Down in the Dirt Updates

Down in the Dirt Updates

Down In the Dirt has published some more of my poetry.

Just published

Writers from Scars Publications
Association of the Living Dead
Madmen with Guns Madness
The Secret Fly Drone

Previously published

3 5 7 love poem
An Old Man Visits His Wife’s Grave
April 30 In Search of America 1975 – Hitch hiking Tales
Charles Bukowski Road Not Chosen
Fallen Dreams Litter the Ground
If you’ve been around
Lone Foreigner Hiking the Seoul City Walls
My Name Is Nobody
Snarling Cup of Coffee
Strangeness in the Air
Unhinged Lunatic Howling at the Full Moon

Madmen with Guns

After every incident
Of mass gun violence
In the U.S.

Pictures emerge
Of the killers
Almost always white men.

Who stares out at you
With soulless dead eyes
Filled with hate, fear
And shear madness.

With the thousand-year stare
Of the madman
Who only hears

The voices in his head
Screaming kill them all
Kill them all.

And as always
They usually legally bought
The guns.

This case was a bit different
The gunman briefly had his guns
Taken away from him

And his 60 knives as well
Judged temporarily too crazy
To have a gun.

But the red flag law
Is not a permanent ban
As it should be.

And so he was able
To re-arm himself
With the best weapons

In the world
At a very affordable price.
Thanks to the NRA.

And so he was soon lost
Down the rabbit hole
Of insanity and probably drugs,

The lone sniper
A disgruntled young white man
In his 20’s
Sets up shop on top of a building.

He has a high-powered weapon
No doubt bought legally
An AR-15 is the choice
Of the serious gunmen everywhere.

And begins shooting
Into the July 4th parade
Killing six people
Injuring 30.

Before putting the gun down
And fleeing
Before the cops can find him.

The right-wing media
Goes to works
The pundit's pontificate
24/7

It is not about the gun
It is about everything else
That is wrong with our society.

Guns don’t kill people
They proclaim
Guns are the price we pay
For our freedom.

Their demented answer
are more guns
More guns for everyone.

And sadly, nothing will be done
As the politicians offer
Useless thoughts and prayers

The gun ghosts don’t care
They are dead after all.

The madness will not stop
Until we figure out
How to stop
The killers in our midst.

There will be another shooting
No doubt before the day is done
Over 300 so far this year.

And that is just the way
It is in this day and age
Of America.

The land of the free
Home of the brave
And 400 million guns.

The Secret Fly Drone

The fly on the wallpaper
In the CIA director’s office
Was not a real fly
He was an enemy spy drone
Secretly controlled remotely
Listening to all the secret conversations
Until the director smashed him
With a flyswatter
Then realized that it was a spy fly
He had dispatched to bug hell.

Association of the Living Dead India

In India, several years ago
A man falsely claimed his brother
Was dead so he could inherit the family assets,

The dead brother had to fight
To be declared legally not dead
And contest the will.

“The Association of the Living Dead”
Became a movement
Of thousands of people.
For in India apparently,
It was a thing to declare
Your relative is dead.

I never thought
That the US would have
To form their own
“The Association of the Living Dead”
Until this week.

The cyber ninjas
In their infamous non-forensic audit
In the 2016 Arizona election
Claimed that hundreds of dead people
Had voted.

They gave their list of the alleged dead voters
To the attorney general
Who contacts all 300 dead people
Found that 299 of the 300 were in fact
Not dead and none of them knew
That unnamed political operative
Were claiming that they were dead.

The one dead voter was alive
when he voted early.
But died before election day
Thus making his vote not valid
But there was no fraud involved
As he was alive when he voted.

Perhaps they need to form
The “association of the living dead”
To fight for the right of the non-dead people
To continue to vote and receive other government benefits?

What a sad commentary
On the farcical nature
Of contemporary life
In these disunited States of America.

3 5 7 love poem

Missing you missing me
Dreaming about you, do you dream the same
I will love you until the end of time; will you remember me then?

