That Couch You Fart All Over

Nothing has legs
this side of the fixed
off-track betting
horse track

and I sit
on that couch
you fart all over

in the basement
with that early Beatles
wall mural

where Ringo knows
that he may be out
of his depth

and the ping pong table
with only one
paddle

like spanking
a naughty child
back out of the braving
chalkboard hinterlands

over cheap orange carpet
that may as well
be a smashed pumpkin
all out of seed

which is just how I see myself
whenever those many
old thoughts come back
around.

Carved Initials No One Could Place

She leaned in against the bar
waiting for him to buy her a drink
like so many others before,
smiling the way dancing cobras of India
gyrate out of poor wicker
baskets

before he took his Buck knife out
and rammed it down through her hand
into the bar

beside the carved initials
no one could place

and a cocktail napkin
as though no one ever pissed themselves
in valet parking
black and tie

and she screamed
like someone who had never felt
any real pain
before

and that somehow made all the others
feel a little better
about all theirs

and then he paid up
and walked out
just as he
came

and no one said anything

while the old juke
played.

Some of the Funniest Men I’ve Known Are Pillows

He couldn’t write a novel
and poetry doesn’t sell,
so he took a job in New York
writing jokes for some late night cut-up
with hair that wouldn’t move
if you played it the
Ode to Joy

and the money was good,
but the mirror was
not,

this face kept looking back at him
at all hours

and he thought of artificial
sweetener;

how the studio audience would laugh at anything
because they were idiots on command
and he knew that.

Long Day

Getting home from work,
the couch is waiting.

I fall into it as others fall out of love.
Easy as that. Comfortable.
Without showering.

Kicking my boots off,
but that is it.

As the two bike thieves across the street
share a beer on the front porch.

Sizing up the pedalling children in bike helmets.
Noting where they live.
The casual way they lean their bicycles up against the house
and run inside for dinner.

Running an icepack over my head,
I lean back and close my eyes.

Three hours later it is dark.
A family of raccoons sniffing around
the back window.

You can always tell the brave one.
The one that won’t make it.
Coming right up to the screen,
trying to figure a way in.

If I had a woman, he would take her too.
Furry little motherfucker!

Plastered, Like the Walls

He woke up
to find his friend standing
over him with an odd expressionless
face.

“Hey man…”

Then the eyes flicked back to normal
like you see with sharks
and his friend greeted him
as well.

Afterwards, he played it off as nothing,
but it disturbed him.

Was his friend perhaps gay and wishing to experiment?
Did he want to kill him in his sleep?
Or perhaps some other design he had not thought of?

He decided right off
that there would be no more sleepovers.

No matter how drunk
he got.