We used to Dream
even while suffocating under the sea of empty bottles,
we could still discover slivers of hope.
some dreams never faded away, like
the lake house we never bought,
the remote island we wished to call home.
fading remnants of another life lost
somewhere in shallow graves of young poets.
old questions about the future return and I
can only think of cases of beer and fifths of bourbon,
of times when crawling to the toilet to puke the hangover out of the system
was part of the daily routine.
we wished for everything;
we got nothing.
a single kiss sufficed to obliterate the desolation;
a tight embrace eviscerated all the rejection slips.
stepping into the shooting gallery
for the first time.
horror images from former lifetimes.
dozens of poisons that failed to stop the heart.
the men in white uniforms,
the gravediggers,
the mortician,
the priest,
the few attendants.
the heavy rainfall.
the yellow pages on the coffin.
death.
Hunter went out in fashion;
Thomas Wolfe lasted long enough to make it.
Dylan and Edgar drank their minds to genius lunacy.
I stand with a lowball of Four Roses and raise
a toast to the fading ghosts, to
the blurry memories from the Bar.
no light, no music;
only dreams of a warm embrace I lost
too soon.
strong vices, the burden of the one left behind.
draining bottles,
smoking, shooting,
giving it to the page hard for the last time
(every time can be the last).
a jogger in hot pants runs under the window,
for a moment I freeze,
breathlessly watching at the wobbling ass,
the tits bounce up and down,
up
and
down.
she’s gone; momentary lapse
of the mind.
love was not carried by the dove
sitting on the windowsill;
the sparrow flying around my head
carries no messages from hell.
one day at a time. no future to look forward to;
only a bleak present to survive.
nothing left to be done but to drink and think of Byron
and how he faded away like
a candle in the rain instead of going out heroically in a battle.
Braving the Waves of Yesterday
it came crashing down once more,
the brutal understanding of nothingness.
the meaningless of existence dawned upon me
halfway through the 9th large draft
of ice-cold Ceres Classic.
it’s not the drink I abhor
(without alcohol
I wouldn’t be here).
it’s the desperate attempts to
reach a destination that’s not
here, there,
anywhere.
I’ve always smelled like hooch,
it’s my perfume.
I’ve missed the toilet bowl
more times than I can count.
you start with one beer to relax.
before you know it
you’ve drank more than
twenty draft beers and ten shots of bourbon or tequila.
you’re dizzy,
your stomach’s in turmoil.
you don’t stop;
you must know the feeling.
if not, then this poem’s not for you.
some girls are sitting two tables away;
short dresses, young,
biting their cocktail straws.
next to them a group of six young men,
accumulatively drinking less than I.
their faces emanated
the misery of time,
the dead hope of youth;
their eyes empty,
mine were glazed.
it’s alright;
finally, I was not
lost.
only desperate for a way out,
for the next beer
that would bring salvation.
nothing happened;
the minstrel sang,
bluebirds landed on the windowsill.
in a single cruelly magical moment
everything came crashing down;
the beer stopped flowing,
out of money and no one to bum a beer off from.
the bar was closed,
we were kicked out;
sleeping next to ghosts
searching for embraces in all
the wrong places
and somehow always
finding the right lips.
Psychoanalysis
“you know you’re fucking yourself up, right?” Gina said over a fast draining
bottle of bourbon.
“why’s that?” I asked, exhaling a dense cloud of blue smoke.
“you only go for hard booze, easy women, and all these fucking books,”
she pointed at my overfilled bookcases. “you don’t care for anyone
but you love clinging on to someone, until you find a replacement.
you need the pain, the anger, the despair; and the more you read,
the bitterer and angrier you get.”
“they do say that most intellectuals and educated people are
miserable sons of bitches.”
“you live your life as a novel; you don’t give a shit for real life,
only for how you’ll turn each little thing into written words.”
“at least,” I shrugged, “I’ve got a noble goal in life.”
“your bitter words will get you nowhere; people
don’t like bleak stories.”
“I know,” I nodded. “It doesn’t matter.”
“it should; you’re a wonderful writer but you’re wasting yourself away.”
“I like it this way. makes far more sense.”
“I’ll never understand you,” she sighed heavily.
we drank long, and in silence.
“you know,” she broke the silence, “you ought to go out more,
in real places, live a little outside the drinking box you’ve locked
yourself up in.”
“don’t know how to do it.”
“learn. like everybody else.”
“too much effort.”
the bottle was empty, I cracked another.
Love is like a Good Poem written by a monkey high on meth
“you have to watch these things,” she pointed at the glowing screen
playing the latest hit reality show. I’d sunk four lowballs of Kentucky rotgut,
still couldn’t understand what I was watching.
I knew the meaning of life: to die. the meaning of ‘Survivor’, or ‘Love Island’?
maybe, they’re but a cruel game of Descartes’ demon keeping our brains in vats.
“why? I groaned. “I’d rather keep my brain cells intact.”
“the way you drink?” she giggled. “perhaps, you have a point.”
“that’s a myth. most geniuses were heavyweights, founded the modern world
with fifths of hooch in their bloodstream.”
“but this is what the world needs and wants now. good, dumb, toned-down fun.”
“and you wonder why the world’s gone to shit?”
“it’s why I have a book deal.”
“and my biggest success so far is getting rejection slips from The New Yorker
encouraging me to try them again.”
“precisely,” she tossed me a wink and many ugly thoughts crossed my mind.
quenched them with rotgut and I lit a cigarette.
“you should also quit your bad habits. they’ll kill you.”
“they’re the only joy I’ve got left in this goddamn world.”
“what about sex?”
“it used to be fun.”
“thanks a lot,” she said with a pout.
“it’s nothing personal. it’s just that you’re a good woman, a good person.
“sex with someone like you was never meant to be fun; it’s like fucking a nun.
or going down on the Pope.”
“that’s what you write?”
“sometimes.”
“it’s a wonder they ask you to try them again.”
“maybe, they’re afraid of being called insensitive.”
“you should quit drinking. you might write better.”
“a dry has never produced a decent work of art. never in the history of the world.”
“I don’t drink, and my book’s gonna be published.”
“because the world’s gone teetotal.”
“am I not good?”
“you’re a decent wordsmith.”
“and you’re a brilliant writer?”
“only when I’m drunk enough to think the tv’s the moon and the wall a punching bag.”
“next time you break your knuckles, take yourself to the clinic.”
“I will. I’m going to the bar.”
“don’t bring home your hateful napkin poems.”
“they’re gonna immortalize you one day, you know.”
“I’d rather be happy than immortal.”
“and that’s why you’ll be immortalized and I won’t.”
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