Shivering

As the temperature drops
I watch a horse
Sleep standing up.
The top of a tree
Swings in the wind.
I think it must be hard
To get up
To sleep like that.
The tree top
Stops swinging.
The sun slides
Out of a cloud.
I walk home
And say to my wife,
I'm quitting my job.
What will you do, she asks.
I haven't thought that far ahead.

Another One

Most modern poets I've read
Are teachers at universities
And they receive endowments
And fellowships and grants
That allow them to write
And still live a life of relative comfort.

I am not a teacher.
I have neither received an endowment
Nor ever claimed to be a poet.

Nonetheless, here's another one.

When Life Was Better

When life was better
We drank more wine
When life was better
We stayed out all night
Every night
Or so it seemed
When life was better
We ran around in circles
Looking for an adventure
When life was better
You loved me
Or you
Said you did
Over and over
Until I almost believed it
When life was better
Way back when
We all had
Something to hide

Stalking

On a cold afternoon
I waited
In a car
For you
To come out of a bar.

Books

If you look around
My elegant space
And see books everywhere,

Neatly stacked
Or displayed on shelves
My brother and I built,

You will think that
I am smarter
Than I am.

Better Luck Next Time

I told a girl in a bar that I tell fake stories what is that supposed to mean are you a bad writer she asked no I am not a bad writer I said it means my fake stories are true and my true stories are not I added so are everybody's she said can I buy you a drink I asked no she said why not I asked what I would like is for you to ignore me she said how about I take you out in the parking lot and pull your pants down and throw you over my knee and give you a proper spanking I said that would be nice she said yeah it would I replied I'm calling the police she said and pulled her cell phone out of her purse you do that I said and walked outside and sat in an alley and thought that didn't go as well as I'd hoped and wondered how I might retool my pickup style

Skin

I watched a guy get his ass beat outside a strip club.
He kept saying quit hitting me.
Quit hitting me.
The bouncer kept hitting him.
I wanted to say, hey man you proved your point,
But I rely on those guys
To steer the girls to my cab
Instead of the other cabs parked on the street
So I lit a cigarette and watched the scene unfold
Like a Nazi sympathizer or a greedy asshole.

Over The River And Through The Woods

On Christmas Eve sometime in the seventies
My cousin was sitting on my father's lap
And he told her that not all kids received presents on Christmas.

My cousin who was about three at the time started crying.
My grandfather (a good man and a gentleman) ripped my cousin off my father's lap and said something like she doesn't have to hear that. She's three years old for God's sake. I never saw him so mad.
My dad said something like the kid needs to know the truth and a fight commenced that drove my father to tell my mother that he was leaving and never coming back because he couldn't handle all this middle-class bullshit.

My father and my uncle Jim went to a bar.

I have spent a couple Christmas Eves in a bar and it's not that bad. For instance you have a perfectly good reason to feel sorry for yourself and everybody needs to feel sorry for themselves once in a while (whether they admit it or not) and it's nice to have a free pass to do so and being in a bar on Christmas Eve is a free pass if there ever was one. It's you against the world and that is kind of sad but also liberating. Christmas Eve in a bar makes you feel like a man with nothing to lose and that always makes the drinking more poignant and so what if you're alone, that's how your going to die anyway and it's good practice (if nothing else) for the inevitable.

My dad was back in the morning and we all pretended it never happened.

Dead Guy Beside The River Continued

I guided the cops
Through my backyard
To the river and pointed
And said there he is.

Stand over there,
One of the cops said.

The sun went down.
The tree tops were blowing.
What do you think happened,
I asked a cop as he walked
By me on the way back to his car?

Not sure, he said.
Can I go home? I asked.
I'm freezing my ass off.
Stay put.
Someone might want to talk to you, he said.

About what? I asked.
I showed you where he is.
Just stay put.

So I stood there and watched
A bunch of people circle the guy
And write shit down
In little notebooks.

After an hour I said fuck this
And walked to my house.
What's going on down there? My wife asked.
It's going to snow, I said, and turned on the television.

How can you watch TV,
My wife asked,
When someone might have been murdered
Two hundred yards from our backyard?
It's Monday Night Football, I said.

Dead Guy Beside The River

My wife found a dead drunk
By the river behind our house.
Or I surmised he was drunk,
He was definitely dead.

She was walking down the river
With our daughter and she saw the dead guy first.
And hightailed it home.
And told me to investigate.

Did Tally see the dead guy? I asked.
No, I shifted her attention and came home to tell you, she said.
How do you know he's dead?
I don't.

I walked to the river
And checked it out.
She was right about him being dead.
There wasn't much that I could do
So I walked back and said, he's dead

And called the cops like
That's ever done
Anyone
Any good.

