you
can
convince
yourself
everything
will be the way
you
thought
when
you
were
10
or
change
your
ways
and
change the standards
watch things get better
and fall in love again
no
grit
or
dirt
rocks
pebbles
grass
stained
knees
is
this
who
you
blow
kisses
to
are
yellow
teeth
turning
your
wheels
or
are
your
wheels
turning
and
you're
afraid
to
take
your
foot
off
of
the
break.
and you could love you,
and blow kisses
the
way
the
sky
blows
kisses
in
twinkles
and
winks
and
wrinkles
and
satellites
missiles
endless,
forever,
doesn't
need
to
seem
like
a
sentence,
it
can
be
a
beginning,
the
future with arms around you
a
promise;
the
past is forgiven.

hahaha
i'm running on fumes
and borrowed time
I can say it in three languages,
just so you know
oh linguistics are so cool
and cruel and i won't try to prove it to you
it took a lot of scribbles
until i jotted down
"i got the right words
in my mind
i exceeded expectancy and then some
so talk to me, and i'm blessed
because morte, mort, muerte and death's face
could've stacked me on their shoulders
to kiss god's great face
and lick his fucking beard
and skin his knees too

and i'm stealing tunes
and borrowed lines
i can say it in three cliches
one day at a time
cause it works
if you work it
so work it, you're work it now work it you're with it
and live and let livc the life you want what you need not what you want from me? all of the things I can't hold on my back atlas, i'd rather be the one without the liver and have the silver beak pecking each night, or stab my veins like achilles. Instead I hear all their voices and all of their battles, et j'entends l'ensemble de leurs décès.

my minds infected
just like my foot
and i fucking hate working
more than i hate all of you
and the cost of my soul
isn't worth the trauma
and the price of being
buried up to neck
in the shit show after-shock drana
after the party, just one party
watching a SYSTEM un-containable,
suffocate and bleed itself out
sometimes even a dog runs away;
sometimes it stays
and
sometimes the fucking roof caves,
after a hurricane
and after,
you can bolt the doors
and caulk a new window pane
but the fucking design of the
floor will do no one any good
if its never ever changed
so rather than day time fixer ups
its time for any get rich quick tips
to keep me from feeling in same.

but I work on one foot,
but I work all day
minimum wage,
maximum distaste
to live in discomfort--
a New American way.

yeah the worker bee
pines its honey just for me
call it slavery
and the worker rat
keeps the boss rats
wallets fat
and he sneaks
a piece of cheese from me
and the field of mice
work each day
and die each night
just tickets out of time,
standing in a line

side a jar
in a line
product name on the side
turn the tide
we can earn for our kind
a different kind of life,
one that feels right

an upset stomach
drinks and pills
liquid form
and prescripts
to stop chills
from the stacks of your bills
and the economic plummit
they sell on margin
and they love it,
work yourself to death,
to the pearled form gates with debt.

sionara
say goodbye
the same t's
are crossed in blood
and i's aren't dotted
not at all; so they say,
but who're we to believe
what they say
anyway.

I awake in the deep
of the well,
of my sleep
and I shake and I jerk
violently in the deep
of the well,
in my sleep
and the sentence
is all but complete
in the well
in my sleep
and confessions
come out of the well
in my sleep

and it all hardly feels
hardly well
at all
(good night J,)
"sweet dreams terror" sighs me
and I don't feel hardly well,
not at all
like me
but the truth
is a lot more ugly
and looks more like me
in the well,
in my sleep

so I fight to dream
the dreams that I dream
of the uglier me,
the mirrors I stand before
planting escape
just before I awake
from the awful mistakes
that I make
and the "better off dead"
re-counting calls
over calls
prepare days to amend
the wrongs in my head
that demand to be fixed
whose supplies can't be met
and whose sorrows I've--
borrowed acquaintances
and made myself apart of
and been lost of
in the well
of the deep
of my sleep.

