pissing on our own graves

pissing on our own graves

it’s a feat to stay in beer

when you are poor

like sending your kid to harvard

greg and i have held yard sales

on moving buses

exchanged foreign notes

we found in an old box

written bad check

after bad check

panhandled and scrounged

and let pawn shops

and bookstores

seize guitars and first editions

modigliani

utrillo

bukowski

or greg and john

drinking in the cemetery with me

all bums, you see

until you step up

to our informed disregard

we have degrees

& we’ve had careers

& wives and women

& we are experienced

& we have graduated

to sitting on the grass

with beer

& marble

greg paints and writes

and can talk to everyone

but his ex-wives

john flew dope to the east coast

from columbia and jamaica

in the 70s and 80s

and later became the driver

for raymond patriarca sr., a mob boss

who liked the soaps

me?

i showed up drunk

the night of the pulitzer ceremony

and dropped a whiskey bottle

in the middle of the big speech

we are for simplicity

and we are against

obscurification

which is what society

runs on

we’re sitting here in the grass

leaning on marble

the sun on the living

and the dead evenly

when

greg stands up and

goes to piss

on the governor’s grave

life is not a piece of shit

man is

reeking, twisted with ambition

and lies

the master of unnecessary death

who constructs forgiveness

scenarios

for himself

we’re confident and cheerful

standing up

or lying down