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.

This everlasting season

The hot kettle squeals

In the kitchen, in the spring.

Your smile, my hope,

Across the way, looms

Brilliantly in my view

Like the pleasant hope

In the sky, on a night

Lived like a daydream.

I never hoped or knew of

Any of that. The spring,

With its buds and lively

Branches, animated in green

Were the call to become

For me. I was to be more

Than the seasons passed,

Other short springs, mostly

The long winters of my home,

Or scalding summers therein.

But you smile even in the

Dark, even when I'm blinded,

Because you know I feel it,

Love it, like the fresh caress

Of new growth.

We can lay ourselves down

In fields of grass with

Wine and picnics, flowers

And naive hope, because

Without it we will never

Make it through.

Without it, darling,

Without your smile,

Cultivated from the power

Of the sun, we cannot live

in this everlasting season.

It was the best decision I ever made

Nostalgia hits in the cafe with its kite-lifting winds.

Reading a letter, hands extend from the words on the

Page to tussle my hair, and slowly

Draw. A. Finger. Across. My. Chest.

It's the seduction from afar, that attraction

Of the past. The square block fits neatly

In its place when the toddler places it there.

That's the gentle call that becomes a scream

To be back in the days when pain was simply

The definition of love. Actually, gifting me with

Words I hadn't heard in sometime remind

Me of who I am, the line tied to the ground,

Refusing to let me fly away into the sky.

We tested dangerous thoughts back then.

It was horrible. It was sick. It was sadistic.

It was the best decision I've made

In my entire life.

Out here in the reaches

Words can only extend to the civilized edge,

Then they cannot lead us back anymore.

What stock we put in them, words,

Full of the meaning that we think they have,

And meaning something completely different.

This is the truth one feels of

What is just that nebulous

Stardust, out in the ever-extending

Reaches of a mind, put there

By the missed contact of eyes,

The quickly-left embrace,

The half-ly-hearted goodbyes.

It is

The instinct of a soul recognizing

The distance of another.

And without its way back,

Out here in the reaches - well

The dunes,

They become the sea.

Above us love

Unloaded all pain and being

Before you, dumped myself

On the floor. My heart

Is a mess of conflicting

Words on a page.

And willingly, as though

You were perfectly whole,

You, my wish and my care,

Lift me up from the puddle

Of words and mud to show me

Smiles full of hope and

Trust.

When the words pass away,

In silent nights, when

The lights are too dim to

See,

I feel you against me.

As we lay together in order above,

Our heads close, and think us

To be in the great bastion of unbounded

Love.

I'm not sure how I got here

I'm not sure how I got here.

Some strange series led to

This point. But I have warmth

Around me and arms and

Love, here, in this innocent bed.

My mind has been flushing for

Days, out my ears and nose,

Worrying me of losing

Everything I held close; the

"me" part of myself is up

There and is draining from the

Bathtub of my anxiety.

But even as I waste away,

Body and mind, shaking,

Sweating, crying just to be

A whole human being, you

Are always present. And I -

I'm losing control. Scared to

Death, but never feeling

Alone.

Sometimes with adamancy

Sometimes with adamancy,

with repeated words and

stories again, I begin

to grow wary of myself.

Yes, watching, as if across

the room, my mouth move,

and from so far away

my voice is in my other

mouth, my mind, reciting

in routine. (worth it)

Not that you are less.

No, in fact, I am so newly

numb that I cannot say

what you are

for sure. I need senses

for that, those, yes, gone

for now.

When they return, when I am

in myself, I think (know certainly)

I will be fond of you. I see this

even from all the distance.

For now that is where I

hear you. Talking to me

from far away.

What I catch makes me think

of perfect contentment

in the silence of walks in

parks long dark and

closed.

We speak candidly of love as

if we read from the same

book (because we did). And

I am weary of that’s been wasted

when I knew nothing of your

existence.

I hope that the moment

when I know these strolls

and embraces will never

be placed in

cans on curb sides, because

I’ve had too many rough drafts

of love. None read right.

None read me right.

So I say with one mouth

or another,

“don’t get this wrong.”

“Don’t get this wrong.”

That is advice just for me.