Act 1

hang on the railing
she leans on the doors
and he's painting a picture
of whores who are wailing
and beating their wrists
insisting on sailing
discontent with the progress
and process of living
in lands that're selling
the margins of debt
in the process of giving
technological depths
in the fruits of a city
where living isn't breathing
and air molds gritty
little finger tip
tripped traps leading
towards holes in pavement
where dying men are
enclaved like caves--

and leviathan's brother
a steel train's angry wheels turn
like the breasts of its mother
feeding its daughter till
her turn its her turn,
oil spills and scraped wires
just burn,
the tracks all lead under water
and we're taking on lead
"yeah taking to water,"
like the paths of our fathers
old fathers four fathers
and their dad's and sisters
before them
before cloth calculated
leviathans direction;
he's moving so fast
the roads above are broken,
and we're moving so fast
our futures are broken--
so we look towards the sea,
and even Chiba
is silent.

a rose had grew
in a compost heap
mixed with water
and dew turned green
she’s feeling awkward
and she’s feeling like me
but I’m still
not clean
***If I had a different name
Or maybe just,
Had never been
I’m a coma
I’m pretend,
But you’re the
Make believe
That never ever ends
****I could rub you right
Like satin or,
Something
A lot less different
Than a vein under a belt
Never should’ve felt
Like the person
****I remind you of,
But we all end up with names
Of who we become
He’s not quite your man,
And I’m just your stash
Call it what you fancy,
And throw away the trash
And forget about me

so whats funnier
a joke about a stranger
reading a paper,
or writing
a joke
about a stranger
reading a joke
i'm writing
while driving,
while he's driving
and reading,
but not reading
what i'm writing

and what makes you laugh
louder and harder
my heart that pumps harder
or the head that gets less blood
or makes up more stories
and gets dizzy,
or gets less blood,
or just both,
either or, or just pretend
and wants to die so bad,
it'll do must anything
write up till the end,

and I can't say I knew exactly
when this started,
but I knew when this began
these habits
up and down
and pushing so hard
early mornings,
and i thought I'd watch the sunset
but instead I watched the swing set
by the bike rack
where we smoked cigarettes
and black stained white tarred
dope headed die rolling
dizzy no good too little learned,
and way too late now,

to tell what I thought i wanted to be,
is everything the sun sets on,
not what the sun shines on,
and my father will see the sun shine
far longer than I
but the sun shines for a little,
just don't think its a shame,
that when I close my eyes to rest,
its not because I'm passing out,
or taking it for granted,
I want every breath now,
and I wish I wasn't so selfish,
but my ways have caught the best of me,
and I just need to rest.

I didn't have any nice clothes to wear to an engagement party, or any money to give, or a decent face to show. I went to a comedy club and laughed hard for the first time in a while. I won a t-shirt, a dvd and an autographed michael ian black, and the cast of some tv show that scotty went ape shit for and paid for my dinner/gave me twenty dollars for. Patton Oswalt was hysterical, and the rest of the night I couldn't stop laughing. There wasn't any poetry in this. I broke my 90 meetings in 90 days on day 2, but I don't really care. I ran into this guy Steve from rehab last night-- 50 years old and strung out on suboxines or however they're spelt; withdrawing from painkillers and xannax-- he was glad to see me, I was glad to see him-- he slept most of the meeting. This girl told her story, she started the program when she was around my age, and didn't drink on her 21st birthday. I hope thats me.

The doctor said there's something wrong with my heart, briefly explained it works too hard, and my blood pressure is too low, which might be nothing, or could mean internal bleeding or that my heart is going to fail because of the massive amounts of medication I'm currently taking. But, on nights like tonight, I worry for about a minute and smoke a cigarette until I realize there's always something wrong of some sort, and I decide to fall asleep "serene" and relaxed.

I gave away 100 dollars because I thought I was helping a friend, but my dreams just sort of lie to me some days. I gave away 20 dollars because my failing heart is over worked and sometimes the blood flow mixes with my "gut instincts," which is a feeling I've been trying to battle. I gave away a lot of things, because the medicine I'm on makes me feel like all I'm worth is a Son House album and Billie Holiday- God Bless the Child; not to mention my new found love for the Duke and Beethoven.

