Writer. Los Angeles, Califas. Est. 1968.
“I work in a big tent bureaucracy, where armed Neanderthal clowns prance about freely spewing forth misogyny, thinly veiled race-hate and bible speak; where horribly untrained therapeutic trapeze artists attempt feats far beyond their intellectual and clinical capacity and fall flat on their faces in front of the slightly amused masses; where that famed slick…
Of trimmed euphorbias, the ghosts of intimacy and sudden mirrors of so many episodes of Christmas were spent on the fringes of a life once tolerated but now lived. Of passions and artistic bents unchained the anticipation of the unrealized the brutally naked words erupting cutting a swath parting the wavelength and incinerating the vibe.…
Time is a cruel lava, it delivers me things that I forgot to tell youso many moons after you slammed the door on my feetthat was our private joke it was a Mr T Experience Song.Still I glide along the halls at work and unveil the statues ofthis cruel monolith love and unmask this claw…
Dateline 23 October 2014 El Sereno, CA aka University Hills aka East Los aka Hollenbeck (HOBK) Division RD #437. Destination: Henderson, NV. Lake Mead. Event: The Pumpkinman Triathlon, a drop in the bucket compared to the usual tri fare: A 1/2mi swim, 12.4 mile ride and 3.2 mile run through some prime NV lakeside real…
a story It was cold that night. You could see your breath, and if you looked close enough, lots of other things. After the meeting she came up to me, put her arms around me and asked me to go to coffee. I did not refuse. Anyone else could have asked me and I would…
And it’s all gone quiet in the city. The minions have genuflected. Democracy didn’t die in darkness; it was slowly tortured to death in broad daylight. While the world watched. Now this wasn’t a slow reckoning realization. It was what Gen Xers would call a V8 moment. (Which hearkens back to the gas belching V8…
May 11, 2019 It’s a week before vacation starts. I am working, running an errand on the clock. I am at 6th and San Pedro flowers for Mother’s Day. It is a scented alley lined with caged walls. People milling about and haggling over daisies, sunflowers, roses, hydrangeas, tulips and irises. The array is reminiscent…
after Hollywood streets, with pimps and gum-stained humanity after lusty stop lights with glue sniffing response time after swerving soberly through too many lanes and lights after a casual stroll through the dregs of some 12-step red light balcony district watching cockroaches scurry away from the transients in disgust standing alongside the 20something Texan nymphs,…
there, on the treadmill is The Housewife she’s nondescript, bulging and Sisyphus I feel the rock of her undoing rolling over her, before I see it in her eyes. a few machines down is the Construction Worker you can smell him before you see him he’s weather worn leather skinned mouth agape, eyes wide and…
Childhood like a knife Childhood, an unwelcome visitor by lamplit blackmoon on a frozen carousel and full of terror Childhood for a quarter, a pinball replay an obligatory THRIFTY’S ice cream cone melting in my hands as I wrap napkins around it the way “Little Grandma” taught me the lazy summers Walking to Crawford’s Corner…
Jane was an artist of the skull and bone I was a beast in his lair pining for an old ghost to placate some new wolf of despair. she married the man of her dreams they moved to the east coast she organized her workspace, found the ghost life settled to what it would become…
The killer woke up and shaved. He had coffee and read the papers. He ate his oatmeal and toast quietly, the sounds of the city waking up drifting through his windows unheard. He drained his coffee cup, set the paper on the stack with the others and filled the dog’s bowl with kibble. The…
at least I got to see you smile that night at least I got to see you cry with mom that night she at least you saw me ask a girl out that night I’m shy like you and somehow found it in me to do that that night. at least we broke bread one…
I. this is the second poem I’ve written since my brother was killed. He died alone in a ditch off an indifferent road he was drunk and it was only an hour before his birthday I had just left him at my mom’s house he was quite sure he’d be OK to drive I found…
Blessed is the curse, it’s complete here—there’s coffee and Leonard Cohen and the bed is empty, and dusty eyelid shades are drawn and the unwashed windows protect me from a sky that I’ve questioned more times than I care to remember. there’s classical music to stillbirth the rampage inside and saviors nailed to my…
Wasn’t no gunshots Wasn’t no father Wasn’t no digital mind-space crowding the memories outta wormhole of time some blasphemy turned inwards human anathema a time-tested formula a shitpost original . The floodgates never opened I was stifled by fading roots with leathery ink-stained hands I was always late on my paper route Delayed as a…
in case of emergency break glass wake up grab the axe start swinging avoid the shards eat the powder duck and cover and roll in the shame dodge the questions void the answers and run like hell towards what’s not enough or loving or good for you. upon self -reflection, no reprieve or salvation merely…
