Pus

Pus from your blister:
ever taste it? I have. (Burn
popped.) Salty, like wrath.

Closed Room

Nuclear winter
til I, Sisyphus, turn to
God-forsaken ash.

Humiliation

Humiliation:
my food. Rejection: my drink.
I don't need you cunts.

Truth About Time

I've been dead thirty
years, in hell. Always relive
this hideous day.

A&E's Intervention

"Say, that PCP
addict is kind of foxy."
What my life's come to.

A Shopping List

Heating pad, Ben-gay.
Suppositories, maybe.
I was like you once.

Hunchback

Fuck your perfect life,
pretty girl. Defeat forged me,
dull, tubby hunchback.

Untitled

My most ardent wish
I hitch, suspended, to star
of Metamucil.

Rainy Afternoon

Rainy afternoon.
Stupid desk. I watch others'
pleasures wane past me.

Innuendo

She steals upon me,
quiet as a titmouse. Scab;
tumescent back-ne.

Ira Glass on Beginners

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

At the Coffee Shop

Old man I'd blow off
hits on nubile girl instead.
Chan-bap ajumma!

Old man I'd ignore
hits on co-ed instead. Me?
Chan-bap ajumma.

English Diet

Oatmeal and caffeine.
Ol' tum bland, desolate, like
scurvied self-pity.

Nothing but oatmeal.
Stomach bland, like scurvy in
self-pitying heart.

Boy Scouts vs. Girl Scouts

Boy scouts exclude gays.
Girl scouts sell door-front cookies.
Girls: one. Boys: zero.

Peanut Butter Patties

God bless the Girl Scouts!
P.B., chocolate, doorstep -
national treasure.

Dancing, Then and Now

Ginger Rogers, where's
your purse? Were dames too silly
to guard cash and keys?

Piety

Perhaps I never
was happy. Too docile now
to rage at Yahweh.

Barbri II

I perish inside.
Rusty nails scrape and rend
pulp in charred ribcage.

Bordering Retardation

This bitch! Fatuous
and loud! Obvious insights
need not be conversed.

Shafiroff

Man, does this dude stink!
Clearly has no shit to give
talking to himself.

Barbri

Each fucking minute
of each exhausting day is
tormented by fear.

Gummy Fruit Snack

Oh gummy fruit snack!
You light up my somnolent
afternoon like crack.

My Chapter in History

Individual
fades. Melt to American
landscape, stock dreamer.