I've stopped talking to a lot of people, and I don't think I'm better than them. I think they're far too happy, and too beautiful, in their ugly habits and secret lives and far more hurried along than I could ever scurry to catch up with. So instead its easier to just be left behind, or walk in a different direction. So I'm doing just that. I'll keep the small talk conversations, I just don't feel really too much apart of anyone's life anymore. I work at a deli and I sleep the other 16 hours I'm not working. This isn't to feel sorry for me, this is to understand I'm not some sort of ostentacious arrogant prick. I'm not John Lennon. I'm not Neil Diamond. I'm not Nick Drake. I'm Not Elliott Smith. I'm not better than you. I don't think you're any better than I am.

Its just time for something different, and I've decided, you can't turn back the time, and its become too much of a drag watching the clock lag, so I'm moving forward. Keep in touch all 3 of you who read this, and all 1 of you who follow.. my email is Joe.Pignatiello@hotmail.com

Your Friend,

Joe.

no one's there, when you need them there
there's some string lights about
as solid as those packages of cheese
we can't afford to buy to eat
but its no mind
really, its no trouble
I pay for a square,
that breaks away,
when no ones there,
it doesn't move
or shine,
or light up,
and there's no voice on the line
the says, "J-J, are you alright?"
So I conceal it in my glove compartment
and erase the faces
and names
and numbers
and digits
and anything that resembles people
to go along with it.

And all of the things that remind me of anything of a past life I've given away, or sold, or thrown out, except for my guitar, and my record collection-- some of notebooks are in a dumpster in haledon, some poems are scattered on highways and ripped pages of novels written by yours truly, "J. Despers," are all along 80 without the ending. I needed a friend, and woke up with none. I'm haunted with nightmares, and wake up where they left off. They adjust medication, they suggest meditation, and I wish this was just a poem, or some rant. I work everyday of my life, and I needed a friend, and woke up with just nightmares. So I crawled back to AA and my head stopped shaking, and I don't have to tell anymore stories. I don't have to write songs to get someone's ear, or write poems, or stories, or do anything I don't want to do. I have 11 phone numbers in my cell phone, and an 85 dollar acoustic guitar with strings that buzz more than they make music, and I feel just fine.

Fall into the sleeping well, or fall in love. Get your vitamin d, get your fix, get your groove until you shake even when the music isn't spinning, until you're just spinning, and the medication you take to go to sleep, people try to buy from you-- the only time they call on you, is when they need you-- or the girls that will do awful things for the things you need? because they want it. What a wonderful lie of a phantom life. Fall into the sleeping well, out of the xyphoid dilemma, fizzling sizzling black-bird on my nest post, and make an honest man out of me.

Until my next post, keep your chins up, or listen to some music.

www.myspace.com/jdespers

Thanks.

So its still morning in my youth,
the sun is getting warm,
and raising slightly higher than
what feels comfortable
in the unfamiliar morning in my youth.
and the grass leaves
are rising a little higher
in the still morning in my youth
and its growing older
a little older than
what feels relieving
to your brows,
which wrinkle and start to tire
in the chill morning in my youth
and these new people,
seem less exciting now,
words of wisdom
spew words of shit
and seem far less provacative
on the uncreative morning of my youth.
And tiresome wires grow
likes weeds of what
I knew as loads
and barrels of
grass, as it was known
before we lost
our land our minds
to regionalism
and the no go
no good war prophet
o-zone and sand
and blood gas
and tear gas eco-blast all seems
to cry into slump baths
machine gun economics
and battle field politics
replace
the comfort
and the passion
of the early morning in my youth;
but I saw a picture
of a boy who looked just like me in my youth
whose eyes were
like the diamonds of the cool,
clearest blue waters
in progessive
fixer-up photo-opportunity
cities; American T-shirts
on African children;
with my face on his body,
I never knew the Mets had beaten the Yankees
in the 2000 Subway Series,
but he wasn't sure what a Subway was;
but he explain what beaten was,
and beaten just once,
as beaten was.