Oh, Say Can You See

Black Elk
Was picking
Blueberries
In a Minnesota field
On a lovely
Summer afternoon

When he was
Shot in the back
By an immigrant.

Crusade

Come all ye faithful
Tired weathered and true
I'm to gather a band of men
We are to liberate Timbuktu

I know it's not politically
Correct or courageous
To follow our broken hearts
And ignore the clever sages

So let's march down the dirt road
Until we win or die
And let's let our state's continence
Dictate our peace of mind

Along a righteous path of virtue
Where only few have rolled
Let the folklore and the essays
Immortalize our souls

Ashley Judd

She's
The
Coolest
Girl
In
The
World

(But)

I
Can't
Be
Swayed
By
That

(For)

She
Could
Turn
My
Heart

Into
A
Pile
Of
Broken
Glass

Murder Ballad

There's a dirt road behind my house
That runs under a power line
Up a half mile
To a copper mine
I'm going to bring my girl
Cause she doesn't love me and she never will
She doesn't love me and she never will

Bar Flies

He bums me a smoke and buys me a drink
Looks me in the eye
Smiles and winks
Tells a couple lies
About the way it was back when
He was a great artist or something

He bums me another smoke and buys me another drink
He looks me in the eye and says, you're full of shit
It's not that he's wrong
Or that he's right
But sometimes
You just don't want to hear it

He bums me another smoke and buys me another drink
He looks me in the eye and says why don't you have any cigarettes
Why don't you buy your own drink
Why don't you toughen up
Get a job
And your head out of your ass kid

Left, Right, Left

I have to get it up
One more time
Around the track
And back again

I saw her standing
Under a rainbow
Talking to a little girl
Who looked just like her.
She glanced my way
And smiled at me.

It didn't help.

I’m in hell
with another lap
to go.
I run like an Indian
or a buffalo
toward a swamp that isn't real.

I was a soldier
Young and strong
A long time ago.
I ran fast
In circles
Through the woods,
For a pack of cigarettes,
A six pack of beer,
A bottle of scotch,
Whatever.
It doesn't matter.
Never did or will.

I watched her walk
To her car with her
Little girl.
She looked my way again.
I turned my head.
She opened the car door.

I said to myself
Let's go.
Have to march up that hill.
Left
Right
Left
One more time.

Bad Road

I have miles to walk
Across roads
I’ve walked

I will never return

I’m tired
Hungry
Cold
I have miles to go

My faith is gone
My horse is dead

So I walk
And when I walk
I am alone

Adam Scott

In Singapore
He was
Head and tail
Above
The field.

Gonzo Guerrilla Warfare

What doesn't kill you,
In the Army
Makes you smarter.
Sometimes
It takes a little luck.
I guess I'm lucky.

Although
It's pretty hard
To get killed
Hanging out
At Fort Benning
Drinking Jim Beam
And smoking dope.

I did
Jump out
Of an airplane
Every couple months
And as for the Army
Making me smarter
Lets just say
It didn't kill me.

A Conversation About Country Music And The Decline Of Western Civilization

We were sitting in a bar on the wrong side of the street.
You always overrate country music, she said, did a shot of tequila and kissed my cheek.
I took a pull off a glass of whiskey. Sometimes I underrate it, I said and lit a cigarette.
You can't smoke in here, she said. For instance? she added.
Garth Brooks, I said.
You hate him, she said.
Maybe I'm wrong, I said.
Because you don't like Garth Brooks doesn't mean you underrate him. You are right about him, at least, she said.
Because you agree with me doesn't make me right. I might be right about Garth and I might not. I don't really like Roger Miller and he's good. I think Hank Williams, Jr. is better than Hank Williams and just about anybody that thinks they know shit about the subject would tell me I'm full of it. Shit, that is. I finished my drink. May I have another, I asked the waitress.
If you don't put that out I'm eighty-sixing you, she said.
I put the cigarette in my empty glass. This world gets more fucked up every day, I said. I am right about that, I added.
Because you can't smoke in a enclosed space? she asked.
Yeah, I said.
I thought we were going to go out to dinner, she said.
Let's. I hate this place anymore, I said.
Don't be bitter, she said and smiled.
I'm not. I just hate watching the decline of western civilization roll under my nose in the guise of the greatest thing since clean air, I said.
She walked over to the jukebox put a dollar in and punched in Sweet Dreams. Do you feel better? She asked.
A little, I said, and gave her mighty fine ass a little tap.
She laughed.
Would you like to dance? I asked.
I would love to, she said.
I'm a crap dancer, I said.
That's alright. I'll lead, she said.

