Self

You don't get lower than an old drunkard's bottle
Drowning in cheap booze and the ass-spittle of the spirits
Haven't been there my self, but I know guys who have

Power's Out

Sexual Healing
Marvin Gay on the Radio
Joy Division
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Utilities go down
Bills unsung like an old song
I blog in darkness
No rhyme in the battery of my soul

Rebirth

It's so much harder than life
This blogger's game
Reborn and Redounded...Rebounded on Rice Paper Poems

Shut Out Memories

I keep my distance,
another plain
A place in space, in the dark matters of the mind

Educated

I got me a high school diploma
I took it from a another man's wall
I broke it
Whited it out
I spelled my name in soft blue ink
What's it worth now?
This diploma on another man's wall

Question

Are you the Last Survivor
The Lost Survivor
The Lonely Runner on the long legs of time?

Foreign Danger

I heard a Japanese Growl
A sumo with wolf's teeth
I'm gaijin as sheep
So far from home, a haiku is a place

Ode to The Bloggers

We are the human condition
We are the bloggers

We are the men in cheap suits
In bad haircuts too
Our skin pock-marked, bloodied up like a Bukowski yellow page
Teeth crooked, cracked, decaying, dying
We are the men in cheap suits
Eyes small and narrow, sunken deep in a cold hurt
But our lit pupils shine on a night
Dark alley inhabitants: hookers and hard luck men, beggars and busted hearts, Poets, Social Workers of the Soul

Bloggers, we are the human condition
We are The Square Corner as one, all lives tied to words, chained to a yellow verse or two

Newton's Ride

I drove far in a car
On a strectch of distant highway
Past the license of time and space

Dent

Who dented my frying pan?
It's a cheap job, but it's all I got
Poverty owns the best of me in this old rooming house

Who dented my frying pan?
Now my eggs fry bent and twisted, all out of shape

Music Lyrics

Where do I come from
What are my roots, you ask

I'm from Out of the Past
From a broken heart
A wounded soul
A spirit arrested in a bad time

I'm from the tears in your eyes,
the sadness in your lips
your crying fingertips

What are my roots, you ask
I'm from Out of the Past

Like you I got tears in my eyes
Sad Lips
Dying fingertips

Don't Light That Match--B.H. A$$

For breakfast I ate peas out of a can
For lunch, cold beans
At dinner I dined on sweet cabbage and salty brine
Then in the darkest hour of the night, I splayed my supine body
Lifted my legs
And in a Vesuvius eruption blew a flaming, gaseous cloud of peas and beans and dinner fixins' straight through a molten roof

Confusion on the Low Seas

Where am i now? Lost. Forlorn. Small. A million light years away from Father Time. Distant the Mother Nature of moaning, groaning, biting storms with five am lovers like happiness absent in delirium seas. i am here. i am now. Lost i am to the dying star of time's father. To the dying nature of mother's lost and winded sails like sheets flapping in cosmic flatulent wind. Ah, the blog. My friend at last. Come with me to see what once was and will never be, oh feverish days.

Strange Face

Hey you, strange face. Yeah, you the boxer man. Cauliflowered ears. Nose misshapen and beaten, twisted and indented where the bridge meets the skin, leathery and scarred around sallow eyes. Hey you, strange face. Who are you--skin pock-marked? Cheeks and forehead sliced with razor blade blows from deathly gloves. Who are you, a referee's foil? The victor, most times long ago. Defeated in the end, as fighter's always are. Who are you, tell me now?

"I'm Manny Weinberg, God Damn it! And I got a shirt full of bullet holes. God Damn dwarfs. This is the appreciation I get. Train a few flyweights and they want to off ya's for no good reason. And don't believe nuttin' you read in no paper. Hold my Underwood. I gotta go to da' crapper, God Damn it. Wait till I get my hands on d'em dwarfs, I'll wipe my a$$ with d'ems"

Weinberg Dies of Gunshot Wounds
Dwarf Sepratist Group Claims Responsibility

(AP)April 9, 2010. Manny Weinberg, 87, died of gunshot wounds he recieved on April 5th at the corner of Bank St. and Despair. The ex-middle weight left the Carney Gym which he managed at 11pm. Moments later he was struck by numerous bullets to his torso from a moving car. Witnesses say the car was filled with dwarfs firing rifles.