When he has fears that he may cease to be

When we converse in some years, he and me,

With my pen poised over his lurid brain,

'fore high-piled books in calligraphy

Fill both our shelves beneath frost glass and rain,

When we look up at two, same, star-filled skies,

White edging though midnight-colored romance;

And he at his desk writing out his cries

With my jealousy of slow, downward dance,

Complaining of love never there at all,

that imagined fair with gold, flowing hair,

wanting only in relation t'his fall

that softening skin, warm, tingled, and bare,

I think how lucky he to be alone

with a chance now to fall peacefully home.

Resistance to Absolutes

The way that we seek to be

The water in the sea,

All and everything we thought

The other so wanted to see,

Knowing it will drip apart,

A wet newspaper heart,

Filled with homeless dreams and wooden rot,

Mingling in sacred shapes o’art,

Strange, for all to love ideas.

And we make ourselves that,

But we are the undying freedom.

Let’s not forget to love for that.

Halcyon Days

I am apprehensive to lay waste to

A forceful storm with the under-used artillery.

If my mind skips across magnets

Like thoughts across minds and then settles

On what is unseen, unheard, unfelt and

Ultra-real, then who am I

To choose the weather

Or the way that atoms collide

In a lab in Chicago?

Insignificance is the only hope

Of a man that – casting off

His clothes in the frigid wind –

Finds peace in the quiet mundane.

A halcyon day after day with a long

Stretch of invisible road,

Losing itself in the bosom of a red-bathed horizon,

Because there is nothing so much of value

That can be seen, that is the frantic hope

Of the unambitious man.

In secret coves and covens, he finds

That his joy is lost on everyone else

Lacking in painted apathy towards

Every apparent battle.

He is detached and immersed,

Paradoxical, like every good piece of

Undeniable truth.

Remember us in the face of God

No, I can't really speak because I don't know the words.

Language failed us in the face of God.

Your smile is the crescent moon hung

High in the midnight sky, I thank you.

Every time my eyes pour and every time

I am amazed. Hold my hand and

Let it out, take it in. Your drugs

Can never bring you reality.

Tossed as if caught on waves, you are

A rag doll without the first impression

Of what it is to be moved by angels,

But I know why I am here.

Fate is the silver thread running through

All of us in the most intricate web,

And here we are.

Here we are, attempting to save your life because

I am, we all are, little pieces of you.

Draining, you let it all go. In some

Room with dirty walls and chairs too

Small for our egos, you hide only what we

Won't cut out of you, it must be endlessly whispered

Once the tarot cards are laid in the lattice

On the table, clarity touches you with caring

And gentle hands of a father that is

Never a tyrant with a heavy fist.

But gently pushing you on.

Hiding is futile when you're seen right through,

Pinned open with love and our own openness,

We talk like a never-ending story

To make marble statues in your mind.

Remember our names and faces and

stares, because we do it not for

ourselves, but out of love and sheer will.

Remember who made this all possible,

That symbol hanging from your neck.

Boundless

They don't keep score

Because there are no points

In this place

Only the hope of better-off

Days with soccer balls

Made like they should be,

Clothes that fit and

Grass fields, unfenced, unbound

No broken glass

Or rubble piles high as

The sky, that's not our limit.

Past the goodbyes,

The seeded grass will grow

Like a meadow after

A fire. Rebirth, if we let it.

Let it root and the sky

Will crack

Above the dirt covered shacks,

Washing clean,

Washing them anew.

It feels just like the first time

I wrote down my first rhyme

As I'm tumbling into dark.

I'm searching to find

The future in the blind,

With it's walls and windows all white.

Don't leave me and leave with doubt.

Closed in, I need some out,

Scrambling to escape myself.

I've committed countless crimes,

Leaving chalk outlines

In the name of finding home.

Whispered and welcomed in kind,

Please don't hope in my mind;

You will stumble through the false floor

Suppressing my urge to shout,

I abandon my clout.

Everything looks better in m'head.

Hotel Rooms

The hotel rooms - anonymous homes

and the broken sticks just land in a heap.

I cannot pin the last corner up,

so the map lies in shadow.

I'm edging toward the end of the line

to look onto the two-dimensional

end. I so hope, forever, for that

home. And despite the weather,

the cold and the damp, I'm whispering

through membranes to bring a

world into focus. The daylight

is just another careless choice

to go along with my blinded

scrabbling and stumbling, with

one wish I'd be underground,

hidden from having to hide my face

behind pillars and books, from the

sun. I'm not sure there is anything

left to desire, but I'm hardly at the end.