I am coat check, hooded lug draped in a pinstripe suit of armor I am shoe shine Tommy bashing your sarcastic prison skull back into the tablecloth mantra I am a giver of gifts, teller of tales, unknown poet caressing married women’s skulls I am bookstore arsonist, backstabber merciless mercy killer. I am postman, flag…
A couple weeks ago, we said a final farewell to Henry. The kids and close family came over. There was a simple ceremony and we interred his ashes in the cactus garden in front of the house. What’s left of Henry’s now lies buried beneath the great Ammak tree…the one grandpa planted so many moons…
I. Today is the birthday that I gave you 11 years ago today, I picked you up from the Vet beheld in awe that mottled trifecta of miracles wondering how much the world was going to throw at you “It’s not fair,” Mariah wrote “Three Legs. Fuck it! SURVIVOR!!” the parolee Vato said “Who’s a GOOD…
August 5,2019 He came to me handicapped but happy. His name was H3NRY, a front leg amputee. He used the remaining leg for balance and to make progress both forward and backward, situation depending. He found me by word of mouth and the Internet. Mariah Greenberg-Roncetti had recently started doing Dog’s work making regular pickups…
Tainted dreamscapes and the letters you never sent dissipate upon awakening Your silence has been the loudest; the echoes of what was left unsaid Hurt the most in the spaces I was holding for you We were both lost when we met We were both unlovable when we fell Afraid and screaming as the day…
I got into a staring match catatonic with Blueberry compote I sat and cried with your absence in the Home Depot parking lot On our walks, I watch the Hydrangeas and any wayward flower envious of their growth while my longing is a stagnant ghost With roots reaching into the wounded preverbal soil from whence we…
This probably belongs on the “other” front page of the internet, but I’ll try here first. It’s a request. An exploration of memory. An attempt. I’m looking for something I read once. I believe it was a short story, most definitely not a novella and it most certainly wasn’t one of those books that stays…
“Love is some scary shit” But what’s the alternative? looking into whose mirror and mess? Sometimes you loved so hard the memory of it: as the gravity of tsunami waves The ones hitting the crags on Narcissus Wy where you told her what she already knew what was already there long before you knew Each other’s names. …
Came the assassins on the eve of the world’s whimpering end it was riding a star-crossed manifold with unfinished business stamped across the faceless bovine nation who shook their meaty fists at a coalsmudged empyrean Came the humanity as a faltering memory an imp shadow, immeasurable error as antimatter, a snake eating its own…
Leaving the factory, lurching home I studied the streets painted with the shadows of lesser humans, as skyfall and low clouds hung as carcinogenic specters The wind wasn’t crying for Mary; it was crying for more rain. The houses were stacked as kindling their occupants lamenting vacuous about the heat the economy what was lacking and what they could not…
“Get me another beer, bitch.” Laura rolled her eyes at him and ducked into the kitchen. She reached in the fridge, mindful of her nails as she grabbed him 12 ounces of oblivion. He was glaring at the TV, watching a show about a family that communicated by messenger and bonded via derision, ridicule and sarcasm. Mike giggled, grunted, and snatched up the beer.…
What if this poem was about me finding you About you finding me about how the search ended but we kept looking anyways; about the light and the dark melding? What if this was about a beacon finding its home a nest roosting its crow what if nothing But— what if everything? The cereus…
There used to be this old man in my neighborhood who’d jack off by his window and wear shirts that read: “666” or: “The Pope’s a Pollack” and I thought he was a real philosopher I’d talk to him for hours watch him drink cans of Burgie! from a paper bag. He hated the world…
the loneliest times are spent like this: eating alone in familiar restaurants with the smell of sawdust, baked meat and hot bread reminiscent of some childhood innocence and grace long lost and never found again. the loneliest times are spent dropping quarters into the parking meter scowling the L.A. skyline and cringing as the sway…
In the police station now where I’m not even a participant observer two little boys are sitting in the detectives’ area with the obligatory caseworkers both appropriately harried and frenetic each working a phone. I know this scene been here before; the worst part of ths gig I see a P2 I know, works the J-car there “What do you…
It’s been a pall across the shadow of face and life I can’t lie about that. Not here, anyways. If there is no honesty in the poem There can’t be purity in the voice I’m all showered and primped for bed it’s inevitable. The day mom called and asked if I was OK Just hours…
Difficult To Cure 