New Centurions

Irrational, irregular; human - more or less.
Your guess as good as mine, ordinary daydreamer
still in single file line. A resounding roar for astounding
gore - a bloody muddy mess indeed. Two ears,
two eyes, a mouth, a nose - it's hard to believe
we're of the same breed. Another rift raft attempt to fly -
hoodrat copy cat lingers by and by. The same
gray hair, black shoes, stripped tie. Different name
for that red scare game - it snowballs and runs awry.

Dawn

Daring moon light, sad somber evening glow
of the stale water shivering in the snow.
My mind wades on the banks, my heart breaks
according to a thousand poems I read and hated.
She gives me the shakes - I got this new twitch -
but so much has changed since we disintegrated.
Sure she left me in this ditch, this dark apartment
dwindling, underpaid and underfed and undersexed.
But I'm a new man Monday morning - all dressed
for success downtown and feeling debonair,
trying not to breathe in the city air or that grumble
of the suited men and woman click clacking intently
passed punks like me who are just stumbling out
for the first time into this brave new world.

Sleep Tight. Sleep Sound

(in case you missed it, 3rd semiannual bustitforjustice poem)

"And still she cries, and still the world pursues."

... can't you hear it?
... can't you hear it?

Try to Disintegrate. Here in this bed you hate.
Wilt and whisper blue like the moon
or some sorry tune. Wrestle with yourself
while the sky picks its plume and
brandishes colors wiry from now till doom.
California can't sleep tonight. It's fogged
and forgotten and desperate for light. Here
in this bed, heated and hated; falling to
pieces - each second more separated.

Focus in, the rain begins,
Falling furious on minds within.
6 years past, far too fast –
Never believed this pain would last.
Counting down, underground -
entombed in wombs safe and sound.
A ghost, a ghost I host within me -
through my bowls and out my spine.
Listen close, hear his chime -
a song of so long and forget me not -
a whisper hushed while his body rots.
A whisper stark and cold,
a life drained before getting old;
another night listening to rain, embracing the cold.

And across the sea, she's alive again, safe and sweet,
fearing sleep, stashed safe in her hideaway;
the night flickers soft before eroding into day.
She sees the world a wilderness,
growing darker and drowning,
starker as her heart starts pounding,
journaling some dream of life astounding.
Imagining the past, long before the blast,
that one gigantic crash - 'we're never going back'
her eyes screamed leaking on the floor -
every day in this hell the sky would pour.
every day in this well life kept getting deeper,
till now, staring up at the moon - it's so hard to sleep here.
Another wound swollen, another life stolen -
the unanswered 'why?'. Another terrifying night, oh lord; by and by.

And somehow we're tied, by all the lies,
by the tide that separates us at sea.
A sea so free, far from this barren place
we've come to need. Separated by age,
fingers fumbling across the page,
a drunken rant induced by rage,
some how, so far, we're both the same.

And the words of Anne remain:

" ... In spite of everything I still believe people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the whole world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the suffering of millions and yet, if I look up at the heavens I think that it will all come right ... "

It's Only Me

Disintegrate. Here in this bed you hate.
Wilt and whisper blue like the moon
or some sorry tune. Wrestle with yourself
while the sky picks its plume and
brandishes colors wiry from now till doom.
California can't sleep tonight. It's fogged
and forgotten and desperate for light. Here
in this bed, heated and hated; falling to
pieces - each second more separated.

She Trembles

Cat eyed whisper, feline fair child
begs a blister. Begs and begs,
spare change Delilah. Honey shares a sigh,
stares off at kids in single file line. The streets
jungle wild when it gets late. But home free
is homeless, homeward bound we mate.
Slither down allies, drown in tears Sally -
daydream dancer is always alone.
Daydream dizzy till asphalt glistens like home.

Still Incubating

Mandalay runaway - charging down the avenue. Still wet from birth
on this dirty Earth, now aged years twenty-two.
Abner Doubleday, Cock-a-doodle-do. I'm tired and trite.
Condom condemnation. Dramatized drill sergeant shells phonic fiction.
Officer, officer, clown bones and snow.
Remembereverever twenty-two. Jameson too easy in the sky.
Rocking chair rebel, damnation damn nation. Go on gracias, almost home.
She sells sea shells by the sea shore. It's a harder life style, no one
buys during the war.

