osama bin something 

died last night. 

motherfucker never knew what it was to get drunk 

in an irish bar with some 

blonde girls in miniskirts. 

motherfucker didn't know what it was like

to be nothing

and scared of working a buncha years

and being left empty handed.

cursing something you didn't name.

fuck a wouldn't. 

bin laden was a big man 

who couldn't wear a dress.

who never puked in Sullivan's alley. 

motherfucker never seen me kiss two brides

at Jimmy's wedding,

neither of them mine. 

Peace be upon the dead,

Sure,

But the motherfucker never saw

his old man 

die of AIDS. 

Fuck you two times,

Bin Laden,

For all the times you made me think of you,

and all the times you made me think of 

myself. 

it's just one more fib i've told

when i say:

i'm not an addict

that all this experience i'm craving

isn't bringing me down.

when i say, honey,

i just want a quiet life

with you and a puppy and a 

lad. 

fire stone rapture

may engulf me

if i say another little saying

that will be turned untruth

in the morning.

250 miles travelled and not one more in mind,

life, it occurs to me, is just one absurd ride.

i first saw you whispering by firelight,

i thought, your thoughts are beautiful,

and thank you for thinking.

most of what i see is worker bees,

hurrying up to catch a train,

make a handshake,

receive a call.

i'm not surprised by swift, athletic movements

made

toward connecting trains.

one must get home,

in a timely manner,

and nothing else really matters.

meet me in a park one day with your kids,

we;ll discuss birthing methods and places

to raise a family,

but never what it means to be alive

and why we're alive together in this

moment in time.

I can't take anything seriously and my mind has had enough. 

It feels like a carnival stuck into a carousel 

that i'm riding around with,

this country,

this mass.

"for what?"

is there a way to describe the captivity of the intellectual class

in a time in which they are more privileged and free than ever?

the planet is a small thing, easily traversed, for the moneyed youth,

but they're stuck, according to their own ambitions, in new york,

waiting for greatness.

the people of today are stuck out of time,

abdicating their responsibility for today. 

tomorrow, and history, are their purview.

among the hundreds of New Yorkers who rallied in Times Square yesterday (2/4/10)

in solidarity with the Egyptian demonstrators,

were many Arabs, from Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Iran,

calling for freedom in Egypt and across the Arab World.

But also there were the Americans, the white liberals, and the communists and

socialists from the World Worker's Party, which apparently still exists,

handing out newspapers with a headline of "REVOLUTION."

One old hippie came at me with his "REVOLUTION" newspaper

pointed like a spear,

and I felt bad for him.

They're going about it all wrong. 

The ones that might get it right, are too confused.

drugs are un-interrupted and commercial-free.

drugs are full of the same-old, same-old,

but at least it's not connected to wireless satellites. 

people aren't sure who they're peforming for anymore, 

or to what end. 

to what should one aspire? 

Faulkner talked about timeless conflicts,

and battling emotions,

without wich no good literature could be written.

Were people more serious then?

was what they were getting at,

stabbing for,

more than these justin bieber dreams

and spaceball richochets,

this pointless standing around?

what is courage now,

and does it mean anything

to anyone in America?

they tell me not to believe in nothin' 

and i believe 'em. 

i'm just sitting around, listening to the news on the radio,

no feelings 'bout this or that,

just, 

trying to digest other peoples' action, 

told to me third hand.

their faces aren't used up to me yet,

i still believe in their immaturity, 

that their hopelessness might mean something.

5x5 and so on,

but none of that math means nothin'

it's just me sitting here, outfitted in asked-for loneliness,

an infinite number of interactions and EXPERIENCES, that

abstract ultimate--good in and of itself--, existing outside my four walls and window.

we're up close, me and my bowels, 

it's a bust. 

we don't get along.

i've brought my silly dreams into 

adulthood, it's more pathetic because 

i let some others close to me

believe in it, too; i dishonestly deflect their compliments, reacting with physical humility, 

while taking secret pleasure in the words, feel re-affirmed, without letting on.

what is the ideal? it's external, it's nature.

a long series of woods, some lakes, ponds, and rivers. 

Winnebago Man said "I don't need the sound of buses or subways. I said goodbye to 52nd street. I don't need it anymore."

But he was obsessed with people listening to his political views, from what we see, a very substance-less obloquy of Dick Cheney. and who remembers him Jack Demby anymore?

The impulse is largely to have your name remembered, to make an un-erasable mark. Sartre said it: : "i was obsessed with my own mortality, until my books had a certain success and i knew they would always sit on shelves, and then that i was immortal."

but of course no matter how important your masterpiece, tastes change, time moves on and space must be made for new geniuses, and you will most likely be bumped off. 

but if you do leave something to stimulate overstimulated descendents, can you hope to give any insight? animals that we are, we eat insight and exhale it like subway fumes. 

breakthroughs into the meaning of breathing are made, and some last through ages, like Jesus, or Faulkner, but it's all lost in the chaos of a man's thought.