An Old Man Visits His Wife’s Grave

An Old man
Goes to the grave
Of his beloved wife

Carrying her favorite flowers
And a guitar
Playing her love songs
As he remembers her life

Blaming it all
On the damn coronavirus Pandemic
Killing thousands every day
As politicians play games

The dead remain dead
he hears his wife’s voice
from beyond the grave

she is a corona ghost
he wishes he were there with her
as he plays his mournful love songs

he lays down for a moment
and becomes another Corona ghost
just another death that lonely day

April 30 In Search of America 1975 – Hitch hiking Tales

When I was young and foolish
Broke and stubborn
I hitchhiked across the USA

Started in Salt Lake City
Where my greyhound bus pass
Was stolen

The station manager
Could have helped me
But refused to do so

Threaten to call the cops
When I grabbed my bags Without the stolen tags

I said
Go ahead
But I am so out of here

Wondered about Salt Lake City
Went to a bar
Found I had to buy my booze
Next door
And they would mix it for me

Had to order food too
After a bloody Mary
And a burger

I walked about town
Saw the Mormon Temple

Finally about 3 pm
It was time to hit the road
Did not look back

Ended up in Cody Wyoming
Got a room shower
Steak beer
Using my rapidly depleted cash Spent 25 dollars
Money really went far
Back in those days

A band of professional
Communist agitators
Gave me a ride
To Des Moines

Lots of weed, booze
And politics later
Got off the road
Slept outside

Next day
A beautiful woman
Drove me to near Chicago
In a red mustang

Might have been
The girl in the song
Took it easy
Digging her vibe

She invited home
But was not sure
If her estranged husband
Would welcome me

So, I am being foolish
And inexperienced with women
Did not go to her place

And always regretted
That I had lost
My chance that day

Then on to Chicago
Several rides later
Visited friends

Hit the road again
A series of uneventful rides
With truckers
And others

And a week later
I ended in New York City

Slept along the way
In cars
In truck stops
In high way, rest stops

Always moving
Always going
Nonstop talking
And lots of free weed
And beer
And conversation

One more memorable ride
Occurred outside Albany
On my return to Chicago

A middle-age creepy looking man
Picked me up
In a brand-new Cadillac

He was he said a dynamite deliverer
For the Mafia
Went to various places
To blow up shit

He hated a lot of people
Particularly hippies from California
And Jewish people

Looking at me to confirm
That I was both

I told him that I lived in New York
And had never been to California
And although I might have looked Jewish
As I what was called back in the day
A “Jewfro”

I was not Jewish
Many years later I discovered
That I am indeed part Jewish
But then I did not know
And I felt a bit of strategic information
Might keep me alive

Then I realized that he was just jiving with me
And we relaxed
And he pulled out some weed
And beer
And we mellowed out

But I believe that he was with the mob
Perhaps not a dynamite dealer
A real made Italian made mafia member

By Chicago
I had enough
I called my Dad
Told him what had happened

Wanted a ticket home
And he sent me a ticket
And 500 dollars
And I went home

I told him I would tell him
My tales someday
But never did

I learned so much
About my fellow Americans
And the strange vibe
That was 1975

And now it is too late
But I wanted to finally
Tell the world

Charles Bukowski Road Not Chosen

While reading Charles Bukowski's poetry
On the metro ride home
Listening to Buddha bar music
On my oh-too-hip iPod

I begin to see myself as I was
Over 30 years ago when I was merely a bit player
A minor character in a Charles Bukowski poem


A wild young underemployed intellectual
Hanging out in dismal bars and dives all over Asia and California
Hanging with disreputable women and drunks and drinkers
And characters out of his kinds of haunts


A mad poet bard of the underground
A drunken poet in a drunken bum show
That nightly played in his head


Then one day I met the woman of my dreams
And went down a different path
A long slow path to respectability


And now 30 years later
I am no longer a wild man
I am still a poet at heart
But I am now also a bureaucrat
In a button-down suite


Doing the people’s business
Working for the Government
I’ve become the Man


Sometimes I wonder
Would I have been better off
Going down that other path

Would I have ended up
Somewhere else
Doing something else


Would I have been as happy
Would I have been as successful?