There's a fire in the sky I can't

#1

There’s a fire in the sky I can’t
Put out.
My eyes are timid and dry -
Wading in yours,
Sinking in the colors
Or the farthest reaches.
Some nectarine sunset
Enveloped in the endless,
Incessant or day dreamed.
Like that time the night burned out;
We whispered as we parted,
So as not to disturb.
We were quenched
Like a sea inside
And a people freed.
We shall not secede.

Fool/Poet

My fingers sing of my craft –
Ink stained and swollen;
My toes tread through leaves of grass,
Dream of all the places I’ve shown them.

I’m stained by the lowly whisper of the sea –
Or a lone white speck lofting just above the waves;
I stare out and strain –
I hear each word cry out the same,
Cry out like so many before,
Dry out on the sand having just crept free to shore.

A finger or two
Crawls between me and you,
Between the deepest darkest places,
Or that gentle startling hue of the horizon
Between the sky and the water,
Between a mother and father,
Between young lovers interlocked
On the edge of the dock
Clamoring over each others bodies well after the clock strikes two.

I return to the dream
Just the way it seemed,
So plastic, so placid, so anxiously clean.
I returned to the sea,
Washed in the water,
Returned to the state,
Some predestined fate,
Some sailboat summer I find only in sleep.

So I tear to my toes,
Shiver in the sunlight,
The moon beams keep me warm as I swim through the night.
When I touch land again,
Bare feet in the sand,
I clean my fingers and wash my hands,
Yet the ink beneath my nails still lingers.

My fingers sing of my craft –
Ink stained and swollen;
My toes tread through leaves of grass,
Dream of all the places I’ve yet to show them.

Lord, How I Long For The Dull Days When I Didn't Have Super Powers.

(also from last semester's writing class)

The house is quiet and quaint, let's not ruin it. I stare at the wall across the room from my bed, tugging at my blankets. My eyes burrow through ground and dig a hole. I crawl down the hole and dig deeper, deeper. Five of us sit around the table and laugh. Mashed potatoes. Always mashed potatoes. We all pose for a camera, my mother holding my toddling sister. My eight year old mouth grins a bigger smile than I've known for years. Christmas cards whisk by me like a flip book. I pause at the last page and wonder why four seems so much less than five. I’ve dug my way back through the ground out the other side. I poke my head out the hole. I’m back in bed, trying to get to sleep.

I wake up to an old sofa. The living room fills with water and I sail away on my sofa to a far away place. Far away from anything that could remind me. Far away from this house called home, drowned with artifacts and anecdotes. The sofa where I watched football with Dad on Sundays, the stain on the carpet where I spilled his beer, the empty recliner in the living room he read the paper every morning, the cracks in the ceiling from the water damage he never got around to repairing. But none of it tears at me like the fake smile on my mother's face. Or the way she calls for me to eat and tears me away from my sofa on the empty, open sea. I dive in the water and swim to the kitchen.

I sit in the car and tug at the wheel. I turn up the radio to blast any thoughts from my head. I watch the music soar to the heavens and follow it. My body snakes out of the car window and flees to the sky. Everything is clearer when I sit atop the clouds. I see all the landmarks of my youth: the old school, the church, the baseball field, the DMV. He drove me to all of them when I was still sitting in the passenger seat. We rear end the car in front of me. I fall back into the driver's seat and the soft loving grasp of the airbag.

Coming and Going

(from last semester's writing class)

The spider on the old man's beard was like a frustrated child trying to climb into the kitchen cabinets to grab some sweets his mother wouldn't let him have. Unable to get a firm grip on the long, gray, scrappy beard, the spider kept tumbling down and barely hanging on before trying again to traverse the mighty mountain hanging from the old man's face. I intensely watch the spider repeating the pattern of climbing up and tumbling back down. With every slow rise and quick fall of the spider I’m a little more at ease. The spider distracted me from the words spewing from the old man’s mouth, from my best buddy’s mother crying in the seat next to me, from the incessant ticking ticking ticking of the clock on the grey wall – grey like the man’s beard and the general feeling of gloom over all of us. My buddy’s father paces back and forth in time with the ticking of the clock, like a metronome over the old man’s voice.

