don't feel bad your only alive and living

i lay belly up with saddened eyes. i can hear the empty space all around, vibrant and alive. I turn on turn off the tv. the ground is a long way down from up here. 13 floors up seems like a lot. There are no knocks on my door or rings on my phone. I could use some action so I open a beer. I look at the piles of mail, the laundry on the floor. Then in the bathroom the piles of change the dirty razors and toothpaste that sticks to the sink and just doesn't want to go. I look in the fridge and no I don't want pizza from a month ago. I don't want ketchup or mustard, jelly, or expired milk. I don't want frozen chicken breasts or way overdue flatbread.

I go ouside to smoke but more to change my environment. I sit there and the people who don't know the city walk by. Some of them probably think I'm a bum. I don't buy new clothes til mine have fallen apart. A real bum with nicer things on than me walks by and asks for a smoke. I say no and he looks at me with spite. I bet he has more change he has hussled from tourists in his pockets than I have in mine. I wish I could go to the bar or the track to straighten myself out a bit. Instead I just read and write. Bukowski spits out to me about solitude and love, two things he had all the time, or not at all. It seems sometimes that I've given up on music. I haven't really sat and played or tried to write anything for a while. The chords don't sound right, and i feel distant from the whole mess. I used to care, and work hard at it. Now I set it aside to bullshit myself or write this crap instead.

My mouth is dry and I need a drink.. I get up and down a glass with a couple vitamins and St. Johns Wort. No better than before. I cook a pancake and it it with some jelly and expired vegetable spread on top. I get the pan too hot and the second one burns. It still tastes good. I think to myself that I can't go on like this. I need some people, I need to joke and to laugh, and to be a part of something. I'm sick. I don't sneeze or cough, but I'm dazed and tired all the time. I'm constantly on the edge of giving up. Going somewhere I can crawl up and panhandle if I have to. Go from bottle to bottle, at this point it doesn't seem to lack any of the nobility that a wall street exec has at this point. I won't be annoying or steal, or scare people though. I would be polite, maybe offer some entertainment or service. Everyone likes a tapdancing vet. Hey folks! A ta ta ta! Bin Laden? More like been gotten! whoa here I go a ta ta ta At least I got my hands and feet I'm foreva happy! a ta ta ta I would sing gospel eat from the garbage and never feel sorry about myself or anyone again. The light we see through the tangled mess of lines going from our souls into society is bleak, not enough for a single flower to grow. Not enough for you, for me, or anybody.

irony of my discontent

I seem to be distant and hate so much stuff. I don't like people because they are so self centered and superficial. They lead meaningless lives and don't do anything great except wake up in the morning, eat, shit, and back to sleep. Everything in between is dull and nothing interests me. I hate it so much. I hate it so much because I want to be happy like them. I want to be close, I want to be superficial and pretend I haven't lived the way I have or seen the things I have seen. I want to wake up in love, just living life and being happy. Going through the dull motions, paying the bills, washing the car, buying a dog, a house, settling down having kids. I'm damaged. Damaged goods. I'm the egg with a crack and I just can't see or feel like everyone else does. It saddens and embitters me. The hole in my soul I try to fill up with alcohol and dreams. I write here everything. Some of it is over the top and exaggerated, but that is me. It would probably be less interesting if I was my laid back monotone self. So when I write I scream. It's the only place really to do it so that no one thinks your crazy, maybe you think I'm crazy anyway. Why do I care. Why do you care. What else should I be? All apologies.

Notes From A Blood Stained Coloring Book continued

Sick men have been coming to the house. They bang on the door and beg for help. Mom and grandma get scared. Dad makes them keep a tire iron by the door now. He says I have to be brave because when he's not around I'm the man of the house and I can't be scared. I'm not scared I told him so he knows. Grandma brought out a tape player she had in the basement today. Her and mom listened to Elvis tapes while I played. The music sounded good. I danced and made them laugh. Then I rolled around in front of the window pretending I was in the sun.
My birthday is in 12 days. Dad said he's going to bring me something great since I can't play my video game anymore, now that the power is out. I hope it's a trampoline, one that can fit in the house. I could do flips and make my own circus show. I hope the flu ends soon, maybe for my birthday it will stop. Then we can all go out and swim, and dad can cook hot dogs and cheeseburgers. I want a cheeseburger on the grill so bad! Oh and cake with ice cream, I hope Dad brings some home.
Last night I heard mom crying. Dad and her were talking, and she is sad. We heard booms outside. I looked and I saw a fire somewhere pretty far. The glow lit up and it reminded me of halloween bonfires. I wondered if people in masks were crowded around on stumps roasting marshmallows and telling stories. I miss the outside.

