I strike my ball with malice

“I’ll hit into ’em. I’ll drive this stick up their ass!”

bad mood

good mood

what’s the difference?

Hell is a cubicle

Heaven is the golf course

the devil is visiting

he has tried the poetry circuit

he has tried the female

he has tried this game, again

there are demons inside me

the trick is not to add more demons

and to restrain the few

before they hurt somebody.

The group ahead starts whistling and waving at me

Do they know who they’re dealing with?

The man with the kangaroo cap waves again

He has a goatee. He wears basketball shorts.

He waves. I pretend

he doesn’t exist.

The guy with the pink hula shirt knocks his ball into the pond and laughs

He has a hippie beard.

Can’t they see I’m ready to kill?

I wait—I stare at the moon—I check my phone

15 new text messages

How can that be? –people don’t like me

they’re from a friend of a friend

“How did this happen? F*ck.”

I hit my ball within a foot of the hole. My mom calls.

“Would you like to come over and watch 1000 mules?”

“Mom—I’m infallible! I picked the wrong career.”

“Don’t quit your day job.”

“Would you like to see a movie on Saturday?”

“Sure.”

“I got to go mom—the people in front of me are waving again.”

“Morons,” I mumble.

The goat comes over. “We’re just too damn slow, and you’re a pro. I saw your last drive—300 yards.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, you can play through.”

I strike my ball like God. A float plane flies overhead. I wish I was piloting that beautiful…

Where is there water around here, anyway?

It isn’t as easy as they say. One doesn’t just start winning. A man must know how to lose—to take his licks

to get kicked like a dog

again, and again

and not be beaten,

even though he’s a beaten dog.

I grab hold

of the enemy (which is usually myself)

and strangle him.

I eat his flesh

with my mean teeth

My chance might never come

and the temptation is too great

not to waste it

on the ground.

It isn’t enough, not to be bad

one must learn how to be good.

That is the impossible problem

I can’t solve.

When one doesn’t know how

It is only a matter of time

until…

He eats his vomit, again.

Amen.