soft pads
Against the corrugated metal roof.
I leaned back in bed, smiling like
A mischievous schoolboy.
But in those few moments of scratching,
I’d become engaged to the sound,
As it was something out of the ordinary,
And something living and friendly.
And I cursed myself, saying, “well,
There you go. You just scared off
The only friend you ever had.”

A POEM - A WALK DOWN KHAOSAN ROAD

A WALK DOWN KHAOSAN ROAD
“tuk tuk, man?”
“ha. No fuckin’ way.”
“my friend, suit? Suit for you, my friend?”
“don’t need a suit.”
“taxi? Taxi, man? Taxi?”
“nope.”
“excuse me! Sir! Excuse me!”
“piss off!”
“o-ron-jooz, ten baht! O-ron-jooz, sir?”
“no thanks.”
“tuk tuk? Massage? Boom boom? Twenty baht?”
“yeah, right. No way.”
“excuse me, sirrr!”
“FUCK, off!”
“massajjj, mistah? Massajj?”
“No money, but thanks.”
“tee shirt? Please, sir, come inside my shop.”
“no thanks, I got one already.”
“my friend! My friend!”
“we ain’t friends, fucker.”
“ding-ding-ding!”
“hey. Please come home with me? Please?”
“sorry babe. I’d love to, but...”
“tuk tuk? Massage, boom boom?”
“no way.”

A POEM - TIRED SENTIMENTS REGARDING THE WHORES

TIRED SENTIMENTS REGARDING THE WHORES
It didn't matter if they had
the most genuine smiles,
the kindest ways,
the sincerest needs
or the most perfect asses.
At times I got so sick of their touts
I just wanted to give those whores
a taste of calloused,
scarred American knuckle...

A POEM - THE BENEDICTION OF THE RAT

THE BENEDICTION OF THE RAT
The night had come along
And I left the restaurant
Feeling good and full
There wasn’t a coolness
In the air, but there wasn’t
The brutal, strangling heat
That had claimed
The earlier part off the day.
I skipped along,
Thinking things might be
On the up and up for me.
I hoped that the next day
I’d be able to use my credit card
Again, and with a cash advance,
Come across some hard currency
Which I was very low on.
I ducked into the alleyway,
Sliding between the vendor stalls,
And then pushed open the
Dirty, worn gate of my hotel,
Where I had a 6 x 8 foot cell
That was like a little breadbox.
Right inside the gait
In the dark, cement entryway
There was a giant rat,
Lying on its side,
Shaking out the last bits
of a fatal seizure.
I stared at it a moment,
As it convulsed on the ground,
And I said, “ah, you poor bastard.”
Just then the woman who ran
The hotel came out and saw me
Staring at the rat.
She smiled and spouted out
A few strange words,
cackled harshly and walked away
shaking her head.
I was about to walk away myself,
When I felt compelled
to say something over the rat,
A sort of benediction.
So I edged up to it, looked down
Into its empty, dying, rodent eyes,
“Well, little man,
There’s life, and then there’s death.
And right now, you’re doing
The death thing. But who knows
What’ll happen next. Maybe you’ll
Just get tossed in the trash,
And your body will rot,
And that’ll be it.
Or maybe you’ve got some sort of soul
Deep inside that furry head of yours,
That’ll move on to something else.
Best of luck, either way.”
I stood over the little bastard
For another minute and then climbed
The stairs to my room.

A POEM - BANGKOK BLUES

BANGKOK BLUES
Sometimes, in those dark moments
Of introspection
When you’re holed up in some roach hotel
In some foreign country
Not having spoken to a person in days,
With an ache in your gut
And dysentery in your ass
You think about the home
And the ones you’ve left behind.
That morbid thought
Keeps pushing up and through
And even though you don’t want to have it,
You do, and finally you speak it,
To feel the pain,
Of hearing the words out loud,
To be sure that the words are real,
Then you go into the bathroom
And turn on the faucet
And you look in the mirror
and at your reflection you yell,
“sure, maybe I’ve done it all,
but have I done it all wrong!?”

A POEM - TO SLEEP AT NIGHT

TO SLEEP AT NIGHT
In the Sawadsee Hotel
It was hard to sleep at night.
If there wasn’t a rooster crowing
Right outside your window
There was some goddamn dog
Howling and barking up a storm
And if, by chance,
You found your way into sleep
You’d be woken up an hour later
From the shrieks of some whore
Coming through the paper thin walls
from the next room over
and afterwards you’d hear
big, dumb laughter
and a few Germans would be shouting,
their voices booming into the night.
no, it was near impossible to sleep
in the Sawadsee Hotel,
goddamn near impossible.