The old man just kept ranting. Eventually the spider crawled into his beard and I could no longer see it. I had nothing. I couldn't focus on the spider to keep my mind off the grey and gloom that surrounded me; so I decided to listen:

That's why I singed up! I was bored and I needed money! He chuckled. And I sure knew I didn’t want to go to college. Next thing I knows I’m in a plane on my way to some country I couldn’t pronounce and – My buddy’s dad finally stops pacing and sits next to his wife and they hold each other crying – And that was it! We’re given guns and told to stand guard and – I couldn’t hold it back anymore, I started crying just as hard as my buddy’s parents. His mom handed me a tissue and put her arm around me. The old man just kept talking and his bold, black eyes and his grand grey beard and his chomping mouth seemed to get bigger and bigger and bigger and endless, swallowing the entire room as he kept rambling on and on – But we just had to do it! I tell ya, son, there was nothing else we could do. ‘Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight!’ Just like Robert W. Service said! And then – I couldn’t grasp it, my buddy had been in the service for two years. I can’t even picture him missing a leg – And we had to run, there were explosions everywhere and gunfire and – the door slowly opened and a woman pushed a boy I faintly recognized in a wheel chair. His parents stood up and ran. I looked back at the old man to see the spider had reemerged from his beard. It continued to crawl up the old man’s beard, crawling up and falling back down, until it finally crept its way into the old man’s mouth. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you! I swear to God almighty or whatever ya wanna believe – I couldn’t keep my eyes off the old man anymore. He walked towards me and fell to my knees. In an instant I had completely forgotten about my buddy and the leg he’d lost in battle. Instead I couldn’t help but stare down at the old man as he clawed at my shirt like a frustrated child trying to climb into the kitchen cabinets to grab some sweets his mother wouldn't let him have.

Firsts

(wrote this one summer 05, found it recently and finally got around to editing it)

she looked at me with a confused face.
she just couldn’t understand why i felt so out of place.
something wasn’t right;
the stale, anticlimactic end to a long, crushing night.
she frowns and tries to forget what i just said;
gently pulls up the covers – this isn’t real: not this bed.
we’re just dreaming, see?
but what’s this headache staring back at me?
she’d like to forget it all, forget that i exist.
staring at opposite walls with the exact same wish.
we replay the events that lead us here together in our minds,
a silence overwhelms the room as the moonlight streams through cracks in the blinds.
i know it’s wrong, but, “i’m sorry,” i let her know,
she hates herself, whispers, “me too,” but she tries not to let it show.

Just a Little

I try to breathe in all the lights as they're crushing me. Each flicker and each flash another twitch in my memory. Another skip in my evening turned late night turned early morning. Stars and streetlights flirt in circles around me, all falling and all twirling. My memory mistakes me; my memory is blinded and scarred. So am I as I close my eyes and swim amongst the stars. So am I as my withered body falls limp and floats slowly down amongst the tide pool of flaring meteorites. I am one with the heavens; I am one with the night. I drift off with the moon till I’m empty.

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1.

Catch me, September. Catch the last
remaining drips of summer; now
she's an old woman, fading
in the distance - smiling,
smirking, sinking. The old
summer gal winks before
she leaves the building - she
leaves with a chill. She leaves
with a gentle pat on the back just
soft enough to let you
know she cares, but just
faint enough to leave you
desperately, aimlessly wandering.

Careful now, hold me.


2.

Shatter me, September. Shatter that feeling
of leaving or coming and going,
like a baseball through
the window. Flaring smiles quickly
waste away into youthful faces
of distress. Inching carefully
towards the doorbell. Anticipating
the worst, always always
the worst. Let fall your spirit
as you swallow pride and all
your other misconceptions. Just
fall. Float or fly or plummet. Let
the leaves sweep you in, let go.

Hold on, careful me.

You Can Have It

This is earthquake
country. You see it all
wrong from these eyes.
We trekked across
the country just
to find the wrong coast.
Your finish line is our
mother, we can't run
towards her watchful eye.
You can have your manifest
destiny, but don't
expect me to stand still.
She trembles, she's breaking
away she's so scared.
I see the stars in your
eyes, but you've got
it all wrong - you and
everybody else since 1849.

