It's hell sometimes:
this waiting around to be published.
It gives the editors
              too much power.

That’s the problem.

And most editors
(particularly
small press editors) are writers,
so that just adds
another bitter element to the situation.

It becomes a race.
The race to be published.

The editors are winning.

Editors
publishing
other editors.
How quaint.

What the hell. This shit bugs
and I'm sick of it.

I don’t like competing for recognition
     but here I am
         with
         a 
         number
         on
         my
         jersey.

9 years we were together,
best friends,
and now my x-wife

           
            won’t even call
            to say hello.

She’s married to another man,
    has a house,
    a dog,
    a cat,
    and a full time teaching job.

She’s murdered me
      from her existence.

All those years
   of driving to the mountains,
   getting stoned,
   laughing on the couch
   with our bodies embraced,
   listening to Pink Floyd,
   the dinner parties,
   the film skits,
   the road trips,
   New Orleans,
   shrooming
   under the stars,

all this
    is pushed to the side
like a bad suit
    that no longer
    fits the style of her life.

And me, I’m no better.
   I was the one who finally left.
I was too young
   and wanted to fuck other women
        then eventually upgrade
to a younger
     piece of ass.

Now I’m closing in on 32 yrs of age,
and I live alone
    and have a girlfriend
who lives
    in her own apartment.

It’s a nice set up—
      on the surface.

But because I was married throughout
     my twenties,
watching so many women pass me by
     like a puppy dog
 in a pet store window,

I still crave
     the adventure
     and the hunt
of getting laid.

            Soon enough,
            I’m going to stray.

I know it
and my girlfriend knows it

and there’s nothing
either one of us can do about it.

She, of course,
wants more of a commitment—
a lifelong security—a home.

It’s a doomed situation either way.

Although I’m a realist,
it’s these kind of realities
that make me sad
   while on the job
   parked
   on the bottom floor
of a parking structure
   snubbing out the last
       of my
         cigar.
It makes me doubt
     whether
       human beings 
     have any will power at all,
       considering
         we’re no
       different
         than the hippos
        and the lions
       fucking
          in the scorching
            sun.

It makes me wonder
     if the last 10 years
      struggling to be an artist,
waiting tables,
      delivering pizzas,
      painting houses,
   jumping from one job
       to the next—
       tornadoes of anxiety
        from the eyes
         of disinterested women,
  is all
     but an attempt
   to attract
 the female
     (if and) when the reward of success
       finally arrives.
 
 

I read these small press mags
and more often than not
I come across
poets
that are trying to sound poetic,
using all these frilly words
and phrases,
when, in reality,
they’re just regurgitating
their own delusions
of grandeur
on the page.

They don’t understand
that poetry is a thing of itself.
It’s not something you can just pull out of a hat.
              Or abstract words.
It’s in the eyes of a homeless man
while talking to the sky
or how a transsexual
woman trips on her heels
while walking down a city sidewalk
or how the gutter looks
after it rains,
gushing
with brown slime
and grease.

But, even if I was to tell this
to them, to all those poets out there,
these heroes without a spine,
I’m sure they’d just scowl
and shake their head
and tell me to go fuck myself
because I didn’t know what
I was talking about.

              And so they keep writing,
              filling up the small press magazines
with empty words and feelings
and continuing the ignorant belief
that poetry
is a bowl of fruit
or a rhyming sonnet
you couldn’t memorize in college—

something all together meaningless,

something
worth leaving
for the 80 year-old grandmothers

who think gardening
is the best damn thing

next to sewing
their own
socks.
 

I’ve often wondered
why I didn’t fit in at parties
or clicks at school
or why I was never very popular
with the wait staff at the restaurants
I worked at.

But now that I think about it,
it makes perfect sense.

I'm not a good pretender.
Never have been,
which is why I never wanted to be an actor.

Why act, I figured,
when the world was all ready a play
scripted for the masses.

Mediocrity was the title of the play;
and everyone acted the same parts.

Small talk was usually the main
dialogue;
and the plot lines were as boring
as the weather.

No one wanted to talk about death
or fear or the chains dragging behind their heels.

They just wanted mild entertainment
so they could forget
and live in self denial
while guys like me
were considered strange
just for looking up
at the moon
and crying.
 
 

I arrived home depressed,
married at 27—trapped—
years at the writing game.

I ached for another woman’s touch
until it hurt: a young thang
not soiled by the mundane—
    still wild
    as the moon—

someone as alone and desperate
as I was.

Trying to hide my angst from my wife,
I stood at the front door
   and kept staring out the screen
into the neighborhood night.
But I was too cowardly to get a divorce
    and I knew it.

   So, like some suburban shmuck,
I decided to go for a run.
Didn’t do much good.
    I kept wondering how many years
I’d have to wait tables before I could survive on my writing
   while cursing this lady publisher
   who changed one of my poems
   in her magazine without my permission.

Home from the jog, after showering
and getting dressed,
I tried to write on the novel.
Not much there either.
Even talking to my friend on the phone
annoyed me.
I was a young, tough
         naive little bastard
         who wanted it all
         right then
         without realizing
         I had to face the beast
         of surviving
         on my own.
 

It takes work,
   it takes courage

      to hold out
   as an individual.

You have to face
   loneliness
and poverty,
  which usually
  go together
 considering
     "the crowd"
      are the ones
       with the cash.

  They control
     the banks
       and the department stores

and the corporate buildings
    all across
      the cities of the world.

They decide whether
     you get life insurance
     and dental
     and how many cars you drive.

They are the masses
     constantly
      luring you
       to join them.

Don’t do it.

Don’t give in.

They may offer you a home,
   but what they’re really doing
      is throwing your soul
       into the streets
        for the mob.

To be yourself
   that’s what counts.

To not fear to express yourself.

If you do this,
    deep down you’ll
      be a happier person.

    You’ll be able experience moments

like these

    when the fear

    and confusion

    become

     fire

    on a page.

 
 
David Mark Dannov graduated with a creative writing degree from CSULB in 1994. He was a waiter for twelve years, a commercial painter, a landscaper, a pizza delivery driver, a valet, a caterer, a plant tech, and a substitute teacher. He’s been published by Chiron Review as a featured poet, Pearl, Black Spring Press, Black Cross Magazine, Hay Wire Press, The Brown Bottle, Peaky Hide, Bottle of Smoke Press, and several other poetry magazines. In 1999, he won the Lucid Moon Poetry Contest for a poem entitled, There Are So Many Canyons And Valleys In The Skin Of An Orange. Two excerpts from his novel, Awake, were published in a Paul Krassner book entitled, Mushrooms and Other Highs: Toad Slime to Ecstasy, which came out in 2003. David’s first chapbooks of poems, There Are Poets Who Live Amongst The Dead, and Wanted: Dead or Alive were published by Black Joke Press in 2006; his novel Awake was also published by Black Joke Press. His children’s novel will be published sometime in 2007 under a pseudonym by Touch Smart Publishing.

David currently lives in a studio in Long Beach. He paints, sculpts, and plays in a band called Fossil Face.

David’s MySpace