A POEM - THE BIGGER KIDS COULD REALLY KICK 'EM

THE BIGGER KIDS COULD REALLY KICK ‘EM
In elementary school
We were tough little bastards
We’d go up to the playing field
During lunch time
Where the big kids
Kicked around soccer balls
We’d all stand in front of the goal
And try to block their shots.
One time the biggest kid in school
Was taking shots on net
And boy he could kick!
He belted his first one
Right at my face
And it smashed in my left eye.
I got up off the ground
My eye swelling up
And said, “aw, it’s nothing,
Take another shot!”
He said, “ready?”
And pounded another one at me
And it smashed in my right eye.
I got up off the ground again,
Both eyes red and ballooning out,
I said to him, “all right,
I’m fine. Take another one.”
He took a few steps back and really
Slammed this third one home.
It caught me right in the stomach,
Pushing me back a few feet and
Knocking the wind clear outta me.
After a few moments I tried to get up
But I couldn’t stand
So I crawled along the ground
Towards the outside of the goal post,
And I said to myself,
“man, that guy can really kick ‘em.”

A POEM - THE PLAYTIME SERMON

THE PLAYTIME SERMON
Back when I was younger
I’d be on the floor in the kitchen
playing with my toys
Or whittling a piece of wood,
My father would walk in and
Dump a spoonful of instant coffee
Into a cup of cold water.
He’d mix it around a minute,
Toss it back, and look to me.
“Jack,” he’d say to me, between gulps,
“you should learn to enjoy suffering,
Because that’s all there is in this world.”

A POEM - A SIMPLE TRUTH IN BANGKOK

A SIMPLE TRUTH IN BANGKOK
There are those people out there
Who talk a lot of shit
About what they’re gonna do.
But then there are those people
Who fly to Bangkok,
And do a bunch of shit
That they’re never gonna talk about.

A POEM - I HAD MY MOMENTS

I HAD MY MOMENTS
I was sittin’ in there
Workin’ on a bottle of whiskey,
Slingin’ the bull with Cam the bartender,
Swapping tales of doom,
And just letting the day go by.
And then in they walked
Two drinks of water
One much louder than the other
They sat down next to me
And the loud one said,
“what are we drinking today, boss?”
I always hated when a man called me boss.
It reminded me of work
And I was never a fan.
I stared at him for a moment
And went back to my drink.
“well, somebody’s not in a good mood,”
He said to his friend. Then, noticing Cam,
He mumbled, “well, well. check out the ass on her.
I’d like to stick it right up in there
and make it bleed.”
They both laughed hard at this,
And the louder one faked a drum roll,
And then the smashing of a cymbal.
It wasn’t my business,
What they said to one another
But Cam was a friend of mine,
a damn good one at that,
and you never liked to hear a guy
Talk about a friend like that.
Cam walked up to them,
Forced a smile onto her face,
And tossed a couple coasters
On the bar in front of them.
“so, what can I get you boys today?”
The two looked at each other and giggled
And then the louder one flicked his coaster
Right off the bar and onto the floor,
And said to Cam, “oops. you can start
by bending over and picking up that coaster.”
Cam looked over to me and I shook my head.
“IT MUST BE ONE HELL OF A JOB,” I said to myself,
“BEING A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.”
I tried to keep my cool
Because Cam had twice told me
it was better that way.
She turned back to the two fools,
Said to the louder one,
“I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that,
And give you one more chance to order a drink.”
The louder one put on the offended tough guy act,
Backing up a step and saying, “woooo!”
And then he looked over to me and said,
“or else Mr. Bad Attitude over here
Will get angrier than he already is, right?”
After saying this,
Just like after everything else he’d said,
He looked to his friend for encouragement.
His friend nodded and smiled and said, “yeah, right?”
When the louder one turned back to me
To see what I thought about his humor,
I gave him a good, hard once over,
Leaned in towards him
so that he leaned in towards me,
and I said softly, “get the hell outta here.”
Then I sat back up and returned to my drink.
He thought for a minute,
Then looked to his friend for more encouragement,
And finally said to me, “or what?”
I finished my drink and waited a moment,
Then said all calm and cool,
“well, first, I’ll kick yer fuckin’ ass.”
And then I turned to the quiet one
And stared hard right into his eyes
So that he blinked and wanted to look away.
And then I turned back to the louder one and said,
“and then I’ll do it again.”
There was a long silence
While the louder one sized me up.
I wasn’t much bigger or stronger,
But I had the look like I could take a real beating
And get back up for another round,
And do this over and over again.
The quieter one shook in his seat.
I could tell that neither were scrappers,
Just liked to flirt with the idea of a fight
Every once in a while.
Finally they both got up
And walked their asses out of the bar.
As soon as the door had closed,
Cam burst out into a fit of laughter,
Supporting herself by putting both her hands
On the bar in front of her.
When she found moments in between her giggles,
She squawked, “first I’ll kick yer fuckin’ ass...
...and then I’ll do it again! Jesus, Jack.
Where do you come up with that stuff?”
I smiled and chuckled and said to her,
“I got my moments, baby, I really do.
Now how about another whiskey and water.”