Half past one,
on this mid-day afternoon.

I panic playing basketball, in the pretense I suppose I had a panic attack, in the present I'm still on the court seizure-ing re-playing my child-hood waiting for my dare shirt or some cop to come and save my life. I listen to the words but man I can't make out the syllables and everything is mono-syllabic, everything is dreary and monotone and skips every other half beat, every measure adds up into jumping rope and not for my heart, or for my health, just because I'd like to stay on track and hear the words as if they were floating like I wish the leaves would do. The leaves remind me of autumn when I was a child (the sentence structure as you will notice will not be quite as punctual as it probably should be.) I would lay dizzily in the grass under trees before the neighboring house behind us put up fences and cut down all the trees-- and let the leaves fall on top of me. I used to think that's just what dying was, because even then I could never sleep, and I thought dying was just sleeping-- like those wives lies white tales they tell you, "Grandpa's just sleeping," I used to wish I could sleep. This started my 11 year long infatuation with death. Crackling wood stoves diagonally mixing aromas with a pipe being smoked on the porch and an old man would laugh. I'd play football somewhere, or maybe I'd just have a car some day and have a lady to keep me company on my trips to California. I wanted to see a real ocean-- even at 9.

Even at 9, there were no girls. There were no ladies, there were no friends. There was just an empty, indescribable lusting for this piece of life that I knew was missing, and wasn't sure would ever come.

I wake up from the basketball court, and its 1 am, no cops have come, there's no dare shirt, there's no E.M.T, there's no friends, there's no girl and there are no leaves left.

Even at 20, there are no girls, no ladies, no friends. There's just this empty, indescribable lusting for this piece of life that I know is missing, and I'm not sure will ever come.

Hi Mom

Hey, How about this,

We drank from the bottle
to throw fits at the fridge
and when the tap went on the fringe well,
we threw another fit
and its better luck next time yeah,
its better luck with him
and its short straws and party time
and its sophies draw on ladies night

So we fill the bars oh
its nothing but a dive
and we wish the stools
weren't jacked so high
and we shoot our mouths,
but only blanks come out
and glory big crammed jams
and beats-- rhyme a few more times,
cry a few more times,
tell me something real this time

so she left, and then he stayed
one felt empty
the other so fed up
to the ears with everything
they chose to hear,
with real big words,
a black book full of spells,
that couldn't spell
a fairy tale from just a tall tale;
or the kickless joke from a boxed in quote,
signed the note with the wrong name,

but you look mighty well fed,
and you look pretty clothed,
and when you're broken
and you're alone,
I'll be on my way girl,
on my way home
where no one waits,
no not at my home
an empty big bed,
that's always froze
a lone impression,
and a sober tone
and all its missing
isn't what you think,
so go on girl have another drink,
and another look around,
and drink the water from the tap,
or straight from the bottle
there's no scheme here,
just a fucking flow,
because I wake up everyday
and thank god I'm not you,
or him, or anyone that waves to me,
and thank myself for not waving back.
So drink from the bottle girl,
drink from the tap,
look in the mirror,
see if you'll wave back.

Dear New Jersey

so there will be no poetry right now. This is supposed to upset you.
I'm not necessarily unhappy,
I'm just more or so neglected.
You taught me a trick,
and I'm performing it
in a park by myself.
You let me off the leash
and no one wants to walk me,
and I get it,
I can walk myself,
but how fucking hard is it
to take a walk with me.
And I'm smoking a cigarette
in the backyard,
and I can hear you breathing,
And where've you been the past 10 years,
Ay lady?
Dinners always on the stove,
Cause I remember Mets Announcers
relating more to my fucking day
than any sort of family;
eating alone,
night after night,
and its all right.
And college?
yeah what a dream that would've been
a summer broke my back
and a chiropractor fixed me up
and I would've gone back,
and i had 6 classes stacked,
but, I guess I'm just not the priority
an overdose, a failed suicide,
I fell into a pit of shit
and now I work 50 hours a week
write stories and songs,
but they're all just fidgets and habits
and wasting my time--
i fixed my behavior,
but I'm taking my drugs ay?
Topamax to go to sleep,
Lexapro because I have to pay
someone to pretend to be my mother
for an hour a week.
My family means nothing,
and that doesn't hurt as much
as the fact that i turn to my friends,
and all I see is a pile of records that I bought
at the store for 99 cents,
and the dust on sleeves,
mean more to me than your
shitty fucking hobbies,
your small talking--
great deal of nothing little
bullshit bakers dozen parties,
and your man up drunken
threats. thanks a lot
for not one good fucking memory,
anyone, anything,
ever.