No answer satisfies
The longing in my heart
For that wild thing
That still lurks beneath
It’s a civilized cover


And I know that I am still
A mad poet at heart
Railing against the injustice of the world


As I work day by day in the belly of the great beast of State
I recall the ancient Chinese saying,
“Confucian during the day while Taoist rebel at night”
Playing out in my head and nightly dreams
In the true American Upper-class patrician tradition


I close the book and look out the window
Get off the train, and walk slowly home


And realize I had no choice
But to take the path that I’ve trodden on


And so I put aside my misgivings
And say goodbye to my “Bukowskian” desires
For another night of domestic contentment


Was it worth it all to take the conventional path
And not take the bohemian road to hell and back


I look at my wife and realize
I had no choice, had no choice
But to follow her to the ends of the earth


And beyond by her side
as we walked our path
Of shared destiny


Goodbye Charles Bukowski wherever you are
May I meet you in a bar in the next life
And figure out where we should have gone


Until then the drinks are on me.

Fallen Dreams Litter the Ground

In the fall weather
As I walk amid the falling leaves
I see the signs everywhere

Of the fall of America
The once great and mighty Empire
Everywhere signs of the fall appear

The dark skies mirror
The darkness that settled over our land

Death, destruction, and random acts of chaos
Are all around us
Surrounding us with visions of doom

Nothing can stop the bloodletting
No one seems to be in charge

As the leaves fall
And the darkness descends
The fall of America continues

If you’ve been around

If you’ve been around
As much as I have
Decades of memories
Fill up your brain’s hard drive

Remembering the dead
Misremembering the living
Seeing the past fly past
Everywhere you go

Thinking about things
You did and did not do
As your life begins to fade
Sinking into lost worlds past

Seeing the ghosts
Of all you knew
Whispering Soon you will
Be joining us


Lone Foreigner Hiking the Seoul City Walls

Lone Foreigner Hiking the Seoul City Walls

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller

a Lone foreign male hiker
in the hills above the city
Hiking along the ancient Seoul City walls

500 years after the founding
Of the city in 1492

balancing his walk
amid the boulders
the winter is coming
soon he thinks

and finishes his hike
heading to a bar
to sake his thirst

some soju, and bulgogi
will do the trick
he thinks to himself

just another day
in the life

of an unknown nameless
foreigner in the city
of Seoul

part of the ten million
naked stories
in the big city

My Name Is Nobody

My Name Is Nobody

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller

My name is Nobody
No one cares who I am
I am just a nameless clone
In the cold unfeeling bureaucracy

Just one of the army
Of civilians who flood into and out of the city
Every day

A non-entity,
A ghost
A govbot
A cyber
A spook
A faceless automaton
A bureaucrat

Just a grey-suited cog in the machinery
And no one cares
No one knows who I am

And I am a legend
Everywhere and nowhere

Just the way this modern world
All shred of humanity
Crushed beneath the cruel wheel of society

In the cold harsh world
There is no room anymore
For true human feelings

We are just robots, clones, machines
And so I go to work
Put on my mask

And no one hears my inner screams
And no one will ever care

Snarling Cup of Coffee

I like to start my day with a hot cup of coffee
I pound down the coffee
First thing I do every day as the dawning sun
Lights up my lonesome room

