UPDATE. First time in months....

Meet with the Writer In Residence at the Richard Hugo House on Friday. Ed Skooge, look him up.

We worked on a poem of mine and a story. Here is the edited poem:

I am Secretly An Important Man

the chuches on Broadway glitter in neon lights;
dark catholic hums that you can cash in
for heroines on heroin any day of the week.
They shoot noise and make up.

groped between breaths
in the back seat of my ford pinto, 86
blue smears of white power
gleamed her eyes
passively passing itself off as longing
instead of momentary lust
which was all i wanted

Pulled out of her Revlon lips
and forced myself back into the house
where ponytailed monsters
draped arms around jail bait
looking whores.

I had nothing to do
with my hands
smoking cigarettes on the back porch
snow falling, eyes whispering
"fag."

there is a loaded gun in my pocket
wrapped in cellophane and cigarette ashes
that struggled against scary fingers
lingers through swollen lips
I licked up the last of the juices
running down my chin and the clock chimed
ten past three
and man am I tired

down at the donut store
where bearclaws are 35cents
broken hearts a dollar
I saw that red cotton dress that made me hurt
ripped open like the back of her zipper
forced stares at that eye in cocaine
that eye in lust, that hair pulled down by suave
and please god don't forget that ass
of all orangutans screeching

she pushed up against me
and for a moment i pretended she was my girlfriend
covered in scars
only teeth and drill bits can make
i wanted her to forge maps
my body in her chapstick lips
so everywhere she went could be a reminder
that sometimes even her girlfriend doesn't tip her

back up on broadway
there is one good resturant and a bar
that although they try
they cannot
wipe away the boredom that has spewed these streets
back in the late 1960's.

"hey ma," you said to me crossing the street holding my hand,
"does it ever stop raining?"
and "son," i said
"it will stop raining the moment empty churchs
stop ringing bells on sunday mornings."

he was too young to know the difference.
I took out a smoke and he asked me to stop.