California sat in flames

California sat in flames
on my last night. In
one sky the sun lay
pink ablaze, in the other
the moon hung high
awhispering. The day drifted
into gray night, or both
at the same time, something
or other. Like another empty
drudge we waved and said
our goodbyes - the day
and me that is - without really
turning to look
back - not because we
didn't care but because it didn't
really matter. Like all
the scorched gray we're just
moving on and along, without much
direction; forward could be
up or left, right or down, or backwards. The moon
takes charge and smiles through
the darkness. With a sigh
the two of us fall from
ahigh and disappear the next morning.

Everything is quiet and still

Everything is quiet
and still. I hope everything
isn't frantic for you.
After the war sighs last
longer and twist discouragingly through
dinner conversations, overbearing
and infecting the air that binds
us. We're never the same.
On Sundays we pretend
we're still nice and unaffected.

Just before running away I
watch my father waste away
in his old chair, gripping his
newspaper as if holding
it tighter could somehow save
us all, confirming my belief
that there's no signs of life
left. I stare off at the misty
morning moon, awaken in the middle
of the day dream, miles off
and alone and whisked
away in some stranger's car.
He held me close
before he hit me, before he left
me on the side of the road. He sped away
and I was somehow happier, cold
and possessionless, champion
of the fate whose face I
ignored, distant and dark.

Just before its bleakest the sun shines
the most. I tremble for warmth,
shine brightest with no one around;
the deserted and desolate befriend
me. I couldn't say I was truly surviving
until I didn't know I'd survive another day.

Unfinished/Untitled

Well, Jesus lays in the backseat quivering; his beads clanking together as he counts them and he whispers softy to his mother. We're rushing away wildfire - we're never quick enough - damn high wire act called life. Whisked away I see hallelujah in the stars and all the greater glory in the highway divider, hear angles singing over the tires’ squeal, and heaven shines in his eyes just before his body lunges right through the windshield towards the asphalt. The crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror taps my head and taunts me as I lay nestled in the warm virgin mother grasp of the air bag. Everything glows before it fades. We never quite make it, but we're always on time.

Falling/Getting Up; First Steps

Great God and spilled soda cans scattered conversing on the gravel; silly toes bleeding grapevine story lines unrested and tortured in winter socks. Listen:

I stare out my window at the withered world aggravated and gray watching the Painter as he fills in the finest details only to scratch them out and smear them over. On one side of the high wire the forest crawls with life; on the other side the desert frowns faint and flaccid. After your first fall for life you wake up cold and sweaty, frantic and drunk on the dreariest dream's spell. I swear the door opened itself; all the colors came to life one at a time, each singing and dancing to his own tune. Just the night before a lost boy laid crying in my bed. Now he stands tall picking flowers in the clouds. Like some great comet hitting our frail home, everything can be vanquished in an instant; but everything, everything can be found in a tiny hole that a youngster digs in the backyard.

Sterile

By the sea, the wayward sea; blown by the breeze, the salty stifling breeze, through ashland trees over sterile concrete ring the coastline's gripping whisper tapping gently on lowly shoulders and grazing dangling knees of rotten boys staring out at the wondering blue. A peek of sunlight grazes the afternoon, a hush in the clouds, the tickle of automobiles speeding through winding canyon roads, squealing gulls and the gargle of saltwater, that damning grumble of a highway packed too tight on the long ride home; all twisting through and eating away at the innards of scowling boys with soft faces and long hair flowing in the gentle waft. See it in his eyes bent and twisted, some unsatisfied growl of the blurry nights and breezy empty mornings. Gazing out towards the fairest faintest blue, some imaginary color endlessly far off, that hue that exists only between the horizon and the ocean’s end. A stiff telling stare back that says I ruined everything; but California ruined me.

