Here's to the ugly people, to chalk outlines in November,
the rough-hewn stonework in a poorly lit Boston tunnel.

"Drink cold,
piss warm
and fuck the Huns
."

Here's to Henry Miller novels and stockpiling narcotics,
Here's to bachelor parties three cities away,
to naked neon sports bars, wrestling fat men at odds with superstition.
to parking garages and strategic placement of water tools. To lunacy and erotic tradition.
Here's to crying when you go to the bathroom.
Here's to the saddest sight I've ever seen: Rob, big as life, reclining in his
living room throne with a lit cigarette in his left hand, the smoke curling
around his head. The upper left corner of his graying t-shirt reads "Faded Glory".

Here's to another three bell fire on ninth street, to sirens rising, to thunder
shaking the restaurants and clothiers to closing time. Here's to a smoke in the alley after an eight hour shift.

Here's to sex in the living room, groping through wine and grapes to what you
want the most, waiting for a knock on the door, for the song to end. Waiting
for your next turn.

A phone call.

An orgasm.

Here's to train yard scavenging, engineer's hats and gloves, cogs and grunts
and hirelings. Twelve inch push pins, watch dogs, blackberries.

"We thought
you were into trains, like us."


Here's to surprise birthday parties with free imports. To ideal health care only
a frightened cry away, to phone calls just out of reach and sexy wives
conversations.

Here's to pate'.

Here's to a cover sheet with "top secret" stamped across in red letters. To rifles
racked in boxes, boxes stacked in canvas-topped army trucks running down a
dozen dirt roads in a dozen third world countries.

Here's to Sandinista.

Here's to Marijuana.

Here's to the mutated remnants of individual fame, to thirty years later, the
other side of the coin.

To ambition gone revenge:





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