Yeah, but not just a simple cup of java Joe, but a Goddamn snarling sarcastic smarmy cup of coffee
I mean, – we are talking about an alcoholic, all speed ahead, always hot, always fresh, always there when I need it, angry, attitude talk to the hand Ztude, bad, bad assed, beats breaking, beatnik, bluesy, bitter, bitchy, bombs away, capitalistic, caffeinated up the ass, cinematic, communistic, Colombian grown, Costa Rican inspired, Cowabunga to the max, crazy assed, devilishly angelic, divine, divinely inspired, dyslexic, epic, extreme vetting, evil eye, expensive, erotic vision inducing, Ethiopian coffee house brewed, euphoric, freaky, freazoid, foxy, Frenched kissed, French brewed, funkified, foxy lady, graphic, GOD in my coffee, with Allah, Ganesh, Jesus, Kali, Buddha, Christians, Durga, Hindus, Mohamed, Jesus and Mo and their friend, the cosmic bar maid, Sai Babai, Shiva, Taoists, Zoroastrians, drinking my god damned coffee in Hell; growling, gnarly, happy, hard as ice, Hawaian blessed, high as a kite, hippie, hip, hipster, hip hoppy, hot as hell yet strangely sweet as heaven, jazzy, jealous, Kerouac approved, kick ass, kick my god damn ass to Tuesday, kick down the doors and take no prisoners, grown in the Vietnam highlands by ex-Vietcong, Guatemalan grown, kiss ass, illegal in every state, imported from all over the god damn world, insane, lovely, loony, lonely, lonesome, malodorous mean old rotten, motherfucking, nasty, narcotic, never whatever, never meh, never cold, not approved by the CIA, not approved by DHS, not approved for human consumption by the FDA, not your daddy’s sissified corporate cup of coffee, NOT DECAFE coffee, not your Denny’s truck driver weak as brown water cup of fake coffee, not your establishment friendly cup of coffee, Not your FBI coffee, Not FAKE Herbal coffee substitute, but a real cup of coffee, not your farmer brothers dinner crap, not made in America for Americans, not safe for work, not your Starbucks average expensive overpriced crappy corporate chain cup of coffee, Not pretentious, Not White House approved, not State Department safe, nuclear, Not Patriotic, operatic, Peets’s coffee approved, paranoid, pornographic, psychotic, pontific, politically aware, rapping, rhyming, right here, right now in River city, rock and roll up the Yazoo, sad, sadistic, sarcastic, sassy, satanic, schizoid, shitting, silly, sexy, smarmy, smelly, smooth, snarky, snarling, stupid, stinking, sweet as honey, sweat inducing, symphonic, Trump can’t handle this coffee, vengeful, Wagnerian, wicked, with nutmeg and cinnamon swirls, with a hint of stevia, with a hint of vanilla, with a hint of rum, with a hint of whisky, with a hint of cherry, with a hint of fruit overtones, with a hint of drugs spicing up the coffee, spendific, speeding, splendid, superior accept no substitutes, survived the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, the Afghan war, the first and Second Korean war, World War 11, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on black people, the sexual revolution, Soulful as a summer’s night in MOTOWN- James Brown approved, TOP approved, Berkeley approved, the coffee that Jimmy Hendrix drank before he died, the coffee that Elvis drank on his last breakfast, the coffee that Barry White crooned as he drank his cup of coffee – and the coffee that made the white boy play stand up and play that funky music, the coffee that made Jonny B Goode play his guitar, and made Jonny bet the devil his soul after he drank his morning cup of righteous coffee and the coffee that make the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll, the coffee your mother warned you against drinking, the coffee that Napoleon drank when he became the Emperor of all Europe, the Coffee that Beethoven drank when he wrote the Ninth symphony, the coffee that Mozart drank as he wrote his last symphony, the coffee that Lincoln drank before he was killed, the Hemingway drank before he killed himself, the coffee that started the 60’s, and ended the 20th century, the coffee that Lenin drank as he plotted revolution, the coffee that Hitler and Stalin drank with FDR as they divided up the world after World War 11, the cup that JFK drank before he was blown away, the coffee Jerry drinks while driving in cars with random celebrities and political figures, the coffee that Jon Stewart drinks before he goes on an epic take down of some foolish politico, the cup of Arabic coffee that Sadaam drank the day he was executed, the coffee that GW and Cheney drank when they bombed Baghdad, the Indian cup of coffee that Bid Laden drank before 9-11 and just before the seals blew his ass to hell, the cup of coffee that Tiger Woods drank with his mistresses while playing a 3, 000 dollar round of golf at Sandy Lane golf course in Barbados, the last legal drug that does what drugs should do, the cup of coffee that Obama drank when he became President, Vietnamese, Vienna brew, wacky, whimsical, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wild, weird, wonderful, WOW, Yabba dabba doo! Yada Yada yada Zappa’s favorite cup of cosmic coffee, and Zorro’s last cup of coffee, Good to the last drop rolled into one simple cup of hot coffee

As I pound down that first cup of coffee
And fire up my synaptic nerve endings with endless supplies
Of caffeine induced neuron enhancing chemicals

I face the dawning day with trepidation and mind-numbing fear
I turn on the TV and watch the smarmy newscasters in their perfect hair
Lying through their teeth about the great success the government is having Following the great leader’s latest pronouncements
I want to scream and shoot the TV and run outside Shouting

“Stop the world.

