at the grave of the laughing man (8-8-2010)


flowers by the grave of the laughing man
were spray-painted orange and purple.
flecks & spatters on the headstone
were arranged like aerosol constellations
of deities exiled from Olympus
who now drive taxicabs through the ruins of NYC.

I stare helplessly,
tears pushing through my eyelids
like salty Wal-Mart shoppers on Black Friday.

departure of the laughing man
on bus number nine
was delayed by
the shattered remains of fractured youth,
littering the thoroughfares with their
pop music debris.

ke$ha on the bottom of my left shoe.

yu¢k.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the road

There were 120 days between June in May and Johnny in September. I spent the summer listening to their music, but there is more to remember. It had been five years since my knuckles started bleeding and smearing the names of my references on my job applications, when I started punching walls, punching romance, punching telephone numbers to Ohio, to Texas, to Vermont, to any vagrant female of collapsed sexuality who needed to forget their fucked-up youth for a few minutes, small-chested wah-wah pedals, unmolested garden petals. Then I stuck my head in the toilet (ebb and flow of aphorism) contemplating the crabbiness of the immortal. You were there for the beginning of the blur of optimism, for the end of the slur of pronunciation, you saw it all, from tottering climb to glue factory fall. I thought I saw a light, I thought I saw salvation, naked and rippled. Is the flesh obsessed with the soundless thunder of gog and bate, solid wooden hollow of splendi...
Read more

one cold trick

there was a knock on the devil’s door. ‘I’m busy!’ the visitor was persistent. ‘I wish to rent your wasteland.’ the devil dropped his eskimo pie and opened the door a crack. ‘say again?’ he could not perceive the visitor, who had turned his back. ‘I wish to rent this space for a while.’ the devil opened the door and contorted his face. ‘for what purpose?’ the visitor who turned to face the devil wore the devil’s face. ‘ Woodstock ’, he replied, I’d like to have Woodstock in your space.’ the devil fainted and relieved himself on his doorstep. his visitor, the imposter, removed his mask and laughed at the unconscious dark overlord. ‘putz’ God said.
Read more

stability rings the doorbell

at the Mobil in West Hartford, I was too tired to lift the squeegee, so I tilted my head to the clouds and watched the birds and swiped the Speedpass and this is how it all went down as I awaited a full tank of gas when I found myself at the crossroads of an unresolved metaphysical cliffhanger. the Camry from Texas arrived quietly, and the Pittsburgh Pirate with the Hollister tee left his car, stretched his limbs, revealing a flash of hairy midriff and a medical scar, then answered his cellphone with a strident ‘yallo!’ before declaring he’d rather vomit than eat pickles. the Hyundai from Tennessee drove past me and screeched to the adjacent pump. the young, fair-haired driver with the bangs unbuttoned his gray blazer, wiping Dorito flecks from his jeans, then his feet, then asked his passenger, ‘where’s my parka?’ before opening his wallet to see he hadn’t any fives. the Dodge Ram from South Carolina howled of flirtation with the devil, but the...
Read more