The cat’s little wet nose ( Read more... )

There are bright motes of dust suspended before our

bedroom’s westward-facing window, and the bed is

sloppily made. Just down a beige carpeted hall, the young

grey tabby slinks aimlessly and the white paint is several

coats thick on the bathroom door. Two of my fingers tap at it

softly while you cry on the other side, though I seem to be

the one ( Read more... )

The days move inexorably forward but

not inexorably enough for my stunted addict brain. It’s

46 days into a two-month stay at a facility that fancies itself

a bastion of industrial therapy: hard men mopping

dirty floors with dirty mops.

I share a bedroom and bathroom with five other souls;

we’ve gotten to know each other better than our fathers ( Read more... )

Greg seems to still be on one, all

whirlwind energy and breathless, pin-

wheeling conversational tangents, despite

ostensibly being clean for the last three

weeks. He pauses abruptly, wild

brown eyes flicking downward to the

paralyzed lower leg encased in my

slick carbon graphite brace. “What

happened to your leg?” he asks, as people

often do. I ( Read more... )

The rivers freeze and summer ends

Please see she has a coat so warm

To keep her from the howling winds

-Bob Dylan

I

One night, years back on the the patio of your Echo Park

apartment we chain-smoked Marlboro Lights and tearfully

told each other we wished we had been better friends to the

other, less ( Read more... )

Something has gone totally wrong

all my dinner guests have formed a swarm of

foes both clandestine and sworn

Something has gone wrong

Oh, and Jonathan I know

it’s all that I can think about

since I found out about this generation of

vipers rising up

Don’t it just remind you of

that old Tappan Zee span?

No A/C in the van

Late for work again

I’ve ( Read more... )

in a yellow Gold’s Gym tank top cut wide under the arms to

display whatever those muscles are beneath the underarms…

talking about ‘gains’

shaved smooth

burnished? tan

jet black hair

shoeless

a German? Austrian? accent

In the long shadow of Arnold

he came to America for his dream

asks for a second sack lunch sandwich

for the gains

my name? Supreme ( Read more... )

I

This much I know down to every neuron and synapse

In my head (how many is that? A trillion?): I know I would have

found the moment, a cold rain-misted evening outside some

unassuming brick building in Westwood, or amongst the subtly

shifting dunes on Toes Beach between swallows of iced tea,

or the night I slept over at your parents’ house in ( Read more... )

Jenny’s red Volvo sedan had a

fabric roof inside it that was ripped

and sagging, and now somehow splendid:

this I witnessed as I drove slowly out the

cul de sac onto Highway 12 and a floating feeling,

like a ball of warm and perfect light, began to

bloom around the first two Percocets that ever

made their way inside of me.

There at the center of ( Read more... )

Despite the big white noise, the rain speaking hollowly onto the roof ( Read more... )