I want to get off this fucking crazy planet”
The earth does not care a whit about my attitude
It merely shrugs and moves around the Sun
In its appointed daily run
And I sit down
The madness dissipated a bit

And enjoy my second cup
Of heaven and hell
In my morning cup of Joe

Strangeness in the Air

Strangeness in the Air

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller

There is a strangeness in the air
A sense of cosmic unease
Hangs silently in the purple crystalline sky

America woke up
And decided it was time
To quit following like lemmings
Over the Clift

As the pied piper chants
Stay the course, stay the course
We were like lemmings following him
Dying to save his wounded pride

Today there is that strange difference
In the air
As Americans woke up
And threw off their chains of fear

Unhinged Lunatic Howling at the Full Moon

On the night of the blood-red super full moon
I sat in an evil, depraved godforsaken bar

Drinking drams of demented, fermented dream dew
Washed down by endless rounds of whiskey
rum, tequila, vodka, soju, and of course beer
drinking with my buddies the Jack Daniels Gang

Drinking my way to Hell and beyond
Just as fast as I could
twenty damn drinks too sober

Just an unhinged lunatic
Dreaming of howling at the full moon

Watching the world walk by
Looking at all the fine-looking babes
Walking by the street

Thinking wild, erotic thoughts
Of endless wild libertine passions

When into the bar
That din of cosmic depravity

Walked the most beautiful women
In the Universe

So wild, so free
So wonderfully alive

I did not know what to do
As this vision of delight
Sauntered through the bar

In a skin-tight leather pant
Looked so fine
That my eyeballs hurt

And finally, I had to say something
So, I gathered up my manly courage
And walked up to her

And she looked at me
And instantly bewitched my soul

With a devilish grin
I lost all reason
And became a raving lunatic
Unhinged lunatic
Howling at the blood-red full moon

Foaming at the mouth
A wild, free werewolf
Howling at the lunatic light
Of the blood red blue full Moon


Of my hitchhiking tales
In search of America 1975

Ordering info

Order this writing in the book
Negative Space
(the 2017 poetry, flash fiction
& art collection anthology)
get the 298-page poem,
flash fiction & art
collection anthology
as a 6" x 9" ISBN#
paperback book:





This writing was accepted for publication
in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book...
“the Lighthouse”
Down in the Dirt, v152
(the December 2017 Issue)



You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:



This writing was accepted for publication
in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book...
“The Deep Woods”
Down in the Dirt, v164
(the May/June 2019 Issue)



You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:




Order this writing that appears
in the one-of-a-kind anthology
The Flickering Light
the Down in the Dirt Jan.-June 2019
issues & chapbooks collection book
(learn about this book and order from Amazon online)


This writing was accepted for publication
in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book...
“Waterlogged”
Down in the Dirt, v144
(the April 2017 Issue)



You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:



This writing was accepted
for publication in the
108-page perfect-bound ISSN# /
ISBN# issue/book
“Prayers and Bullets”
Down in the Dirt, v181
(the March 2021 Issue)



Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears
in the one-of-a-kind anthology
Excerpts
from the
Plague Years
the Down in the Dirt Jan.-April
2021 issues collection book
get the 420 page
Jan.-April 2021
Down in the Dirt
6" x 9" ISBN#
perfect-bound
paperback book:



his writing was accepted
for publication in the
108-page perfect-bound ISSN# /
ISBN# issue/book
“Sprung from Grief”
Down in the Dirt, v184
(the June 2021 Issue)



Order the paperback book:



order this writing that appears
in the one-of-a-kind anthology
Lockdown’s
Over
the Down in the Dirt May-August
2021 issues collection book
get the 420 page
May-August 2021
Down in the Dirt
6" x 9" ISBN#
perfect-bound
paperback book:





This writing was accepted for publication
in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book...
“My Name is nobody”
Down in the Dirt, v156
(the April 2018 Issue)



You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:



Order this writing
in the issue book
At Midnight
the Down in the Dirt
Jan.-Apr. 2018
collection book
get the 418 page
Jan.-Apr. 2018
Down in the Dirt
issue anthology
6" x 9" ISBN#
paperback book:




This writing was accepted for publication
in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book...
“Parallel Universe”
Down in the Dirt, v163
(the March/April 2019 Issue)



You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:



Order this writing in the book
Art House
the 2019 poetry,
flash fiction,
prose and art
collection anthology
get the 214-page poetry,
flash fiction, prose, & art
collection anthology
as a 6" x 9" ISBN#
paperback book:


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