My novel Future Book of War is done. Will be out August 30th in hardcover print via West Vine Press. This is from a poetry book in progress. Thanks for reading. 
East 4t h Street.
We met across the street
all acting like we met before
I’m the only one with expectations creating a present tense
trying too hard
making a moment
be the moment.
And it started in a comedy club
around six O’clock on a may night
there was a flash flood warning
In Manhattan, everyone belongs
in the basement, on some street in the city, city, city.
A gin and tonic, Tracy Morgan on the wall, inside I’m standing in the door frame, with the outside door, closed
are you here for the open mic, are you here to tell jokes … somebody asks we all say no, we’re reading up there, maybe next time I say,
I can tell you something funny, on our worst days when you need it most. The poets are inside the comedy club
drinking and looking at their books
being in the moment not making a moment something it’s not
me, outside the closed door, watching rain, blue and red lights, wondering how many of these people will die this week. Hoping they were loved and take time to think. Thinking and … you’re here, it means only as much as the memories you make.
So I stand,
pitter patter and drops in a hole of concrete door
closed steps
up where
our
words will be read.
A lost city of misplaced irony, you can tell in the way some people laugh
The buzz breaking the young wall street kid’s night out; finally, a night out, and this is the reason you moved here from somewhere in the Midwest. Isn’t it? to be a poet
to be a comedian
To be the one making the money make more money
Money Money, isn’t it the reason you moved here?
to stand in the rain
in the village
It’s still called the village isn’t it?
Even if it lost our voice?
Still, I’m standing outside, dreaming in the rain
before advances would be mistaken for the Charles Bukowski Apocalypse that never happened. Before too many drinks just to meet the minimum requirement of the draft beer quota
so everyone gets paid but the west vine poets, held up by the city city city poets
the communist dream died with John Paul Sartre, Noam Chomsky is the new Jesus Christ
and I waited in the doorway outside of the minor league comedy club
The pinnacle of my so called writing career, after
going to the bars, soon to be converted to where the yuppies try to fuck
And I was there the last day jack K hung on the wall in the bathroom
the window was open, and I was thinking about escape, running away, into the night. But didn’t. It was only a fantasy. Something I’m not even sure I wanted. Only thought about it.
Because the window was open.
In the morning, the beats would be taken off the walls, but left in frames, nobody ever wants the frames, and back then I was there, standing in the rain,
charlie Parker’s Lester creeps in playing on rusty rail
bringing you down to me. Dark clouds
I am the sun hiding.
In a mind, peaking out.
Knowing, I’m not really a poet.
But knowing, I made this all happen. Came here, because I said so, only to stand
alone
in the rain.
On this street.
Adventures In American Writing 