The Square Corner News Network (SCNN) has reported receiving a video tape from a dwarf separatist group claiming responsibilty for the shooting of Mr. Weinberg. A hooded dwarf read a prepared statement from the Front for The Liberation of Small People (FLSP). The spokeperson for the group called for a new homeland for dwarfs, in order to protect their distinct way of life and stature. No reason was given for the killing of Mr. Weinberg.

Meanwhile, at the Carney Gym, both current and former fighters met to commerate the life of Manny Weinberg. The room was somber with boxers wearing typewriter ribbons around their arms in memory of their former mentor and trainer. A large poster with the words "God Damn it!" hung from the ceiling in this decaying building in neglected part of the city.

Flyweight Miquel de Knuckles spoke tearfully of Mr. Weingberg, "He good man. Dwarf do this, we take revenge."

Police have not reported any leads or arrests in the killing. There are increased patrols in the dwarf neighbourhood, where tensions are running high.

The alter ego of the Square Corner, Tortelli, could not be reached for comment. No word yet on the funeral for Mr. Weinberg.

Ex-Fighter Wounded in Drive-By Shooting

(AP)April 5, 2010. Yesterday night ex-middleweight Manny Weinberg was shot multiple times in a drive by shooting. At 11pm Mr. Weinberg, 85, left the Carney Gym, which he manages. As he made his way to the corners of Bank St. and Despair, a car pulled up and its occupants fired repeatedly at the former 1947 Golden Gloves finalist. Mr Weinberg was struck seven times in the torso, with the other bullets striking a manual Underwood typewriter which he held to his chest.

Zigman Zibanski, 47, an acquaintance of Mr. Weinberg came to his aid. "Blood everywhere. He scream 'they hit me, God Damn it.' Lucky he carry typewriter or he be dead like old country chicken."

The creator of the blog The Square Corner, Tortelli, said this about Mr. Weinberg. "He is a recent character. We are all shocked to hear of this shooting and pray for his full recover."

Doctors at Holy Cross hospital list his condition as critical.

Police are describing the assailants as three white dwarfs with salt and pepper hair. The car is said to be a late model Little Red Chevette with licence plate BH-A$$.

Past Forward

Some days I got a brain that stops. It freezes in time like an old watch. Other days I got a brain that thinks unlimited thoughts. It goes on and on like a universe warped into an eternity. But most times my brain is like a small wave on large sea, a white crest crashing against salty water.

Clean as a Whistle

You make me blush. Words of long ago. Remembrance of Beatle days past. Sorrows and memories like kaleidoscope eyes.

Bull Run

I was trapped in a room with a mad bull mastiff. His teeth gnarled. His short hairs stood on end. In a second he could pounce. How do I escape? I fall flat as a paper and slide under a door. A blogger's post and a magic carpet ride to a safe Square Corner.

20/20

A writer has to have a certain style of glasses: horn rimmed with lenses the size of bay windows. Better to see the world, even on the foggiest of days.

Georgie

"Hey, Georgie,"

"Hey, Tortelli. I got troubles. Big troubles."

"What d'ya mean?"

"I got no real place to stay. I'm staying at the Salvation Army."

"What about the new apartment?"

"I didn't get it?"

"What about the old place? Can they take you back?"

"Nah, they kicked me out. Geez, you're asking me too many questions."

"Sorry, Georgie. But if you need anything, just ask."

Georgie had no teeth. Not for years. Didn't take care of 'em. He had a bigger problem then that. Schizophrenia since he was age nineteen. Got it when he was studying at a Calvinist College in Michigan. Not there is any real connection with these things. Lived as a good tenant for years, then the voices got the better of him. He also had a troubled girlfriend who made things worse all round. So in the end they booted him out on his a$$. Probably was hard to live with, from their stand point. So what does he do now? Sixty three years old. Nearly a pensioner. Nearly on the street. What a tragic story. What a true story.

Replaced

Octogenarian
Octopus with aging legs
Stinging octagon, burning veins
Sonorous couch with singing dad;
Hips replaced

Recall

I got a memory inside my heart. It beats, beats, beats. It recollects. It reflects like shimmering light on the smoothed hands of time. Tick, Tick, Tick. This memory stays with me, as I recall, like a good watch.