Twenty-Seven Tips for Better Living

Yeah man, see, that's the thing about traveling right after heart-wrenching-stomach-dropping goodbyes, too much time to think when you least expect-most need it.
Existential angst doesn't sit well with honey roasted nuts and crying babies, plus the stewardess looks at you funny
when you ask for horse tranquilizers with your complimentary Sprite, but you shouldn't be having that stuff when you're in this state anyways (the state of travel I mean), that stuff screws with your homeostasis, or so I read/heard/thought. I mean, cheap $9 airplane Chardonnay; fine. But with Sprite, the carbonation sends that corn syrup straight to your brain and you start thinking too fast, and you realize how the geological time scale weighs on your every move and crunches your whispered hopes of immortality
like a carpenter ant under a paper towel under your thumb.
And then you get depressed. I mean real bad man, real bad. Not like "oh shit, I suddenly see the crossroads I've just passed and recognize all at once my impotence in the face of regrets and sudden death" depressed. I mean real bad. I mean "third drivers test failure in as many weeks, spilled punch on your new dress at homecoming, C- in Algebra II" depressed, "LA Clippers fan for life" depressed, "the CD playing in the restaurant stuck on repeat and you're the only person who seems to notice the 79 solid minutes of a purely instrumental rendition of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" depressed.
No, you don't want that kind of depressed, but don't worry, just follow these simple instructions:
First and foremost, don't drink the Sprite. Don't drink the water, filter the water, then drink the water (it doesn't matter whether or not you know what you're filtering out, just do it), take deep breaths, chew with your mouth closed, don't mix alcohol with
horse tranquilizers, have another Chardonnay, pretend to care about the vintage, but be nice to the stewardess, she's had a long day, call your mother, don't litter, make cute faces at the babies even though they are crying so much it makes you almost like the Clippers, don't overdo it, stop making that face, don't talk to strangers, fight the power, but pay your bills on time, sit still while we're talking to you, wear your seatbelt, wear sunscreen, don't wear flipflops, they're unbecoming, smile in the face of adversity, don't put your elbows on the table, sing in the shower, take the blue pill (but make sure it isn't a horse tranquilizer first, you've had a lot of Chardonnay you know), laugh at yourself, laugh at everything.*


*Should you find yourself in a tough spot in which these instructions are not at the moment readily accessible, please disregard the first 25 instructions.

America.

There is a heinous superabundance of coffee mugs.
Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, I'd Rather Be Golfing,
My _____ went to _____ and all I got was this stupid mug.
And they are discarded.
At Goodwill, there is a special shelf for all of them.
It runs 20 ft. long and 2 ft. deep, and
it is full. The #1 Dads rub elbows with the obscene, bachelor parties,
and everyone shuns the once personalized mugs
as callous shells, all their singular meaning bled away.
And somewhere northwest of Piendamó, Colombia,
a young woman with slender, auburn arms and cinnamon hair
harvests small beans with her harshly callused hands,
just as she has done for the past fifteen years,
just as she will do
for fifty more.
And they are airlifted to a central roasting facility in  Enon, Ohio,
then ground, vacuum packed and trucked out to
A Super America Convenience Store Near You.
24 oz. $1.29. "100% Colombian."
Styrofoam.

[Untitled 1]

The summer water drives me in,
it's welcome all the same -
it falls with no apology
to justify, nor shame.

The cooling gray across the sky
that crumbles into rain,
does rid me of this monstrous heat,
the passion and the flame.

The molten magma rages deep
in yawning vaults of rock,
without the proper medicine
will turn my bones to chalk.

The only balm seems hidden far,
yet plain for all to see.
The saving salve for all my soul
is borne in loving Thee.

For then do I know unity,
of God's soul and of mine,
the harmony of forces
and the amplitude of time.

Whatever Happened to Jean-Claude Van Damme?

Seriously.
Does anyone know?
Maybe he's back home in Belgium,
speaking at a podium in confident French
to crowds of voters, concerned about the economy.
Jean-Claude is wearing a black suit
with a red tie. His face is
old and melancholy, but with
eyes of determination.
He will win.
He is sure.
He always has, and after all,
Bloodsport and Street Fighter weren't much worse than
Eraser or True Lies,
were they?

This is Water, This is Water. . . .

Melancholy bubbles to my surface like sea foam,
green-blue with the algae of
regret. It pollutes me,
mucking up my hair
whenever I break the surface.
So I dive.
Swim down through the various strata of marine life,
past the ugly hammerhead sharks of jealousy
and the gigantic tunafish of indifference,
their scales gleaming blue and pink,
glittering metallic bodies
cutting through the water with
life threatening complacency.
I swim past them
down to the dark depths of my ocean,
where the fish are luminescent and clear,
with steak-knife teeth and mailbox jaws;
down where the water pressure
crushes the exo-skeleton I've built
and washes away the algae;
and I become the fish.
Skin pigment fades to blank, iridescent glow
emanates from my transparent body. I am
Resplendent. Crystal.

IR 2282, Bellinzona to Zürich HB dep 13:06 arr 15:51

“This isn't your train,” I tell the man sitting opposite me in this cramped, four seat compartment.
With his lips slightly ajar and his head pointed halfway to the window,
he stares at me like I'm crazy.
“It isn't. Yours left months ago.”
We are alone in the compartment. He shifts uncomfortably. He thinks that I think that maybe he doesn't understand English. He hopes this.
“Look, you can't just come in here, getting on other people's trains. It's not that I'm offended, it just ain't right, y'know? This isn't your train, is it?”
He must not like rhetorical questions. He's looking out the window.
“Alright buddy, listen to me; so you missed your train, so what? Sorry. I'll stop with the rhetorical questions, but really now, last month's train is leaving here in about three-hundred and forty-five seconds, it'll bisect ours somewhere just North of the faultline everybody always talks about.”
His expression is caught between horror, disgust, and fear.
I say slowly,
“You can get on it then, you know.”
We sit in silence for five minutes.
He is looking out the window. I am watching him watch things
pass us by.
He bows his head and puts on his bowler derby with one hand as he rises to his feet.