On Crashing

God, Man, none of this is real. It's just little girls scribbling Crayola on the walls. The ripples on the lake tearing through trembling reflections of a militia of lost boys just like you; a hundred thousand runaways stare back in the tide at you standing alone on the rocks with your faltering flask, a weapon that seems to work a little bit less every time the sky falls or the city burns to ashes. Maybe it's time to put away that dark cringing heart and let your lips melt down your face to mingle with the soil. I see a thousand fire flies beneath your skin bursting like popcorn over an open camp fire in the eyes of that same little girl, gripping her crayon and jabbing it through your stomach neat and clean like those military runaways with their bayonets in history text books we ignored when we were younger. Whether you drown in this moment and that flask or just drift off the meddling fumes towards the moon's light, you'll find few things faint and distressed as your fragile body can hang around for very long. So you'll drop towards the waters or bob straight to the top, but your famous first breathes will be as beautiful and boisterous as history texts burning in that camp fire and the wind guiding the smoky remains of all good and bad of recorded mankind to the same murky moon light or scaley lake bottom that you sought on that night on the rocks with that old flask when you tried to give up and awoke the next morning drenched on the rocks by the lake, cold and alone and alive for the first and last time.

Faith is For Flowers

God isn't listening, but kitty's
foot prints paint the horizon;
leaping around the sunset
sky strokes of green and purple.
Pause and breathe in deep
that hazy valley smirk. An air
so polluted it rests golden on
any tongue brave enough to
lick. This is the gilded age;
We are the chosen people.
Kitty laughs and leaps through
the mash potato sky that
stares down on me so grim.
A white teeth of cloud devour
kitty and suddenly there is no
artist, no God, no eternity.
I'll put my faith in anything;
I'm just an old dog who
can't learn any new tricks.
I bear down on all fours
and wag my tail in the sunset
as I drift off again, lost pup.

Half Awake

Sure. Imaginary, ordinary, inbetween.
Sure. Just right. The days wink by
like the twinkle of stars haunting
each passing night, passing week,
steadily passing life; a life that
suddenly seems more real, more
precious, more sudden, more
stout, more important, more,
more, so much more. Life. Sure.

The black sky seems so empty,
so distant, so vast and vacant;
but suddenly so heavy, too much
for one man to shoulder night
after night. The days seem so
much shorter, twelve months
isn't enough; let alone four
weeks or seven days or
twenty four hours or
sixty seconds. Always more.

Sure. It seemed so easy, so
little effort to watch it all
fade past; crossing out days
on a calender, setting alarms,
daylight saving switch twice
a year, and on and so forth.
Routine. Sure. But it's crushing
me now; everything I try to tenderly
grasp suddenly too much to swallow.

The sun goes down and up and
down again; resting and starting
and stopping and pitterpattering
like a slow heart or footsteps or a
child humming a tune. The nights feel
painstakingly short and the days
march on endlessly. The sun
and the moon become one and
bleed into each other across the sky.

Black becomes blue and down
becomes up. Flowers frown
in the summer snow while
the winter heat wave welts
the front lawn. My murky
reflection in a puddle stares
off to the side impatiently. As if
days meant so much more. Sure.

The Awful Rowing Toward God

Oh, who am I kidding?
I've been there too;
in the garage, the engine running.
Oh, I've been there too.

And I've been there on the hill,
in the chair at 8 AM. Dancing
in a circle, oh, la la la.
Oh, I've been there too.

I've watched the dark moving
in the corner. The lights turned
out. Asking, which way is
home, Mister?

I've breathed in intense, those
fumes of life. Listened for the
music swimming back to me.
No signs to tell the way.

I fingered the keys debating.
I locked the door. The song
remembers better than I do.
The motor growling louder than the music.

And I was not afraid. The music
came back to me; but life
continued to escape as each deep
breathe felt more alive.

There were no signs to tell
the way. So I just sat there, my
grip on the steering wheel slowly
relenting with each deep breath.

So I danced in a circle. Locked in
the chair at 8 AM. In the garage,
the engine running. Kidding no one.
Oh, I've been there too.

Annie's House

Annie's house is sparse these days. I walk with strangers through the hollowed remains of her long abandoned hideaway. But her tiny footsteps still creak through the silence. And her dreams still dangle in the air. And I can almost feel her pen on my page; I can almost feel her hand on my face. But Annie doesn't live here any more.

