the poems of george jones
...generation sucks

in lieu of anticipation…

fear of the next year

stub
the proverbial toe,
pull
the proverbial
hamstring,
bite your tongue
and it starts.

one for neighbors

yeah, so the dog is,
was
and will be
my responsibility.
I’ll take full credit
for his death
as I take
full credit
for his life:

death of a factotum

it started when I was sixteen,
so maybe you can chalk it up
to inexperience
of youth,
but either way
I dropped out of high school
and decided to get a full-time job:
in a way, a forever job,
just not exactly:

chop…gone

the blood moves,
your nose
runs,
the sun
the only
audience.

could’ve stayed all day

there’s what you can do
and what you are doing
but there’s no sure-fire way
to keep them separate.
so maybe I’d just had
too much to drink,
took on too much
like the storm-drains outside
dripping rain.
and so I waited.
I could’ve left at any time.

whiskey breath without whiskey

he, my counselor,
tried to be subtle
about the whole thing, said
I should go to the bedroom
with a book, maybe two
and some cigarettes.

depakote

I’d started taking that rotten stuff
after I mucked up a poorly planned
suicide (ripping open flesh, skin, vein
with a stubby-looking steak knife)
and didn’t have the mustard
to muster another. I remember
sitting in this doctor’s office,
in a small myriad of doctor’s offices,
answering a small myriad
of doctor’s questions:

dealing with a bunch of humans

the trouble, in all likelihood,
between people on earth
and the god(s) we can’t see,
isn’t so much that we believe in him/her/them
but rather that we believe that such a presence
believes
in us.

last cigarette, good lighter

grew up in broken home
that’s how I got out so easily
boat got to be too crowded

stolen grapes gone rotten

i found that tiny, little voice
perched uneasily on a barstool
delicate as fresh milk with
a stick figure body
but not too thin

the name

there are actions too big for words.
actions cutting down the roadway
ripping and growing
leaving
no explanation.

however

alright, so we didn’t so much
destroy capitalism
as we
starved
and got sick on it,
we didn’t so much
create an autonomous monopoly
as walk away,

really exactly

I didn’t really want her,
not exactly;
I liked her friend—
the one with long, black hair,
camo-gear sorta female-frilly,
quiet but
there. exactly. really.
but the friend was too odd,
looked sweet, then away.

low class, middle-class handjob

the singer, draped in black,
a face aged
with jazz
and circumstance,
and that big belt-buckle
round
as an egg,
didn’t look too good.
then again, neither
did i.

guess who isn’t a laureate yet

I have a cheap habit
of liking
the gutter poets.
shakespeare doesn’t grab me,
bukowski does;

this time for real

there’s something here, but I don’t know
what it is: something between
the static
of boredom, depression, inebriation,
something between
the idleness
of alarm clocks, traffic jams, loose change,
something between
the futility
of job applications, therapists, long lines
at the gas-station,
something between
the something between the something
between.

notes on a room

my full-blooded german, full of years grandfather
came back from world war 2
after fighting for America (any way you wanna take it)
and started building this house, these rooms,
which he saw completed
and lived in
sometimes.