A POEM - WAITING FOR THE MUSE

WAITING FOR THE MUSE
The walls were so thin
That two rooms down
You could hear a person
Clipping his nails,
Or pushing out a fart.
I was just lying in bed
Thinking about her tits.
It seemed a fine way
To pass the day.
For the heat outside was brutal
Like a punch in the gut
And the sunlight was sharp
Like a slap to the face.
“I come at nine, or eight, maybe,”
She’d said to me over the phone.
“I go shopping with friend.”
“all right then, baby.
Have a good day.”
There were things I could do,
Places I could go, sights to see.
There was Lumphini Park,
That Emerald Buddha
Which people talked about.
I could go to a movie theatre
And sit in the dark.
Or go visit the pool hustlers
And the whores on Sukhumvit Road.
But nothing was as fine,
As holing up in that dark room,
Thinking about her tits,
And waiting on the muse.

A POEM - THE COLD SILENT ROOM

THE COLD SILENT ROOM
Outside the night was roaring
The bars and the streets
Full of drunk and sweaty monsters
Red with sun burns
And black with tattoos
I ventured out to find food
A falafel for a meal
And then some mango and sticky rice
For a filling dessert.
Tall beers along the way.
But the night, the heat, the energy,
It was all too much for me.
So I retreated back to my hotel room,
Cranked up the AC,
Turned on the television
With the volume down very low,
And crawled under the blankets.
I lit a cigarette
And ashed into the crack
Between the bed and the wall.
I worked at another tall boy,
But even the effort of bringing
That bottle to my mouth was too much.
After some time a line came to me.
I opened up my little notebook
And scribbled into it,
“there’s a cold, silent room
in the heart of every man.”

A POEM - JUST AIN'T PERFECT

JUST AIN’T PERFECT
I wasn’t sure why
But I always wore jeans
When went out into the nights.
The air was still hot,
Sweaty and mean
But I’d picked up
The habit, and always
Wore those jeans.
Maybe deep down
I was embarrassed
About my legs
My little toothpick
Legs, pale and pathetic.
The only part of my body
Which a girl had made fun of,
Except for my big, fat head.

A POEM - HERE WE GO AGAIN

HERE WE GO AGAIN
Sometimes the only thing you can do
When you wake in the morning
Is peel open your crusty eyes,
Roll over on your mattress of filth
And snatch the half drank beer
On your broken bedside table.
And after you suck it back,
you grumble to yourself,
“Aw hell, here we go again.”

A POEM - IT WAS A VALID QUESTION

IT WAS A VALID QUESTION
“The last thing I remembered
was walking naked
through the hallways of my hotel,
stopping every now and then,
looking down at my balls
and muttering, ‘hmmp. I wonder why
one hangs down lower than the other?’”

A POEM - PETER'S ERECTION LED HIM TO ALLAH

PETER’S ERECTION LED HIM TO ALLAH
I’d gone out drinking one night
With Peter.
A 74 year old Brit who’d been
Teaching English in Istanbul
For more than a decade.
He was a Muslim and I was curious
About this religion
So I asked him,
“so, peter, how’d you come to be a Muslim?”
He avoided the subject for a while
But then after a few more times
He responded with,
“well, hell! When I was your age, when
I was twenty – two years old, I had this
Erection that would not go away! I tell you!
It would not go away! I didn’t know what to do!
I prayed in the night to Jesus Christ, I
Begged for help from doctors, and I did anything
I could to just go about life like any other
Normal man, but I couldn’t! I had this erection!
This erection, this hardness in my penis
That would not leave me! And so I began to read
All the holy books I could find,
Anything I could come across,
And finally I found the Koran!”
He left off there, dreamily recalling the moment,
until I prodded him.
“and then…?”
“well, I tell you! There was nothing
In the Koran that I could disagree with!
Nothing! It all seemed true, and it all still does!”
I squinted my eyes to see if he was just pulling
One big bluff on my gullible ass.
But he had since gone into a state of reverie,
Until I smirked and said,
“so, in a way, your dick led you to Allah?”
He turned to me and sneered and wanted
To kill me but maybe he saw that I had a point,
However misled and misunderstood.
“aw, Peter, c’mon. I’m just playing around,”
I said. “let’s go get another drink.”

