Sung

Sung is in the mountains
working for his freedom
now because he was pursuing
it his way
in the land of the free.

Before that was prison,
the federal district penitentiary
in Louisiana,
named after Louis XVI, I think,
because Sung's way was
cocaine,
and so they took his
green card like it was nothing.

Before that was Knoxville,
where the stories became less funny,
like when he stole all his neighbors electronics
and went to jail for the first time
the next day.

Before that was Texas,
where he got at least 3 DUIs
in one semester
and almost died on the interstate
passing two semis
through the middle of them.

Before that we were friends,
quiet misfits with an addiction
called creativity
unaware of the surreal nature
we tried to make more
realistic.

Now he stands guard
at the gate of the apocalypse
guarding it somehow,
and he knows he can't stop it,
and it's the best he can do,
and he knows
that he walked there steadily over
the years.

The last thing Sung told me
was he'd let me know
no matter what
if something happened to him.

And I haven't heard anything

Where is the place that I call

the stigmas
caught me in
industrialized culture, a
media operated
steam engine
with all the nuances
given to fear,
and guilty perfectionism,
and I'm trapped
over and over
in the American race
that hides
behind the curtains.

Society, where
marriage is a beautiful
trap,
children inherit debt,
drugs answer the question
and question the answer,
where wholeness comes from
outside
and acceptance from within,
where men are mongrels
and women are bitches,
where happiness is created
and somewhere in all this,
someone gets a new car.

You are beautiful

The words
"You are beautiful"
are typeset across
my thigh,
positively affirming the
strength I seek
in others.

I wrote them with
a razor
so I'd
never forget I
didn't need
her
to be happy.

Whenever she's not around
still I miss her
and sometimes
I will admit
that the loneliness is
beautiful
like me.

Psychoanalytic Nihilist

They’re all sluts to me, I think as I accelerate my justification.  We’re all slutty, I say, all those I associate with, and it’s not a big deal.  

My God, it’s whatever we give meaning to, whatever we so desire.  I’ve thought about it much more recently, and I don’t know if it helps me quell the itching insanity, the thought that I might be wasting my time, preparing to become a mangy cuckold in a few years because I could never stand up for a belief, one I could even find worth my time.  

There’s always death, the dismal acceptance of wasted time, because death is what we all deserve...the feeling beforehand is fabricated.  It all is.  

OK, so I can get a job and help people somehow.  Does even THAT hold meaning for me; meaning, do they even exist in my reality?  I like to think so, but it’s much easier to believe what I do not like because the truth hurts, it leaves scars, and it’s steadily creeping about my consciousness as blood is dispelled in streams through flat water.

Roulette

Freedom is
just great,
like when ambition
shows...

to give example,
a bear is trapped
in the woods and it
loiters.

I never thought
of success when
things were dark
most of the time,

and I know
this may be the
happiness before I'm
mauled, so

whatever
happens, we'll
both be
free,

enduring this trial
and going
double or nothing
on the pot.

Christmastime

The wind
stops,
or the fire
gasps,
and I'll be there
to surprise you
like all the times
before,
ubiquitously
because I know
the feeling
of the wire train track
that doesn't stop.

Football

Never understood why
people like watching
football-unless it's
mindless entertainment...
I guess that answers
my question.

It's as beautiful as
a cat licking mushrooms.
Every time I hear an
announcer say "football"
or "linebacker" or
anything, really,
I recall a piano melody
to protect me from

those goddamn whistles.
They pinch my
spine at the base,
rocketing pain to my
inner ear.

It's just a bunch of fucks
crashing into each other,
and we pay them
millions!

But hey,
I tried out for
the team in 5th grade;
it wasn't for me.

Atmospheric Haze Next Door

The haze over
downtown has lasted
for hours
and I stay
inside uncertainly.

The forest burns
its weak,
firing gas against
naked apes.
Nature has
greyed our
Friday evening.

In a fire,
more die from
smoke inhalation than
burns.

Climate may change
a degree or two
because Georgia
has too many trees.

Gone Away, A Blue Sunday

"I [lost] my one
true love once
on
a Blue
Sunday.
She looked at me
and told me
I was the only
one in the world,
now I [don't know that]
girl."

The story goes
with my feet
broken;
she left
in the fall.
I could not stop it,
not that I would.

'Twas for the best,
until I would know the
best for myself.

The rest of her
life, she
could run from
the "truth"
no one else
could tell her.

Maybe I knew better.

Not Secure

I know what I
want,
not why
which leads to
neurotic
deprecation based on my
inadequate definition of
self-worth.

"I need her here
and she doesn't
want me most of the
time," so I
do my best to hide my
neediness while trying to
communicate what's going on
with practical terms,
excluding the exaggerated
emotions best not to
pronounce.

How stressing when the
woman isn't worth it.

Losing her, though,
is intolerable.

The tendon is vibrating,
the one holding me
to this world.