No, not yet.

Today is the last day

Today is the last day

Another last day of another startled goodbye

Your hands reaching up for the clothes

On the line

I'm holding you up to reach it

Reach everything you deserve to have

But I've only had days, never

Enough for much at all, except

To link ourselves together, long enough

To love, and to break, and to never be the same

Thank you. Your rare, chosen smile, your always

Expressive eyes, little voice.

I quake to think of how I had to leave,

Never to be seen again, oh how I long

To keep you with me, teach you, love you.

I will never forget it. I burn

With the brand fashioned like your face.

And I will wear the scar with pride,

After the tears have dried and

You've (I've) cried more than you knew you could

I always knew today would be that day,

Found it somewhere in your penetrating

Stare. It's no easier to hear you laugh or cry,

And the stoicism eats away at you.

But you are something more than a child,

That soul is older than most,

And it's so there, an ultra-present reality

Screaming at you in its assured subtlety.

I am slowly falling, limb from limb

And you have no idea, no idea

How hard it is to walk away.

Permafrost

big eyes the size of stars

up close, the real truth, nothing.

so lost in deep thought,

the comprehensive. those

orbs floating in your head are

worlds with more life

than Earth. it's a greater accomplishment

than any book she's ever

written in ink from empty

bottles. the pupil fills the page,

running like bleeding mascara,

so black, so cold, no one to hold

in the cave burrowed in hard,

icy snow.

she used to get high off

the thrill and the blow, but

it's not filling like it should,

not even close.

the squeezed lemon is too bitter

to drink and not enough

to quench thirst. dropped on cut flesh

it's murder in the first degree. failed

marriage vows, promises raw in

intention, poison to the soul.

and where are we, lover? when the

sheets are stripped away, if my body

is torn, ripped, and buried in the packed

snow, will you love me? write of me?

kiss the air I left? am I worth solitude

until death? choose wisely.

Fields Filled with Rust

Fields filled with rust, turning from the shine of the sea to

The hopelessness of fallow dirt. I cannot drink this water.

Inciting the rebellion was the only way to ever change

The face of man, with his warship nose and bombs, teeth.

Farm houses form the skeleton ribs of a great whale,

Blackened, twisted, torched with prescription drugs

Turned to accelerant flame, but where are the people,

Where are my people? The lamb was lost because no one

Peeled his picture from the page, parasite children putting

Stickers on their faces, the dumb, damned absurd.

Rotting best times or worse, our cows our leaking poison

The stickers are still stuck on stone. Stalls no longer fill with

Sustenance. , no one to feed no one to care, bleak

Clean channels run on the faces of men smeared with dirt

They never felt this way before. Sometime the lost finally lost

Their way, falling, facing the red and white pinwheel tent roof,

No net. Simon Peter, Andrew where did father die?

Drowning in a net at the bottom of the sea.

What if I was there that day? Would I be –

Disappointment is a drug, the cities twitch in the light of the fires

There haven’t been people here for a long time.

When was the last time gasoline filled these tanks?

After years of wishing, someone found the courage

To put the books in the waste bin, without the thought

To look past the covers.

In the street, history was the first to be forgotten, then humanity

Went to the bars. Drinking up the vanishing gasoline.

Hauntingly, no bodies will ever be found because

People have forgotten where to look, or how to imagine.

No one is left to dig everything out, seventy-five stories of dirt

Seventy-five stories of stories that last their five minutes

And disappear.

Pompeii lost its way in the shadow of a mountain, cleansed of superstitions

Black bleak and also gray

The streets are the color of ash, so far from the mount.

With what’s left the dark ages are here again. Minds barren of dreams,

Dreams barren of tomorrows, today is forever the last day.

Molotovs floating like some brilliant chandelier for an instant,

Posing for the camera, emaciated little angers, hovering. Cherubs

With flames and wrath, who thought they would be God’s final judgment?

The churches are no more, what’s left only reminds people

Of the one letter they forgot. Books written with only it might come again,

One for every cross to bear, not so many anymore.

Valleys and canyons erode, how could man make much better? Even

The stone comes apart in paste. Phantoms float at night, they leave

A shore to float like paper boats filled with the last glow of summer.

