I don't know if you recall

I don't know if you recall

Me on one knee

Or the way I looked looking up,

And I can't say for certain

What I looked like either -

I am, after all, me, the same

Man that was down on one knee,

Seeing out these same eyes,

Stumbling out this same mouth,

And clinging to your same hand

Like a begging, vulnerable child.

Distant now, yes, probably just a

Memory, but

I am still him, so much

The same joy that illumined

My crooked soul is shining

There now, right now

Writing, and desperately, like

The struggling poor, the

Men on knees yearning for God,

I'm clawing through words

Just to save you, say to you,

That I am selfish for loving you.

Berating, yes, even that is

Impossible without life support,

And you are the scaffolding

Of this sinking Venetian villa,

So old with idealism and not

Enough anchor, which leads me

To sink like one.

I was down below you looking up,

Calling up, a regular Romeo

High on an impulse, telling you

"Jump! Just jump! And I swear

We can float,

Give your burdens to me and

I'll hand my sandbags to you

And because they are

No longer our own, they will

Weigh nothing and we will

Float, weightless."

I still believe that. I am

Such the naive soul I was,

No bitterness or anger, confusion,

Yes, but only the kind on

The verge of winter, as it ebbs

Into spring. To let go

Of the cold and just

Live and love, grow.

But beautiful tomorrow's only

Last so long and you're

Gone with the breeze,

With its hands reaching

Out and pulling away before

The sounds are heard and

The little bird you came

Quickly to find is flying

Scared as can be.

So while I wait on

My tentative hope, there

Is never so much the idea

That you're ever coming back,

Where the only thing I possess

Is that you may begin to

Remember my face, my smile,

That day, my lips, my nose,

The way I kneeled before you

In the proud hope that I'd reap

The glories of this self-centered

Desire. There's no unconditional

Here, only holes needing filling,

Drawing from my mind, but

It doesn't ever seem to affect

That I am me. I am certainly

Me. Don't ever forget,

Do you hear me? I bowed

Before you to give myself,

And now I can't remember

Your face, so remember mine.

Yes, I lied; I am bitter.

I probably was then. But now

I have nothing more to say.

Remember my heart,

My body may change, but

I'll be damned

If I'm not burned into your mind.

I'd burn to see this hard-worn heart erupt

I'd burn to see this hard-worn heart erupt,

But far away the prideful mind assumes

That to tread where the dark waits to disrupt

Is to never again find peace in rooms

Where the sun bed is laid and I am cold.

I must be cold, for why else would I climb

Into the mud some centuries old,

Filled with bodies and bones burned up with lyme?

Soft skin 'tween legs invites wandering eyes.

Some warmth contradicts the frigid void

And t'find oneself in the pain of demise,

Well, I might just sing songs in parks devoid

Of oxygen sucked up by the fire,

Atom cloud of my burning desire.

Make-believe

There's a movie theatre in this gaudy village

With this faux- carousel on top, inviting the stares

Of the overstimulated children as they stumble by.

One flash two flash red flash blue flash

Repeat, in the endless, generational cycle of

Purchase after purchase after affair after car

After affair after donation after feel-good-hump

After failing to make anything more than a

Sequined replica of themselves.

The cars gleam with souls cleaner than their

Own, but appearance, well that's the

Definition of philanthropy, and that is the song

From the speakers on the boulevard that

Creates the soundtrack of absurdity.

It drapes itself over over-done hair, atop

The pedestal-like men, waiting to be crowned

With fruit for their painting to be placed

In a forgotten hallway, always overlooked

And never looked through.

The kids, again, with their mesmerized eyes,

Not from paintings or gold or cars or the

Unseen man and mistress copulating in the

Back of Infinity, but the flashing colors

Of heaven. They are the ones that can

Get away with playing with fantasy.

But when you're forty, walking out into the night

In the village with a twenty-something

On your arm, and abruptly you see these

Children staring up, not at you, but at

The flash flash flashing behind your head,

Maybe you will realize then that you're

Not a kid. No, you are a man, and

It's time to stop playing make-believe.

Night air

With the night air

The cicadas welcome

My tired mind with

Their incessant

Fanfare that

Slow and present

Realization that

The night is solely

Beautiful to me

It has in itself

A love for me - mine -

My own

There is just

This waking gift that

When all

Has been done

In a day I can come

Home into nothing

More than the

Outer air and see

Touch taste smell

The sound of

Consolation and

Peace knowing

Full well that the

Night is in love with

Me and I with it.

Arms, I want to fly

Arms, I want to fly!

Dammit, I need to fly-

Right up in the sky,

With arms outstretched

Struggling against the guy-

Line.

The world outside

With it's birds and

Chirping breeze

Births a violent

Wriggling inside of

Me.

Inside me, inside you

God, we need to fly,

Need it like water too

Far from a paralyzed

Hand.

I don't care for the prickly pear

Or the desert sand,

Only for the empty air

Mixed around by selfish

Man.

And I can't help myself,

The fields of gold just aren't

Home, and high above

Home disappears, but

More

Than that, passed the clouds,

Passed the moon, freedom,

Dammit, my ultimate

Resurrection

Awaits.

All this is a dream in my dream.

And the world is exactly

As it seems,

Full of absurd

Melodies.

I want to fly asfast and as high

As the distant universe edge,

And maybe I'll find who I am

At the precipice of that

Blank page.

Accuracy is everything

Pour salt in my wounds;

I want the ocean running

In my veins like a

Glorious jazz band, loud

And crashing with passion.

You, me, arriving at ourselves

In the deepest sea,

We go so fast, all too fast,

Off the road,

Through the rail,

Over the ocean; it's breaking, breaking,

Waves on

Rocks, and

Us

Floating

Above

Everything.

The world is taking its time -

again.

Superfluity on the way

We're going down and I'm a bastard too.

On this flaming dragon all is red,

It's bleeding away pieces of itself and I'm dead

Or soon there on the threshold of dawn.

Green fields, soft, impenetrable, sublime perfection

And tragedy struck on me above.

It's an interesting tumble towards the sea, leaping

At me from its vantage below.

We've got to do something about cup holders on

This end-bound flight - But

Forget the fucking cup holders and all superfluity too

Bucking and bleeding is all

I can do as I scribble out a last page in a book

It's not my book, but some other

Author's. Talk of witches and more shit that

sounds an awful lot like cup holders

To me, but some people never get over the little

Imperfections. To some that's everything.

I've got bigger fish to fry, but that's because I'm about

To be drinking salt and water on the rocks, or

Maybe a gin and tonic would go better with my

Cup ho- the world turns over

And so do I with blood dribbling up through water, mixing

With jet fuel. I need to finish this story up

Or else no one is going to read it. Ink bleeds out

Like it's a man shot and mugged,

That look of disdain on the page face like this wasn't

Part of the plan. Of course not,

No one plans to drown, buckled in, writing on

A whining page and wondering

Where the fuck the cup holders are on this flight.