I lost big at the poker table
and the zipper on my coat
wouldn’t go north.

Jumped in the car for home.
My motor was coughing and pissin’
So I pulled over
for a nice glass of Pastis
and they were out.
I left a tip and
went home with a club soda.

Somedays, you just can’t win.

Stroke that —
you never win,
you just convince yourself
luck will return
as the big dices in the sky
come up snake eyes
after snake eyes
we none the wise.

You’re never gonna win
not even if you
practice all day,
not even if you
get that nose job,
not even if you
win the lottery or
hit the triactor.
It’s just not gonna happen.
Entropy has us all in her
dirty hands.
There’s a loose nut in
every assembly line.
There’s a self-destruct button
blinking on and off
in everyone’s heart.

Best to not swim upstream.
Learn to love the toast on the floor,
jam side down
cuz
your ship always will be
going back out again
and
you’re never gonna win.

Get used to it.
There ain’t no Oz, Dorthy.

Driving late at night
Guatemalan night
the music strong
nothing, absolutely nothing wrong.

Just me, the road and Mayan spirits
I’m right where I belong.

Then the engine light comes on
I got something wrong.
Could be the tranny
Could be water in the fuel
Could be just electrical
Could be a million things
and to carry on
get my mind off the wrong
I think about all my own wrong
my own engine light that is on.

Could be my heart
Could be my drinking
Could be I’m just falling apart
but my engine light is on
and I know that’s just the start …

I get home
take a drink
take my pills
and think
of all those better
no engine light on
but who ain’t going as far.

I am having my usual
2 liters in a Victoria Frost cooler
while the 80s playlist
plays down,
Lionel Ritchie, Richard Marx
and all those other sellouts
then
a Cheap Trick rocks on
and
I’m happy
bouncing around the bar
everything is in its place
this most democratic town square
– a bar
of cowboys, lovers, students and mayors
a bar
where we all watch
each other
the whole afternoon
become a little more closer
to who we really all are.
Say you … say me ….

October 30th, 11 am.
Picoteo, Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

The gravediggers are unemployed.
Soldiers march with joy in their steps.
There are free flowers sold on every street corner.
The prisons are fully voluntary.
The cops have begun to talk down
the few angry ones out there.

There’s a chicken in every pot and
a basketball hoop in every driveway.
If you don’t have the cash – they just give you the groceries.
Jobs galore but only if you want one.
Walls, barriers, borders – they’ve all been obliterated.

People hug strangers openly in the street.
Young people live old.
Old people live older.
Even the president of the United States stands naked, blissful.

I’ve begun to smile.
It’s against the law not to smile.
I am a snake wearing a yellow polka dot bikini.
I’m making love to Gandhi and Lev joins in.

Brrrr. I wake up.

What are we waiting for, assembled online?
The virus is due here today.

Why isn’t anything going on with the government?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

Because the virus is going to kill us all.
What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the virus has hit its peak, they’ll be no need for laws.

Why did our president get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at twitter’s gate,
in state, wearing his orange crown?

Because the virus is growing day by today
and Dr. Fauci’s waiting to stamp it out.
He’s even got a scroll to give the president,
loaded with scientific terms, with imposing names.

Why have our spokesmen and celebrities come out today
wearing their embroidered, their fine suits?

Why have they put on masks with so many colors,
eyes sparkling with magnificent knowing?

Why are they carrying elegant books
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the virus is coming strong
and things like that dazzle the people.

Why don’t our distinguished journalists turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the virus is coming on
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the virus is still coming
strong.
And some of our men just in from China say
there isn’t a virus any longer.

Now, what’s going to happen to us without the virus?

That thing was a kind of solution.

People will always do
what they want to do
eventually.
You can never stop ’em.
No matter what pains or pleasures
imposed
eventually
they’ll get there
and do it.

Jesus, Bundy, Madoff, Mandelstam, Martin Jr.
even sophisticated Syssiphus
they all got there.
There was no holding them back.

So don’t worry if
you can’t get there …
You’re in a tired marriage
You push papers around endlessly each day
Nobody reads your poems
You have 4 toddlers and no ticket out
Life makes no sense
The virus has you locked inside.

Don’t worry.
You’ll get there – eventually.
Everybody does.
Everybody will always do
what they want to do.

That’s what
makes us human.

There is not a lot you really, truly
hafta do.

You don’t hafta marry that man.
You don’t hafta drink that last beer
or you don’t hafta not drink that last beer.
You don’t hafta shave or dye your hair or
get groceries.

You don’t hafta get out of bed
or go to bed.
You don’t have to sign that deal
or get that promotion.
You don’t have to take a shower
or get another credit card.

You simply don’t hafta.
You can but you don’t hafta.

You don’t hafta get that degree
or build a better mousetrap
or bring home all that bacon.
You don’t have to smile at everyone you meet.
You don’t have to take it on the chin
play those two aces
or do what they tell you
buy a newer, newer car.

You don’t.
You simply don’t.

So, why do you do?
Without a second thought?

I’m not asking you to drop out.
I’m just asking you to dismantle
their joystick.

And asking you to do
the one thing
you really, truly hafta do –
Love.

Love everything, everyone as you should yourself.

The rest can wait or just never be.
Easter Sunday. April 12th, 2020.