It’s winter now, snow or ash, it’s all the same. There’s no more world beyond my sight. We got what we asked for. Isolation and solitude, should’ve been more specific.

The old dog used to limp across the yard, wondering if the next sleepy-eyed collapse

Would be the last.

“Sorry Max, it’s done.” Why did we choose this fate? Why not die in a sunnier place?

Maybe an island, or a ski slope. I forgot I’d forgotten what any of that looks like. Is it beautiful? I hope.

Maybe we will have a place to sleep tonight and wake up to the same day.

This is not the end

This is not a cry for help

This is not a rationalization

It’s an apology for being less

Than we could have been.

Home Again

you gave your body to the lonely

but you took everything from me

you were making plans about

making better plans about

taking life in your own hands

how'd that work out for you?

you gave your body to the lonely

you even gave it all to me

falling, failing, wondering

we cry ourselves to sleep

hoping for the bodies of the lonely

maybe that's all we need

Stevens says a man

gave his life to the lonely

He sounds like a better man than me.

Athena

Hello darling is the exclamation

when memory finds its way

to the writer's desk in your

head.

Growing old and retired is never the plot,

but I would pen my life away

if you would do the same.

We will wake to waking light with our

writers' desks pressed together

brush hair with my fingers

no fear of hurting you with

gentleness

there is a sea of paper rocks

surrounding me in need of cleaning

or burning. The kindling could

warm a home if it had a spark,

and I've yet to find

the fire man that carries matches

or a pen and paper to write down

the names of burn victims, just to watch

them blacken and become ash like everything

in the end.

There is no one absurd enough to marry itself

to the idea. I am the painting they couldn't

save when the White House burned down.

That's the fear locked away

so far from civilization

married to others because it

seems so frail and weak

but it's the most dangerous thing in my pocket

being forgotten, insignificant, lost to time,

never having mattered to anyone at all.

That's the sweat-stained, crying, writing,

painting, burning

absurd.

I'd hate to show you what I write in my head

because there are too many suicide notes,

but you know that because you wrote

the same thing, only you wrote it before.

As I die on the floor of a room that wasn't even mine,

you smile down at me.

I can't hold on.

Light me as the beacon to incoming

ships, though I only want one to be there when I'm

ready to leave.

I write as many wishes as notes, you know

play God when I wake fifty years hence

and you're next to me because you won't be a day

older than today, you're immortal

Athena, wisdom, victory

I'll whisper to you all the secrets

a man can learn if you'll put

me in my place with all of the cabinets, drawers,

and cupboards your craftsman made before I knew

what type of creature you were.

Yes the bedroom floor is fine for me

I'd sleep anywhere to be near you even

on the end of a sword, spitting up

the last cardinals that tweet in the

breeze of my breath.

That would be find with me, because the last thought

taking the stage

will be a white and glowing, naked

form of the most precious immortal.

My eyes, they won't leave that sight

even after the quieting of the

earth-quaking applause.

Cranes

Their mouths whisper close to each other

Two cranes wrap their legs around

It's summer, always summer

For the cranes

Winter is the other man, yet

there is but one mouth

Moving, never speaking

Fatal scent in the air

Destruction is a putrid word

And hope is not in my lexicon

The other man was Napoleon

Never conquering cranes

Sacrificial lambs to the forces that

Haven't begun to speak

This is no complaint

It's about cranes that cannot migrate

Because they don't know how.

Hope - Not Really

I need it

the trumpet blast of hope

like the overpass addicts

eyes rolling into their heads

to stare at the graffitied walls

supporting their crooked spines

while the shiny car-ed obliviates

pass by thinking the convulsing

hobo is about to sprout wings

and bring back the Christ-child

Blind,

caves of urban walls, slums shanties

piling people in to the cattle car

I'm scared of the dark to come

it's the fear and revulsion

from the thought of a razor

pressing down down down

into goose bump-painted flesh

I don't know what you do

anymore.

Not anymore, with

diamonds and gold

worth more than faith in something

everything to nothing is all you've ever

asked for. A shame I won't give it

as many wouldn't condemn another

to piss themselves warm

and eat others for sustenance

but that happened already

there's hope for your dreams yet.