I'm tapping on my heel--foaming at my mouth--friends appeal--in a sexual aura--that screams so loud-- but she's like the dove thats dipped in ink and I'm the crow when you clipped its wings before it chirped "may day, may day" fire away and cuban missiled straight into shit; and its so damp--dark and drowsy, when you're stuck in this dry spell you're stuck in the drought dry junkies and dry addicts and she lives on the top floor but I live in the attic.

when
I'm wrapped in the wings
of some bug
that i've crushed
in the leaves of the grass
someone described once,
some famous no one
meaning much once to someone--
but Walt Whitman
means nothing to me now

She told me I wanted to take three,
So I did

And I thought of a bookstore down in Lambertville or some strange early named town like that where everyone was gay, and took quite a liking to me-- browsing for type writers, to write written reports on my philosophies of human existence in its absolutely most beautiful form-- silence-- not morbid motionless death, not china doll trances and sick cold skin, just jaundice sort of sleep like dreams where fluttering eye lashes make me feel as if maybe someone's dreaming of me.

I can't quite be what you want me to be, and I can't quite ever be what you think I'll be. But I think I could pretty much fly if you could cast a spell on me. And I'll work three jobs, if you'd just sleep all day, and atleast save a piece of the day for me, and we could split the bed evenly in thirds, one for me, and two for you, sprawled out and writing notes and thoughts that are too dark to revise, too dark for me to read over your shoulder, its just the thought of time, and days of differences, and childhoods and never wanting to be my parents. I could make you happy, but I don't think I could sit here any longer to think of things to say that would make me feel any better, I can't decode you, and I wish I could. So I fall asleep to Beethoven and fucking wake up the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and laugh to myself, because for years I didn't understand it.

Fluttering muttering blackbird,
glistened unchristened castaway dove;
cross us, we'll be swans,
not pigeons.

sweet black top,
rain smells hot
tell me a writer can't describe,
even the smell of rain
in the summer after the clouds
ejaculate over the footprints
of children-- God's heel
and god heals,
and the Earth is new again;
Meet Joe Black,
in his new body,
this one doesn't smile
this one doesn't yearn for life,
or love anything sweet,
that tastes like air,
or looks like butter
crisp and delicious
or coffee grinds tasting
bitter; salt doesn't
quite taste like honey anymore--
oh, and Kennedy
never sent a thing
into space,
other than an un-marked letter
with a hint of cologne,
that fell beside
a bed; perfectly arranged
with a bottle of pills
and a bombshell;
blasted with well,
leave it up to your imagination.
Buried under the blacktop
are twigs, and small organisms,
that once would've evolved,
but are now just living off of
garbage, and sadness
and nothing grows,
everything survives,
or dies.
They can make do, though,
and that's what they do--
families of organisms stay in
touch, contact and breed
and fuck each other's mouths
and kiss the same mouths,
and feed with the same hands
they touch gashes with
and sleep in the same beds
they slept in other beds
of shit and garbage.
And a chimney shoots more black tops,
to fill the sky,
to cover you and I,
and we build things,
some are lost in
what the goverment calls, "cities," and, "empires,"
Greece, Sparta, New York, Chicago,
Even Dreaming of Speaking Romantic Roman---
But I--
I just wish it all would end.