Just Like Hem

When little Ernie Hemingway was twelve
Years old, his poems blew chunks just
Like mine, when I was twenty.
The difference is, he wrote of baseball and
Kayaking and boxing and men with no penises and
I wrote of dead opossums and Haitian refugees.

Maybe when I'm thirty something I'll
Go to Paris, just like Hem, and drink some
Fine wine along the Champs E'leysey;
Maybe I'll love lesbians and hate myself.
I'll be known for my novels (just like Hem)
And be content with the knowledge that people,
In general, don't give a rat's ass for poetry.
Maybe I'll hunt lions and tigers, or bears;
Oh, my head will be filled with safari stories
And I'll tell them to you, like it or not.

What will happen when I'm sixty?
Will I be so filled with Weltschmerz (to
Borrow a good old German term) that I'll
Unpack my shotgun, oil it down, and head out
Hunting that damnable Me that's always been
One step ahead of myself.
Maybe in a hundred years some good chap in a
Pretty suit will find my scribblings in an attic.
Maybe he'll find my body right beside them,
The last will and testament of one brainless codger
To another in this massive heap of crap called life.



Yes, Doctor, They've Stopped Screaming

The tv is
Too
Fucking loud as I
Grab
The remote and
Grope the
'mute' button.

Up yours, Regis and
No, that's not
My final answer.

My medicine consists of
Two Tylenol (and call me in the morning)
And a healthy dose of bad
Comedy. My cat meows. Fuck her.

I used to sing to
Myself when I had
A voice to sing
With, but it's going going

Gone.
Take one more hit, man, you
Know you
Want to and you'll find god inside

Your muffin pans and you'll want
Nothing more than to settle down,
Find a nice wife, and buy a house.
Fucking 'a, man. Fucking 'a.