MORNING SICKNESS

there are some mornings
you lean over
in your bed

wrapped in dirty sheets
and you puke
right on the floor

there are also mornings
you get up
and piss
in the trashcan
just for the hell of it

then there are
those other mornings
when you don’t get up at all

IN COLLEGE

after a few beers
we’d look
over
to one another
and use that old
alcoholic
adage, “finally,
I’m starting to feel
like myself again.”

now
about a decade later
it takes a few
more beers
and feeling like
old boys
we instead
growl, “fuckin’
inflation.”

FULL OF IT

right now
is another time
I have to get up from my writing
to do something
much more necessary
while living here on this earth

I have to use the bathroom

plenty of people
alive today
and throughout time
have gone their whole lives
without scribbling a word
without putting together a sentence
or even a single line of poetry
and they have done fine

but for some of us
poetry is a type of addiction
a thing we are hooked on
like crack
smack
or alcohol

so my hope is that
when I get back from the bathroom
when I get back to my addiction
my words will have
more meaning
than they have had
all night

because right now
I can say
that in a literal sense
I am full of shit

ON THE SPECIAL OCCASION OF TIME LEFT IN THE PARKING METER

what a little joy it is
when looking for a parking spot
to find one
with time left on the meter!

it’s like receiving a gift
from a stranger
while at the same time
pulling down your pants
bending over
and saying, “KISS MY ASS!”
to the Man.

it allows the individual, for once
to feel like he’s gotten away
with something

like he’s finally slipped something past
the system, the city, the machine

like there’s not always a price to pay
for being a human

for being alive

PATCHOULI MOTHERFUCKER

on his way in and out to smoke
every time he walked through the doorway
where I sat on my stool
checking IDs

he left behind the smell of a hospital
the odor of cleanly doom

finally, I said to a friend of mine
who was drinking inside

“man, come here. Do you smell that?”

my friend came in
sniffed at the air and scowled

“oh, I HATE patchouli! Fuckin’ hippies!”

he went back inside
and for a while I sat there wondering
why this hospital worker
maybe a nurse
or physical therapist
smelled so strongly of patchouli

or why the smell of happiness and love
so resembled the smell of death
sickness
and gloom

THE OLD MAN AND HIS DOG

we were passing each other on the street
me and the old man
and the sun was beaming down
first time in a while

the old man smiled at me
and said, “what did you do, give an Indian
war dance, to get the sun to shine?”

I grinned as though I had
looked up at the sky
and said, “I’ll take it any way it comes.”

“I don’t blame you,” he laughed.

his dog squatted down and began to shit everywhere
all over somebody’s garden
then the sidewalk
and eventually the street

the old man kept smiling
looking from the sky to me and down to where
his dog was shitting all over
it all seemed to matter very little to him
when the dog was finished
they walked on

I thought about all the times I’d stepped in dog shit
all the angry mornings
I’d staggered through
a terrible smell following me
with every step

I thought about saying something
to the old man
something like, “hey, what do you think this is?
You think your dog can just shit anywhere?
Clean that up.”

but a moment later I laughed it off
and watched the old man continue down the street
with his half limp and his dirty, little dog
who he probably loved more than anything in the world

now, recalling the shit on the sidewalk
and on the street and in the garden
it doesn’t bother me
not at all
it’s actually nice to be reminded
that there are still careless old bastards out there
geezers with one foot in the grave
men that will never change

that not everyone of us
has been completely whipped
broken into submission
unflinchingly obeying every law
that’s been given to us

that somewhere out there
whether they know it or not
there are soldiers
whose expertise is experience
whose uniforms are graying hair and wrinkles
whose fight against change
is to the death

PSYCHO

as I spend many hours each day
out walking dogs
I frequently run into people who have lost theirs

they walk up to me
or pull over in their cars
and they ask me, “hey, have you
seen my dog?”

many times
I have seen their dog
or I end up seeing their dogs
and I reunite them with their owners

but this one time
last Monday
while out walking dogs

an odd-looking man
with thin, graying hair
and thick glasses
pulled his truck
over to the side of the road

and he said to me, “excuse me,
have you seen my dog? He’s big and black
and looks very mean.”

I shook my head
told him that I hadn’t seen his dog
but that I’d keep an eye out

and as the man drove off
he shouted out his window
towards the woods
at the side of the road, “Psycho!! Hey, Psycho!!
come here, Psycho! come here, boy!”

I reeled in the dog I was walking
looked all around me
and said quietly, “well, buddy, it’s been fun,
all the time we’ve spent together
and just know, we’re not going out
without a fight.”