Tumble and Crash

The rain drops fall into life like
we do. I see the rain pour and
all I see is my self and my
brother, years younger, rolling down
a grassy hill. I see the streets
flood and all I see is myself
growing slowly older, drowning
in life. I see droplets as they
bead on my window and all I
see are little pieces of me
being passed on to every
hand that I shake and every
body that I hold. The leaves soak,
the stench of rain reeks and rises
from the cold cement, the day sky
herds away for cover from the
clouds; but all I can see is the
tumble and crash of life - playing
in the mud, diving right in the
waters as they rise. Now! Life! Drenched!

"It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky. Between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart."

Back in the states. Two new ones.

Hatching

The day breaks. Birds announce the morning.
The horizon slowly secrets blue
until the sky begins to gently
shimmer. The frigid air prods away;
"oh, you're fine," it whispers, "the darkness
has fled, surrendered - we've won." But the
sun is nowhere to be found. Morning
teases and flirts, but still struggles to
break through. It waits in the pregnant sky
for the redeeming sun before it
gives itself away. While the birds call
and the frigid air prods and the blue
sky teases, building on each other
as if leading to one climactic
squeal of morning, the truth is that the
sun is patient, working with vigor
and expertise, never once missing,
it intently approaches until
finally the sky drowns with
just enough life. The day breaks.

In This City I Fall Back in Love with You, Poetry

I stare you in the eyes as a counterpart, my darling. The city has lifted me off my feet and flung me soaring to the heavens - the life astounding! Every direction I look, every face I see, Keats and Byron stare back reminding me just what it is to wonder, to tumble and fall into life, to soar endlessly through the ages like ancient songs still familiar to modern ears. I crash into the city and watch as life shakes loose from every crevice and dances through the evening sky. Everything is soaring; Rome only exists amongst the clouds. Here I see every man, past and present, in the eyes of the scattered, chaotic masses and here I see every man of the future in the dust.

Fine Then.

One last one before Europe consumes me. See you in a month or so.

Stay. Ridiculously. Happy.

Oh Lord, isn't that sour. Good bye is
never easy, but for now it's all we
have. I hope you're wild. Go take adventure
on just like you're God creating the Earth -
it's everything, but, you really can't
screw up. Reach for the highest falls and the
grandest splashes and the loudest screams and
the rainiest nights and the hollowest
canyons and the most ferocious beds and
the rarest views and the harshest dreams and
the bravest wild, wild, wild yonder. Breathe it
all in and let it take you over so
massive that you can barely stand. Fall, fall
to your feet and stare up at the heavens
and see it all - look for every star and
every floating rock and every
comet and every blistered, battered
moon knowing that somewhere far, far away,
someone else is looking at the same moon
understanding for the first time just how
grand everything really is; just how
massive and untamed everything is;
just how little we really are and how
we're only lucky enough to see the
pretty colors hiding all the secrets
of the universe. Beneath the scene there
is more than we'll ever be able to
comprehend, something so brilliant and vast
that we can't even fathom, even when
we begin to wonder and dream we fall
ever so short. Even when we pick it
all apart and tear at it or scrape and
scratch we barely begin to see; only
in the destruction of these surroundings
do we begin to see how fragile and
precious and truly remarkable this
life really is; only in drowning do
we really see light; only in darkness
do we truly breathe; only in dying
do we come to appreciate this life.

Blending

New one. 4/20/07-5/10/07

Blending

Oh the random apartments! Oh the red plastic cups! The rage! The trance! The muuuuuuuuuuusic! Oh the twinkling, flickering Christmas lights twisting around us like the stars of the most distant galaxies, sprawled across the wall like our bodies dancing in the next room. I’m dancing with my friends. I’m dancing with strange girls I’ve never seen. I’m dancing dancing dancing with boys and girls and boys. I’m feeling some body I can't identify. I’m feeling its wrap around me and its tug and its gentle slide up and down. I’m feeling this body and we're sharing bodies and we're becoming the same body and finding our way to a bed covered with other guests' clothes, exchanging bodies atop the mound of cigarette stenched winter coats and scarves and gloves. We burrow through and break each other and roll to the floor and find ourselves always fleeing for the wrong embrace. We dig into the wounded wooded floor one in the same, tangled and twisted and preparing for liftoff as we soar through the ceiling towards the clouds and the great release of the Milky Way.