A POEM - ME, BEER CHANG and the CAT with the CROOKED TAIL

ME, BEER CHANG and the CAT with the CROOKED TAIL
I was sitting there
Hunched over an all but empty bar
Quick jazz bass and drums
Thumping from the speakers
The only company I had
Was a fat calico cat
With a crooked, stumped tail
Who sat on the bar
Right next to me
Overseeing my work, my skill,
With the pen and paper
I took another hit
From my Beer Chang,
Looked over at the fat calico cat
And said to myself,
“hell, things might work out after all.”

A POEM - HE HAD A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES

HE HAD A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES
He had no feet
Just short stumps for legs
But that didn’t slow him down
For below his waist
Was strapped a skateboard
And he pushed himself along
With one arm
While singing
and blowing into a harmonica
With the other.
As he rolled by me
I muttered to him,
“damn, brother. You certainly
have a right to sing the blues.”

A POEM - STRAIGHT FORWARD IS THE ONLY DIRECTION

STRAIGHT FORWARD IS THE ONLY DIRECTION
If I didn’t like a person
at a bar,
I would always tell them
to their face.
It was important to me
That they knew it.
“Hey, fuckhead,” I’d say,
“just so we’re both clear,
you know I don’t like you,
right?”
It was refreshing,
Like telling a secret,
And afterwards,
I could get on with my night.

A POEM - HOW THE WORDS SOMETIMES WERE

HOW THE WORDS SOMETIMES WERE
The words just bled right out
into the horrible, sweaty nights.
And the nights,
they were the pages
that had to be filled.

A POEM - WATCHING THEM DIE

WATCHING THEM DIE
One day a while back
Before my grandma died,
I took her out to lunch.
But she was already
Permanently out to lunch.
We were sitting there
At the table, some chain
Italian restaurant.
I was taking down a pizza
And across the table
She was smacking her lips and
clicking her tongue,
twisting up her mouth
to try and dislodge
a chunk of food
from her back teeth.
‘Jack, dear,’ she said,
‘have you ever seen a man
put to death?’
I nearly spat out
a mouthful of Coke and replied,
‘Jesus, Nana. No, I haven’t.’
She jammed another
mozzarella stick into the dish
of blood red marinara sauce
and said to me,
with a twinkle in her eye,
‘Well, would you like to?’”
"Nana, why the hell would I wanna see that?"
She looked at me through her wild eyes,
"It's an experience."

A POEM - THE BASTARD HOTEL

THE BASTARD HOTEL
I heard a rustling
in the garbage next to me
I opened my bloodshot eyes.
From out of the trash
He slowly rose to his bare feet.
He had on worse rags than me
And dirt and sweat
Covered his whole body like
The skin on a snake about to shed.
He reached down for a bottle,
But after finding it empty
He walked across the alleyway.
And standing there
With a slobbering grin
on his face,
He began to knock on the door
Of the Bastard Hotel.

A POEM - THIS LIFE THING, IT'S UP TO YOU!

THIS LIFE THING, IT’S UP TO YOU!
I’d forgotten something
In my cabin
So I was walking back there
At a steady clip.
Along the dirt path,
Across the lawn,
And then over a high wooden bridge
With a dry, jagged riverbed below.
There, on the bridge
Was a guy about my age
He had one of his legs on a rail
Like he was about to climb up there
He was startled to see me coming
And he quickly pulled his leg
Back down onto the bridge.
“oh, thank god,” he moaned,
Looking at me desperately.
“were you sent here by god
to save me from jumping off this bridge?”
“Ha!” I said, continuing on.
“I’m so depressed. I think
I was actually gonna jump!”
I brushed right past him,
Not missing a step
and muttered,
“do what ya gotta do, brother.
This life thing, it’s up to you.”