The Shed

The pebbles dance along the strings like her feet

along the worn wooden floor. At once it was

apparent on an awestruck summer's eve

that Molly and Mary would never be found

hiding in Grandpa's old tool shed. Pebbles

plucking the heart strings of a girl as they tap

lightly on the window pane, one could

mistake it for rain but for her hopeful imagination

The air is filled with the buzz of yellow

fireflies, winking on and off then on and off.

They are the prancing pebbles along cricket

orchestras. She used to dance quite often.

And Molly and Mary kissed for the first time,

hoping never to be found. But she stopped dancing

for us when Grandpa opened the shed.

Then again, still, when she left the curtains

blowing in the wind.

Red Dress Alone

glancing 'round I see a full moon

pale against the dark suits of others

you are wrapped in red as if to tell me

all at once of love, of fire, and of a wound.

But my wife-to-be is cloaked in white

like your face, so pure, but there is

no hurt in this one's virgin dress

those craters lie somewhere

behind your eyes, she has none.

If not for pride, you would not set foot

in this quaint, little chapel. They would

burn you for the witch you are, licentious

and cold. Cold as the void that you filled once

now bled dry. "Because power is more than

any poor politician or capitalist could ever

dream up," you said. I can hear you

whispering that through eyes, black

with deepest hidden hate. I laughed

nervously at that then.

Now you are just a ghost of a ghost. You

haunt yourself. And I know because of

the late night calls that are silent

but for the almost concealed tear,

forming the diamond on her finger.

There is nothing left to say now.

The vows are read and I look into whole

eyes of the most warm, lacquered wood

and sigh such relief that I was right, "power

is the satisfaction I get from walking away."

She and I kiss to cheers and clapping

but it's silent to me because someone's hands

are still as death. They think this is

a funeral. Turning to look, I realize

you were never there at all.

Haunt

The wind tastes like the moment –

Forget that – the wind leaves the flavor

Of hate and bitterness

On my tongue,

No amount of any drink will wash

It out.

No crescent of hope spilling

Its portents in the sky

Will ever change the rancid taste of forgotten love,

Wet newspaper promises,

Or the vice grip of your hand around a crimson stone

It is not that the word “waste” fails

To describe the pinprick stars of time,

The grains – whatever you please –

But it falls short of being anything

At all.

You vanished

And pop up to haunt my footsteps

Like a banshee in the ghosting mist

You’re screaming

I’m pretending not to hear

What’s new?

But that isn’t really you,

It’s the little memory in the back of my head

Gnawing at the chair leg supports

Like an untrained puppy

But then it’s a bear or worse

And I’m tumbling, drowning

In a fucking kiddy pool

Because I have no light to see,

No arms, no legs, nothing to float with.

I struggle to kick and scissor just not to sink.

All I have are lungs, slowly filling with water

And a crimson rock – diamond hard,

Oh

But you left me one thing.

I’ve got this impossible taste

That the rushing water won’t take with it.

Memories fade, but that taste,

That is something I will

Be hard pressed to forget.

Everything feels the same

The solitude is the wishing well for the over-

stimulated

with a brain slowly folding in on itself

we hope for some

Ebola to end it all -

To be the nothing-mush

that comes out the end of that tunnel

serenity, peaceful forests, with the

sweet tweets of birds hidden

from view

that's a pipe dream

that's the beginning

walk down the tube's length

(this without a light at the

end) and

Woosh - flames

forests gone, stumps, burned

flesh, birds screaming so shrill

you can't shut it out

and you remember it so

vividly

your synapses fused in the

afterimage of a burning

Buddhist monk

the protest -

a futile waste attempting

to make it all mean something

but you're stuck in a tunnel,

waiting for the blaze

and smoke

it's inevitable

it's inevitable

God, this gets old

The solitude is the wishing well for the over-

stimulated

with a brain slowly folding in on itself

we hope for some

Ebola to end it all -

To be the nothing-mush

that comes out the end of that tunnel

serenity, peaceful forests, with the

sweet tweets of birds hidden

from view

that's a pipe dream

that's the beginning

walk down the tube's length

(this without a light at the

end) and

Woosh - flames

forests gone, stumps, burned

flesh, birds screaming so shrill

you can't shut it out

and you remember it so

vividly

your synapses fused in the

afterimage of a burning

Buddhist monk

the protest -

a futile waste attempting

to make it all mean something

but you're stuck in a tunnel,

waiting for the blaze

and smoke

it's inevitable

it's inevitable