Dreams

Prepares for the impact
Every morning, he prepares
Falling away
Hard time deciding whether he should
A- enjoy the levity
Or B – get ready for the rock bottom of it all
Pain, is a feeling he cannot get use to
Knows it, has been its pupil
Wants to learn something else, for a change
But knows the lesson, through repetition, awaits his first step
So he: prepares

The cocoon that wraps him now, is warm
Like former winter nights, made possible by his mother
She, is not a factor, anymore
So he waits, wishing he could bring this with him
Like his barricade, as his protection
His armor guarding against inflictions
Or even just an explanation
To himself
“The process is necessary
Look at us, we are growing
Be proud of the ending yet to come”

But the waking sounds bring naked
Feet, against bitter, concrete
No buffers, no ifs, no buts
All those struck down by reality
So he prepares

This cocoon might hatch one day, he thinks
If he gave it more time
But he doesn’t, has never had, more time
Can’t take that chance like the next step is forgiving

Loves this place
But home leaves every time it sees the sun
One day, he will lay here forever, he promises
He promises, that one day, he will leave
When it does

5am Mass

Heat, sometimes
Head pulsates the heartbeat
Heavy, in other moments
The thoughts are not intangible
Anchored – I feel them

My clock is realistic, runs in cycles
And dawns only come once a day
The effects, not lasting
But the moment, was right

That’s hope
That it will come each day
Once

Trivial Pursuit

Can we not wean ourselves
Of these avenues of trivial pursuit?
Measuring the miles to work
With occasional variations, stops
Along the way on different days.
The parking lot to the building
Is five minutes. Minutia to keep
The mind in its rat maze.

The workmen building the addition
To a house I pass each morning never
Look up, so locked in their details
As the squirrel races away from us
Helter-skelter in no discernible pattern whatsoever.

Thought You Might Ask

What of
forgetfulness have
you chosen to
forget
to lose yourself in
the ever ensuing
present
tense
of
silence
sewing
your
thoughts
in
fleeting
ambience
as
night
approaches
finally
quieting
the mini-mall
& its lights,
candy
with no value
to
you
or anyone breathing
air

The Ecstatic

I’ve been in waterfalls
Ones that cascade till lids fall dormant
The rules of the escape

Heard of words that speak beautiful
Like reciting illustrations of mr. magnificent
Will no longer stick

Believe that freedom is foreign to many
That’s why the cocoon stays
Blazes it’s glory to spite its own destiny

Witnessed this life
On pause and on rewind
Still shots running rampant with perfection

The pen had an aroma of soil, death
Failures, unions, burning and guts
The beginnings in last calls

Skies fell apart, descended
Swept away into gravity, and kept returning
The way it has been

Microcosm of life, death or magic?
More like nothing, and
Everything. It’s
The Ecstatic

The Color of Soundings

We long to hear the pastel touches hidden
In vernacular black that
Crest upon our changing shore.

Our relationship has peaked and no bombast,
Cymbal-riding discourse will alleviate
This disquieting soundscape.

The storm outside gusts in torrents that
Color the shadings of tea cup and saucer.
Lights swing with celestial rhythm.

The sighs and creaks in the timbered beams
Grey the atmosphere with mottled scorn.
Tossed pejoratives will never hold

As the whiteness calms the afterwards back,
Closes down the shivering glazed glen
To bristle wetness carved in stilted dusk.