“SOMETIMES YOU CAN TELL WHICH WAY THE DAY IS GONNA GO BY THE SHIT YOU TAKE IN THE MORNING.”

A POEM - THE BAD POET

“It’s not hard to be a bad poet.
But it is hard to sit down each day
And devote a chunk of your life
To writing bad poetry."

A POEM - THE MAKE BELIEVE AMERICAN WHORE THIEF

THE MAKE BELIEVE AMERICAN WHORE THIEF
We’d scored some weed
on this island in Thailand
And I was sitting on a curb
Outside a barber shop
at maybe 2 or 3 AM.
I was trying to roll a joint
with very little success.
An American girl walked by
And asked me what I was doing,
like she didn't know.
“get out of here, whore! Get
Away from me, if you know
What’s good for ya!”
“hey!” she yelled back. “fuck
You! Fuck you, asshole!”
“oh, that’s it!” I shouted back,
Putting down the failed joint
And pretending to lunge at her.
She yelped and ran off into
The dark, dusty night and I
Sat down again to make another
Attempt at rolling the joint.
But I couldn’t do it!
Not to save my life!
Complete impossibility!
So I started eating the shit,
what the hell did I care?
Like a whore with a cock,
I just wanted it inside of me.
After finishing the bag
I lied down on the pavement.
My friend came back from the 7/11
Two tallboys in each hand.
“hey,” he said, “where’s the weed?”
I rolled over to my nearly empty
Bottle of Sam Song whiskey,
Skulled the rest of it and mumbled,
“some whore. Some American whore
Robbed me.”

A POEM - WHAT I AM IS WHAT I AM

WHAT I AM IS WHAT I AM
“it’s a weird thing,” I said to him.
“I’m 27 years old and I’m just now
Beginning to understand who I am.”
“well then, who are you?” he asked.
“I’m JACK TOM. Bad writer. World
Traveler. Cheap bastard.”

A POEM - A MAN OF MANY DICKS

A MAN OF MANY DICKS
by JACK TOM
I saw him later that day and he said to me,
"I went in to get a traditional bamboo tattoo. I showed the tattooist what I wanted: two geckos, one on each calf. We negotiated a few minutes and reached a price and the tattooist motioned for me to lie down onto my stomach on the sofa provided. I did so and after setting up, the tattooist started.”
“and?”
“a few minutes in, things began to get weird.”
“what do you mean?” I asked him.
“well, as I was lying there, getting inked, I noticed the guy’s keychain on the floor.”
“yeah? So?”
“well, attached to his keychain was an assortment of large and small carved dicks.”
“what?”
“yeah. Some were made of wood. Some of stone. But, very detailed. Just dicks.”
“that is weird, I guess. Who has a keychain full of dicks?”
“well, at first I thought it odd, but I figured what the hell. But it gets much worse. On his desk were more carved dicks and along with the pens in a pen holder, there were more dicks sticking out. Wooden, soapstone, ivory, plastic...”
“so, the guy loves dicks, huh?”
“then I looked over at the wall and in plain view was a big portrait of a dick, done with pen and ink. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it earlier. So I looked back at the desk, and on every piece of paper was a drawing of a dick.”
“fuckin’ A.”
“my heart began to beat and I started to sweat. Not from the pain of the bamboo and the blade jabbing me, but from this terrible premonition. And just as I arched my back and craned my neck to see the back of my leg, the tattooist began to giggle as he poked away. And lo and behold, there on my calf was a tattoo of a dick.”
“aw, man. So what did you do?”
“what could I do? I let him do another one on my other leg.”

A POEM - SUCK IT UP, BABY!

SUCK IT UP, BABY!
She walked in the door
All frowns and sighs.
“I hate my job,” she said.
“you’ve hated every job
You’ve ever had,” I replied.
“I know, I know. Maybe I
Just wasn’t cut out to work.”
“maybe not, but you weren’t
Cut out to live on the streets
And go hungry, either.”
“I know. So what should I do?”
“what we all do, baby. Suck
It up and wait for death.”

A POEM - TO REALLY KNOW A MAN

TO REALLY KNOW A MAN
To really know a man
You have to wrestle him
In the streets.
You have to shed
His blood and feel
What it’s like
To have your arm
Around his neck
Temporarily choking
Away his life
Likewise, you have
To have your face
Ground into the dirt
His weight pushing you down
You have to unite
In violence and anger
And in that way
You know your place
Amongst each other.