Martin Buber Encounters an Oak Tree

It stands alone in a field of tall, yellow grass.
He is just out of its reach, shunning its shade for the bright, skin-leathering sun.
Martin imagines a seed falling from the sky and crashing into the soil with the force of--what to call it?--pure being. It sends a tree sprouting up like a mushroom cloud; full growth in 30 seconds, standing somewhere outside of time,
outside of space,
outside of Martin.
He peels away the dissecting sections of his analytical intellect like so many layers of rain soaked clothing.
He watches his silver blue soul slide out of himself, into the grizzled gray brown bark.

These Buffalo Suck

Our relationship has become a perfect meadow. Clover, tulips, and tall grass, honey bees and
anti-personnel mines.
Our little purveyors of pain used to be stuck up in the north-west corner of the fields, sequestered away where the hills roll into the dark woods, where soft green slowly burns into shadow under the barren, steely trees.
But mines migrate. They are less the flying V and more the plodding herd of buffalo, quiet but powerful and deadly. They are so unobtrusive as to become part of the scenery itself, merely a prop for a landscape painter until they’ve migrated their way directly in front of you, seventy-three half-ton claymore mine creatures.
You can’t step on them.
They’re buffalo.
But a misplaced word, a noun where there should be a verb and they explode in a flash of orange-white light, sending chunks of blood-clumped brown fur, meat and bone flying at me in a tidal wave of passive aggressive gore and self-deprecating apologies delivered with all of the melancholy resignation to Fate of a 23 year old Japanese civilian turned once-pilot, climbing over the bright red Rising Sun into the cockpit of his dynamite-laden Mitsubishi Zero, keeping his left hand securely in the pocket of his grayish green flight-suit, thumb pressing hard and rubbing slow circles around the face of a black and white photograph.

Going Out--a very short story

The last gulp of floral, bitter pale ale flooded his mouth, finishing his sixth pint since dinner. He couldn't tell whether it was the alcohol or the loud music that made the pulsing feeling in his chest a little less bearable than usual. He hastily called to the bartender to close out his tab, picked up his jacket off the back of the stool and dropped the receipt next to his empty glass with '1.00' scribbled on the dashed tip line. He felt the weight of all their eyes on him as he left with the young blond from across the room. “Fuck them,” he told himself. Even in his mind, his voice cracked. The neon Miller Lite and Detroit Lions signs left faint glowing trails of blue and white in his peripheral vision as he pushed his way out into the mild summer night.

He suppressed the cool midnight air with a Black clove cigarette. He basked in her fawning gaze while he cupped his hand over the lighter, enjoying the crackling burn of his first drag before offering her a slender cylinder of her own. In silence, they watched their breath diffuse into silver-white wisps slithering into the streetlight. He flicked his half-finished cigarette to the curb and sauntered over to his '99 Ford Mustang that his father had called 'Lightning Blue.' They could still hear the faint din of Friday from the bar half a block away when, feigning indifference, he gestured for her to get in.

While they ascended the second flight of beige-flecked carpet up to apartment 203, he pretended that she didn't notice the suffocating smell of cigarettes that seeped through the walls. They were silent while he fumbled for his keys. They were silent when he dropped his keys. Under his breath, he apologized for the mess; she dismissed it as nothing close to how bad hers was.

He watched her shimmy out of a light blue tube top with a bulimic hunger in his eyes. Her look was confident while begging for approval. He slid up against her hips, caressing the underside of her breast while nibbling on her left earlobe. Lowering her down onto the navy sheets, he whispered into her ear to be patient—good things come to those who wait. He left her with a kiss so soft it surprised them both.

Staring into his bathroom mirror, hating the buzzing fluorescent lights that flanked his reflection, he choked down three generic extra strength ibuprofen with a swallow of what used to be his father's favorite whiskey, tossing the empty glass over his shoulder without a second thought. It hit the curved corner of the blue bathtub, shattering with an odd softness as the slide around the bend cushioned its destruction. He pressed the palm of each of his hands into one eye socket, his back heaving at every halting breath. “Is this it?” he asked the shards of glass that lay scattered throughout the bathtub, still tinted caramel with whiskey atop the baby blue porcelain.

writing with flame in my mouth

it was past midnight
and the room was illuminated
only by my computer screen
and the soft orange tip of my cigarette,
shedding ash it into a mostly empty pint of ben & jerry's.
decadent.
thought these things
curbed that shit.
isn't that the trade off for
early death?
maybe the trade is death for
the right to watch wisps of gray
dissolve into and out of the soft glow
of laptop light amid darkness
in perfect
solitude.
life comes in little drops.
tongue outstretched, i
squeeze my eyes shut and wait
for moments that make meaning.
litany of loss.
lost cigarette leaves
tobacco and plaque tasting like
life, at midnight.
i run into cliches like the
unexpected door jamb on six drinks.
no ice.
i slog through false epiphanies
like so many valu-pak coupons and
bills i shouldn't pay
stacked sixteen inches deep on my
desk next to durkheim and
the filter soaking up thawed cream.
i brushed my teeth before i smoked.
i'll sleep with this.