Talia's Colors Go Around and Around

Kiss me one more time sweet wind about your hair I feel it slide along the passionate boulevard of your arm

I am not as sensitive as you are sublime ask any question your brave heart desires

It is not that hard to lay down in your arms and listen to the music of your sweet and many charms

I watched the sun rise I watched it set and I watched your face change from mud to cement

Beauty does not last it lurches and it skirts it flirts and it yawns and leaves us howling like beasts at God

Love is natural nature is proud the river rolls by us and doesn't make a sound

Ramblin' Gamblin' Me

I was swimming in the river when the wind blew by
A sweet sad love song I could see it in her eyes
She didn't want me anymore she was trying not to cry
She smelled better than ever the day she said goodbye

I got into my old car and drove as far as she went
Ran out of gas just outside Juarez
I walked across the bridge sat down in a bar
I fell in love with a whore she has a golden heart

We sang folk songs in her grandfather's backyard
Her mother cooked dinner her brother picked guitar
It rained every night the river overflowed
I got a letter yesterday that said I forgive you

So leave me alone I have myself a wife
That treats me like a king if I treat her kind of nice
You drove me crazy until I drove away
So leave me alone I'm down here to stay

Waiting For A Truck

I was talking to a guy
On the side of a dirt road
In the desert.
He said,
The world is fucked up.
I nodded
And lit a cigarette.
You got an extra?
He asked.

2 - 15

Would it matter
What I did yesterday,

If I brought you flowers
On Valentine's day?

Pulp Fiction

packed bus in the middle of the night
between Louisville and Fort Knox
in a bar in the St. Louis airport
I bought dinner with a voucher
provided by the Government
drinking whiskey and smoking dope and cigarettes
in someone's motel room in Denver
a tall skinny mean looking dude yelled
get up you worthless pieces of shit
this is going to be the longest day of your miserable lives
a Sergeant picked me up on the side of the road
in front of my father's condo in the mountains
at the crack of dawn and drove me to Montrose

Better Than Nothing (A Man's Job)

My brother ties flies

In his study

Out in Avondale

Surrounded by books

And records.

He drinks imported

Beer after beer

Listens to Waylan Jennings

Dylan

The Stones and

The Old 97's.

He stays out of trouble

(for the most part)

And seeks perfection

In his own way.

If he ties the fly

Correctly

It might catch him a fish

Someday.

And that ain't even

The point.

Spare Time

In my spare time
I write line after line

(about
women
drugs
booze
bars
bar flies
sports
high school
the Army
dogs
music
Linda
Trish
Penny)

I hope
it adds up
to something
someday
but if it doesn't

what the hell

I'm not doing
anything important
anyway

One Thousand Years From Now

I used to be a prostitute by prostitute I mean I sold real estate in Phoenix during the boom (when money grew on trees and by growing on trees I mean falling from the sky like a flock of birds during a red rain storm by red rain I mean like the great Peter Gabriel song) that left the whole country broke when I was married and by married I mean shacked up with a girl I met in the Fly Me To The Moon Saloon while I was playing a one string fiddle in a Delta blues band when she kicked me out I joined the Army by Army I mean Army unfortunately and when the Army kicked me out I became a pilot by pilot I mean I delivered pizzas while I was flunking out of college I was in rehab and by rehab I mean a self imposed exile from my drug doin' and bar flyin' friends I mostly kept to myself and read a lot of books about ex - presidents and those books inspired me to vote for the lesser of two evils by lesser of two evils I mean John Kerry the truest test of this shit (by shit I mean this poem and a couple hundred more) will be can it travel by travel I mean through generations and will it make sense and resonate that's a long shot by long shot I mean a million to one

How Much I Love You

If I had the money

I would buy you a tower
The best tape recorder in the world
A field full of flowers
A giant bag of cocaine
And an Irish Setter.

That’s how much I love you.

I - 85

Joe was driving. Rick was singing along to Night Ranger. Steve was sleeping. I was rolling a joint. Earlier we saw Jay Leno in a bar with married and coupled friends and when they went home, Joe said, let's go to Atlanta so off we went. About a third of the way there I had a feeling I was the only person awake in the car so I said Joe, and when he didn't respond I said it louder and he said shit and the car started fishtailing. Rick woke up and said what the fuck? Joe got the car under control and we decided to head back. When we pulled into the barracks' parking lot, Steve said, where are we? Back where we started, I said. Why aren't we in Atlanta? Steve asked. We didn't make it, I said. At least we aren't dead, Rick added.

Christmas Morning

What am I supposed to do with this? I asked.
Shove it up your ass and spin it, she said.