An Irish Pub

Tucked away on many urban corners
An array of patrons ranging from newlyweds to mourners

Where draft beer flows with refreshing ales
From the darkest lagers to the blondest pales

You just popped in to quench your thirst
But your self composure must have been cursed

For there you remained until the very last call
Swigging brews and having a ball

The behavior you displayed was mighty troubling
You certainly would have mortified the mayor of Dublin

Even the Leprechaun had to shield his eyes
And the four leaf clover wilted with shock and surprise

As you ordered up a shot of whiskey from the tired barkeep
The statue of St. James actually began to weep

And poor Mr. Murphy, the one who wrote the famous law
Was simply aghast at what he saw

The next morning dawned with a hangover so savage
You should have stayed home and ate corned beef and cabbage

Las Vegas

Limping gamblers sporting fanny packs
Aching to beat the odds against the dealer’s stacks
Smoke from Marlboros, Camels and Salem Lights

Very red eyes and very long nights
Exotic dancers and Chippendales
Go-go Girls with glitter nails
All the cab drivers are from kingdoms so very far far away
So if it happens in Vegas… we all hope that’s where it will stay!

Wrote it High

I.

Brief passages of time and rhythm, don’t rush don’t slow don’t slouch
Evolution can’t be forced into a dominatrix position.
We were wrong.
We were all wrong.
Time is not international enough yet for the Kama Sutra. Don’t sit back and error space correct until it is all over, your life flown by like a dry grizzle of emotion never emitted.

Never speak what falls from most eyes, my father taught me that of most things. A pained princess of hard times of brick walls careening off into waterfalls of those more dressed for the catillian.

Never forgetting to write on Christmas is a luxury only some can speak of and many forget. I was once barren in the desert too. Running man, burning man, blue man all not as important anymore than being here, alone with you. Never really able to break free of my own self-importance, you stare at me, from above and from below, bellowing my current into the vibrations of your own lust. I thrust at your eyeballs to stop, but, pained as you are not, the whimpering of loss continues.

I regret not coming home this Christmas, but I myself do not, not dully not wholly regret never having told you a story of mine. This one was good too. Set not in the desert, but in the rain of sea and streets from whence I came. My own sail set years ago but you still linger on in someone else’s mouth, foul and potent as tiny magnetic dots driven as nails, scuttering to my own metal’s surface.

YOU forgot to call.

And so, I drift, compelled towards nothing in your field of radiation. Helix, my father said, Huxley said others, driftwood now am I. You smiled at my backside and threw saddened wedges of smoothed bottle glass in my direction. Try lonesome next time.

II.

Bone dry and run ragged I now feel better.
You and I can resist each other. But the real question begins when we ask
who is the state?
Why even begin at all?
Because no one hears us
And everyone laughs at us
But you do it so well
Is not enough for me to open up, even a tiny bit

I remember the swing set story.
Do YOU remember the car rides?

Sleet and Chinese, never to go out on a Saturday night.
A girl without a daddy is a girl with tight shorts and too much tea in her brain.

Whips of soft curls cannot save her, and they will be bleached anyway by nightfall.
Time well spent, but on someone else’s account. Can YOU be accounted for anyways?

A world can be shut down with one voice drilling, THEY’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE. Heads of millions will turn, but there always has been and there always will be, those, plus ten million insects to conquer. Tell them something they don’t know about rain nine months a year, aching joints swollen like melon balls pressed into cages of twisted fig branches. Of party power stardust made on a rural rode where the sunsets
are pretty and the cool aid is not electric acid but usually served warm by a peyote girl shunned by her grandmother’s river for no longer being willow wolf but now being peyote girl.

She and all the others were sprung free one day when the moss was aggravating. Fishing boats teemed with jacking off kids away from their dry grass one-stories and slicked with salmon blood for the first time since preschool. Just wondering were you went, me again.

III.

This is not for me, I repeated a thousand times. I swear. It did not all
happen so fast that I have forgotten you. But, bloody battle after bloody
battle ensued and I wished that a wretched time with you had ensued.
Instead I flung heated dung your way with a distasteful smile of red punch
puckering my cheek corners. And then collapsed again into your stomach. A
fine place to drink and a night of roaring motors. By the time foggy
children lined on the curbs for morning rumbles of best friends and
seating assignments, falling into place at the exact alphabetical moment,
I pressed on, dimly lit by my own weight. Feeling shabby like the f*ck had
been but a scrap nearly hitting the bus. I tumbled and the girl in the
back spilled her English muffin.
THIS IS NOT FOR YOU
but she barfed anyways
losing her best friend seating partner,
and obviously her name in the alphabetically ordered line. Damn nitwit of
a troublemaking crash.

