there’s a guy I work with who doesnt know when to keep his mouth shut, & sometimes he talks some stupid bullshit that makes me want to knock him on his ass. A friend told me to let it go, that hes still young, he has a lot to learn, And a lot can happen in 3 years.

A lot can happen in 3 years-

& i thought on that & I thought to myself That A lot can happen in 3 years, A lot can happen in 3 years- when Steve grew up, South Side Chicago, 14 years old & he’s a father, a lot can happen in 3 years 3 years to live, 3 years to learn, & time always has a toll and

nobody passes for free

Because i know that the gun was in brandon’s mouth When the cops showed up at his house, Flashing red & blue lights filling the dark room where he sat on a bed, Eyes closed & ready to live in 3. 2.

1. A lot can happen in 3 years, i thought of what Bobby had said when he stared into the fires glowing coals, & told us what happened that night in North Philly when he grew up, The night his mom got shot Still searching for her sons, the abuse he took, the things he had to do to survive & he doesnt think he can ever go back to that city, & even though he ran all the way to california White scars on his head & that stripe his back make it hard to forget that A lot can happen in 3 years To the sexually molested Anorexic as she shook in my arms And in that moment she wasnt a woman She was a girl, who threw up every meal for 3 years, Who looked at me through the film of tears, The tears that said A lot can happen in 3 years, A lot can happen in 3 years Dante said In his games of Chess, when he Won game after game & i told him he was good, He stared at something else & If he could go back he’d rather be bad at chess & have been there for his son But whats done is done, And 3 years                                                     is plenty of time To play chess.

A lot can happen in 3 years, & i thought of Pedro who came from San Diego, used to bounce clubs & sling dope, small-time narcos, Until two of his friends Caught bullets in their heads, 20 years old & no amount of money is going to change that end-

A lot can happen in 3 years Is what i thought that night that we watched the Northern lights, shivering in underpants on a rusty fish cannery roof, No shirt & rubber boots, the men that lined the old railroad track, their heads leaned back & it was quiet, Those lights Showing us our past, & maybe for some Whats to come

A lot can happen in 3 years, thats true

but maybe I’ll punch him in the head tomorrow

& he’ll learn a thing or two.

When the radiator behind the
Rolling Stones postered door hummed heat 

And our plaid pajamas and brown wool socks were covered by comforters and the glow of yearly tv specials that were birthed from the screen like familiar babies 

And the sky was half blue half the moon 

from the tree branch dividing our window view 

And our dad was dying in the other room

You told me you saw 7 reindeer 

To go with him

To go home 

To be gone too soon 

There was a Waxing crescent and a Virginian milky blue sky translucence 

While taking my son from 

his home his mom his friends and New York 

And the Worlds Light was too high

 So We settled for streamed ceiling fluorescence 

And enjoyed the trains inner sanctum Incandescence

Strictly Ticket holder acceptance 

Tangled in each other and the trees and the true Virginian dark and the southern pull to his new home

And man, the way his eyes shone

At The prospect of a moving breakfast 

Shiny eggs and bacon and seemingly mountainous orange juice while trees flower laced train tracks grazing cattle and farm workers and a sky in its most royal attire: sprinkled with cumulus regalia,  blew past our car and we blew past them 

And when the train came to an unexpected halt in the deeply darkened woods of South Carolina 

And only little strips of his tiny face showed from scattered light 

And his thick black hair melded with the dark and although barely visible, swayed left then right then left then right then left then right  in quick movements under the humming ventilation system 

And his now dark iPad screen showed me my own face barely visible but content

I could see myself and a mother among us quietly answering our children’s silent words in smiles 

Beneath the glory of a pinkorangebluesilvermagenta fundip dusted sky, the truck slams through the deserted twilight streets illumined by twisted neon green orbs that authoritatively dictate above the silky half and half cream colored, crossed, and strong legs of suburban mothers who sit along the main drag gabbing.

A thousand dollars. A thousand stares. A thousand fucking times down this sick road where my head pounds from too much sugar and hotdogs and the toxic glowingly phosphorescent frozen-to-the-package sludge that warms and glides through my torso into the disaster pit of my pale war-torn horrible diet affected stomach. And I know it’ll come out guns blazing in the morning, when I’m cold, ready to stare up at me and say, “what gives!” And there is no languor whatsoever, which would be so nice 
The dying dog under the hood ululates its sick cries down the highway and begs to have the key pulled from the synaptic ignition to its motor brain and the demon in the wheel screeches on tight turns throughout roads giving bullshit gift baskets of OCD accident scares and every-bump-is-death-crazy paranoia 
So I scream loudly again and again down 

the pavement in this smorgasbord 

Slicing through the crisp yellow divides

Trying to beat the inconvenient turning of the earth so I can maybe see the light in the sky untarnished and unboxed

On cold nights when I’m lost and damned to rot in confusion
Ostracized and bleary eyed 

Slam jam me with thousands of blankets of understanding and freckle faced love that pours out of every word and body nuance 

I’ll return the favor with a big smile and a bigger bite into your delicious Polish chocolate 

life swirls in Styrofoam cups of coffee

drank in through cracked lips & yellowed teeth

life twinkles in the distance,

flashing red bulbs above cell towers

stared at from highways on nights without sleep.

life is in the smile Of a waitress in the diner,

3 am cigarrette break & tips are all she has-

life lives in the tears

of every single divorced dad.

the same life that lives in leftovers,

tupperwared & saran-wrapped,

comes out your other end in the piece of shit you shat.

life is in the bottles That you’d smash to pieces with your friend

And life is really what you make it,

you’ll find out in the end.

Looking at a dead body elicits a unique feeling unto itself
You shudder with intense eyes

Non-action emotively draws to mind what was hyper-action not too long ago

Indicative of everything in its good bad wrong definite place

And to see the body after 

In a gorgeously painted box

Propped above the crowd 

Conveying a persistence of the soul

Or an almost worship like state of the body 

An idol to love

Adorned with various flowers 

Compounded with subtle music

And tightly wrapped mints for all 

Good breath for good greetings can be even more chilling 

The dead in their best clothes

Eyes shut and skin painted

For all to peruse for a few hours

Everything good bad wrong definite scrambled into its right place according to loved ones intent 

I once took sadistic pleasure in empathizing with the clear pain of a boy who bullied me in middle school as his frail body and face caked in pimples lightly shook when he stared dead-eyed at my dad in a casket