a real man

spending
the day
in yr
unconscious
makes you
more of a man
than spending
the night
in jail

but what the hell
is a man
anyway?

a pair of balls
& a dick
strapped
to a
skeleton?

a real man
is an archeologist
unafraid

panning thru the
silt
of his own
brain

& penning
all our
tears

- rob plath

anti-marathon

i remember one time
i was drunk in my tiny apartment
riding my old red bicycle
around the livingroom
in circles
friends happened to stop over
they saw me w/cigarette in mouth
run into my stereo
& knock it off the stand
onto the floor
you shouldn't treat yr stuff
like that they told me
but they couldnt help but laugh
& look envious
i then took a handful of wooden
matches & tossed them
into the air
they hit the low basement ceiling
& rained down on me
i kept riding w/match sticks
in my unwashed hair
a cloud of smoke around my head
the spokes turning & turning
my shape going nowhere
but i was laughing, laughing
harder than i ever did before

- rob plath

The Unstoppable Belt Of The Grinder

I had to take the tank
off of the toilet
to put in new parts
but the bolts were
rusted after many years
and I couldn't get them off

so I broke out the grinder
and ground them off

sparks flew everywhere
bits of bolts

I finally got the tank off
and put the new parts in
and bolted it back

but as I was washing
rust and grease off
of my hands, I looked
at my unshaven face
in the mirror
the dark gouges
beneath my eyes,
new lines etched
around them,
more gray
in the sideburns

then I looked down
as I dried my hands
at the bits of bolts
on the ground,
the shavings,
the steel dust.

- rob plath

Full of Stars

I always preferred
pissing outside
of the bars
alone
in some alley way
with a great buzz
zooming under my skin
among the trashcans
the dumpsters
cracked factory windows
with rusted bars over them
the old brick walls
and a cigarette dangling
out of my mouth
the stream of smoke
burning my nose and eye
until I put my head
all the way
back on my neck
and look at the dark
full of stars

- rob plath