It was morning and I should have been in bed.

IV.

When asked by the people of the town how it happened, I can only say I
remember two things. Once, that I had ridden a poney which must have
contributed to it, and twice, that I had beaten the child on the head.
While still in your stomach?

WHY, YES! It is a nice place to rest but not for long, and besides, there
was an entire battle to be raging forward in the streets. THE STREETS?

WHY, YES! Can’t you see they are sinking like sand. But they are concrete
are they not? WHY, yes. They are. But you trouble me for the loss of your
mother when still somewhere thoughtless is a man who holds your blood.

I speak for my own will sir and I am driven by none other than myself to
accomplish this goal.

HA HA HA HA boardroom walls can clap with agony.
I do believe mam,
this interview is over.
We simply do not understand your story.

Do I not receive in your mind some compensation, some time for having
stopped by?

And break our code of ethics, sir, no mam, I think not. If we gave you
time, WHY, we would have to give it to all. As small endeavors go, we
simple couldn’t afford that risk. When you leave, I am sure you will find
it to be red.
Thank you, though, for taking the time.

V.

And where will this battle take place?
Is the sod yet laid?
I dreamed again of a car without gas, which was the ultimate salt and ice,
rubbed through on a hot skin.
If only we had that saying.

But the time to leave could never have been cleaner. It was not night,
now, although I knew night would soon return.
Get out while it is still day I was taught. Think before you leave though.
Never come close to getting what you want when you are thirsty-
because everyone knows you get thirsty-
you might as well be naked with a blade at your hole. If not ready to be
dug up, then throw some mud on and never turn away from the blade’s face.
It will slice you up the spine, but it will lodge in your skull for sure.
It takes a shotgun to shatter a skull. No wonder the Canadians leave their
doors open.

You could take it all in the end.
But not without your hands, pressing each pedal and guidance is not taken
lightly, there is a tendency with us for rubber to be not so softly laid.
I miss when I could eat a whole meal, real things unchilled.
A dime a dozen for lost people stuck in a one storie, waiting for those to
come home whom might have escaped might have been eaten up by two of the
most dangerous things. Fear bears and fear the world.
Never speak to a blanket three ways: when she doesn’t feel like talking,
when there are others about, and at night when her wife, the pillow or
anyone else is home.
Hug things often. But young man, don’t regret sunshine and funerals and
don’t ever
regret one thing: me.

I am fine and you are a museum of things gone fine. Now read to me or get
out.
Can I just make something up? Or should I make it quick.
Rub my temples and turn off the lights, anyway you do it.
Put your hands to your eyes and see if that relieves some of the pressure,
don’t push too hard though.

YOU may break down, but I will not. For YOU may be safe, hidden under a
blanket, but I live alone and free.

Love is a dog from hell. That’s what they say around those parts anyway.

I came out bleeding around 11:30.
By a quarter to ten I was shaking my head in disbelief.
Again with the red dwarf.
The horrors of himself at age 3.
Capitol it.

Sometimes I see bears AND funerals, sometimes on the same afternoon, but
nothing, not even the sunshine or you scare me anymore, just keep poking
and see what happens.
This bed is no longer my resting place and YOU no longer my protector. For
the first time in years the motor began to purr, even though it was night.

Belly Up

Porcupines do not huddle together
When it is cold. Common sense &
Rejection are symbiotic in this
Reality that sets in the later years,
And have allowed way too much
Reflection as a toxic mix trying
To resolve what costs, rewards,
Plain empty enjoyment might be
Left to endure along the way
To “Sweet Perdition,” the bar on
Lower 9th that listens to our silences
And grunts a noncommital understanding
Beyond all words & absolution.