Notes From A Blood Stained Coloring Book

I can't go outside anymore. Mother and Grandma won't let me. I miss the sun so sometimes I sit in the window looking out in the streets. I hope to see other children playing so I can say "look mom the other kids are out playing", but I never see them. I only see the adults. They all wear masks now. Some even wear gloves. I heard Dad telling Mom about the people on the trains. He says that they cover all their bodies and wear rubber doctors gloves. No one touches anymore they only wave but most people don't recognize each other, or themselves anymore.
School was over early. Some kids got sick and they said it had to be clean. They said the flu is a germ and it spreads all over. Mom says I'm lucky because a lot of the kids got it. I think I would rather be in the doctors eating soup and watching what I want. They only like the news. I don't like listening to the people talk or the pictures they show. There are lots of bad people now. They do what they want and it's on tv every night. Mom says it's because they think they are going to die so they do what ever they can do to be mean or unkind. That's why we have more locks now.
Mom started a garden in the back yard. She says when everyone is eating canned food we will live like kings with our carrots and watermelons. I say I want McDonald's happy meal, she and grandma laugh. They say no one is eating at restaurants anymore. The people outside seem in a hurry. They are going out less. When night comes it feels like everyone is scared and I can feel it. So I lay in bed looking at the ceiling imagining what is out there in the dark that scares them so bad. Dad doesn't seem so bad though. He is usually the only one who goes out. When he gets home he takes off his mask and gloves and burns them. Then momma and grandma wash his clothes in Bleach. Sometimes he brings me home presents because he knows I get bored with mom and grandma all day. Then he sits by the television and tells mom and grandma about the people on the trains and the people who are sick and lying around. I heard him tell them about the train cars with the sick people piled up. He said they were going far. They were going to be buried, but a special funeral where they are burned. " Ashes to ashes, dust unto dust" is what grandma said.
I miss my family. I miss my cousin Sadie. She's in heaven now. I remember when aunt Lisa called and told mom. Her and grandma cried and talked. Sadie was my favorite cousin. Uncle Louis died too, but dad said it was from a crazy man attacking him at his store. The man was sick and took things from Louis little grocery store. Aunt Kathy, my cousin Maury, and grandma's brother Albert all got sick from the flu. Everyone was sad and afraid. I'm not afraid because when I die I will be with god. It doesn't matter to me how it happens I don't even think about it. It's just something you can't help like losing a baby tooth.
I think when it's all over and everything is right again I want to be a doctor so I can help. So that people don't have to be scared anymore. So the other children can go outside and play, and I can have fun.

Filthy Swine

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090425/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/med_swine_flu

There is an outbreak of a mutated bird virus that has traveled through swine into humans. It's spreading from Mexico to the north. I always think of Wells's "War of the Worlds" when it comes to these things. The aliens were far superior beings yet they succumb to the awesome power of the virus. They say that human bodies don't have the resistances against these viruses with animal genes. When we look to the not so far past we should think of the millions that have died from the virus, the only true predator of man left.
I don't eat pork but I doubt the virus really cares. A pandemic of this size has the potential to wipe out millions of people. Shadowing the losses in the Afghan and Iraq war. So my friends in Texas and California, be careful and stay safe. Go to the doctor if you feel sick. They say they have a vaccine. We haven't had any US deaths yet, but the factors are clear that the strain is on the run and it is impossible to contain at this point.

slightly on the off track

Oh lovely, oh comely
the draining absence
oh straining existence
oh anti fulfilling work
oh greenbacks and silver worth's
oh rapid descent into babbling hell
oh new clothes and hair gel
oh free man forced out of life
holding onto what made it all right
can't give up memories not even with drink or dope
not with war or crime
no matter what, fucking or crying
la la, la lada la la, da da da, ladadada da

my restlessness drives on the spearhead of a nations comfort
my anger is not resolved in the black and white bureaucracy
the daunting tasks of living dim the nature of the soul
and I am forever in a silent mental clash

veterans dream

It's not that I want to die. It's that it has taken away all the purposes of living. I lay catatonic in bed wanting to sleep forever, sleep away everything. Go to work get a job you'll hate it eventually. Go to school get an education but what does that mean. Higher tax brackets and higher rises and what? Losing your steam. Wasting it, wasting your creativity, dismally, dreadfully, living while sleeping. Find love but is it love. Does that exist anyways? Is it just a lie thats been repeated for so long we have started to believe that whats real is the songs, movies, books, and tv? I'm not doubting it I'm only doubting me. Me and my perception of the world, my ideas on fulfilment, ideas on everything. I never thought going to war would take away so much beauty. So much love, so much of me. Is it the war though, or would I be the same either way. Would I have no hope for a world that is never going to catch up with itself. No matter what fiber optics come along, no matter how small a microchip gets. There will always be the haves, and the in-needs. There will always be traces in the past as we work our way through an overcrowded recent history. Events are nothing, the days entwine. Sweet memory tarnished from the chemicals I absorb and breathe. From the slaughter house blood mixed with the cattle feed. We are all twitters, twittering ourselves out of existence with every immemorable tweet. You can't take your top five anything into the black beyond. So stop telling the world things that no one cares about. When you write, write something real, be abrasive and mean. Otherwise you will go down as the fluffy pillow of the tainted American dream.