King of the bums — A lot of writers bash Bukowski. It’s almost a sport, a very easy sport. Like kickball. No, Bukowski is not the pinnacle. Yes, Bukowski-worship is annoying. Worship of any author is annoying. But why is it ok to worship someone like Billy Collins or Sharon Olds? “But, but, but those…

Outside the hotel, two little old ladies climbed into the back seat of my cab and felt the air conditioner. “2212 North Inn Road,” one of them said. “Are you sure it’s not North INA Road?” I said into the rearview mirror. …

So very merry and raring, the millennial darlings of American literature lick their greasy placenta like foie gras and nearly faint when they contemplate their own awesomeness. They hop around surrounded by pods of grab-ass homies, so pc they pee themselves and it takes some cheek muscles not to hurl when they throw their howler…

My ear sweats with the cell phone pressed against it. Riiinnnnnggggg. Riiinnnnnggggg. Riiinnnnnggggg. Riiinnnnnggggg. Riiinnnnnggggg. Riiinnn… “H-h-hic…hullo?” the woman says. “Gloria Johnroe?” I say. “Nooo, she’s not here,” she says. “Wh — who’s calling?” The woman is crying. “My name is Matt, I’m the cab driver, here to pick her…

a poem for my buddy, RIP Dirk loved his blue cushion chair. It was his only furniture. He would have been 61 in June. For 20 years he’d been outdoors but he finally bumbled into a state-paid apartment. He was on the second floor and in heaven. To stay young, in…

For anyone who ever worked in a used bookstore — “I’m gonna find me a hole in the wall, I’m gonna crawl inside and die.” -Marshal Tucker Band BOOKBUYER I I The sign says we buy books but then people bring us coloring books with the pictures already colored crossword books with every letter filled in. Yes, we’ve…

Do you believe in God? — It was nice to be first-up at the Dog. The Dog was cabby-talk for the Greyhound bus station. Cabbies sat at the Greyhound when the radio dispatch calls were slow. We licked our lips and watched the people getting off the buses as they arrived twice an hour from Phoenix…

Only fools worry about money — Ami Xochitl-Nigeria-Rubenstein-Ferrol wakes up on her futon and rolls her head around on her Chilean duck feather pillow. She smiles at the waft of her rose-scented breath and lets out a little fart, which also has a floral aftermath. …

The outlaw poets — “Keep poetry dangerous” says the poet with his middle finger up in the camera his big bad beard armband tattoo mfa degree and his job as sensitivity trainer at Geico. Keep poetry dangerous by starting internet zines and moderating out the negative comments or by reviewing the work of your thousand friends and calling…