Oh the excitement! Oh the flash and radiant red juices soaring around and splashing and spilling and hanging on to our clothes to remind us the next morning just where we were last night. Oh the countless tapped shoulders in vein, all for missing friends, the strange looks and goddesses and loose belt buckles and tainted necks and fingers crawling beneath clothes like fugitive centipedes looking for a place to lay. In a fast moment we're all in the same stupor, we're all singing along to the teenage camp make out songs of our parents, we're ecstatic in this moment of misguided nostalgia and flooded bodies and grave decisions by overflowing skulls. And over there a girl screams but everyone plays along and joins her and shouts and bellows and laughs. Oh the excitement of the moment missed by sleeping beauties on the sofa waiting for that kiss from some prince pauper peeking where he has no business and making empty deposits of fortunes promised and never fully realized. None of us ever really stay where we belong. All these smiling faces are the promised spoils of climbing over fences and exploring back yards and running away for a few hours and never settling for the threat of that nice, neat guidebook that was never distributed.

Oh the soiled pants and ripped shirts and missing braziers and socks thrown across the room! Oh the missing shoes and torn egos and blistered virginities and that teary eyed girl apologizing on her phone to a wrong number in some state she's never been. Oh the smoking smokers who don't really smoke but refuse to turn down anything on a night so positive and clear, a night so foggy and misconstrued and teased and tarnished and beautifully painted with well traveled tongues having had the pleasure of exploring many mouths and scars and skin and all the unseen. Everyone is well traversed and everyone is bruised. Like a candle the night flickers softer and softly, simmering to a moody cool and purple, the feel of a soft pillow is everywhere.

Oh the mundane nights! Oh the stellar! Oh the splendor of life as heart rates rise and fall and submit. How the cool bountiful air runs up and down my hand randomly interlocked with yours. Your lips wreak peach and chomp on bubble gum and cigarettes and gleam in the moon light. Everything has a current, everything a free flowing waterfall, only stopping to let go, leak into the bushes or spew on the front porch next to shiny new shoes and raven red lips squealing, only stopping to clinch on to scrapped knees after the tumble over the curb and slimy kiss in the gutter. How we'll march to the beach like ancient armies, we'll be swans on the lake or mermaids clamoring for air as we lay star struck on the sand, reaching for the heavens and squeezing the sky into submission just before we tumble around on the sand in confusion and delight.

Oh the rearranged mornings! The feeling lost and the feeling of being lost. How the face staring back at me is not the face I remember and the face breathing down my neck is one I’ve never seen and my socks are no where to be found while my pants lay sprawled across the floor having scurried away from my hips hours ago. The aroma of the room is no longer the fine stench of surplus and excess and singing, dancing, drowning roust, but rather an odd scent of dimness and down and dreary, muddy eyed, mistakes and regrets beneath the throbbing walls and expanding craniums. Oh the sunlight tearing through my skin and eating away at my eyes as I walk out the front door! Oh the painful, piercing steps down the sidewalk towards anywhere! The morning is lost and the day scatters.

Paint Set Sun Set

Old one.

Paint Set Sun Set

God tried to paint the sunset tonight,
but I think His paint set spilled.
Cause the sky was pink and the clouds were gold
and my heart was filled, my tears took hold
and I let go of the steering wheel
came crashing into the highway divider.

Wake up, find the world stopped;
the world all frozen and still.
Tears clinging to my mother's cheek
as she grasps the telephone screaming,
choking and hoping out of disbelief;
grabbing on to anything she can throw.

My eyes open and watch it again.
rewinding and finding the exact moment
I gave up and let go,
let God take hold, let God take control.
Watching my car come crashing down,
spinning around, exploding upon hitting the ground.
Somehow worse than dreams of drowning,
explosions and Trojan wars and nights,
cold nights sleeping on the floor.

Life flashes by backwards from there:
the accident, my last night, and so on.
Watching every tear and every smile in reverse.
My birth, mother's arms welcoming
me to this curse, this life free,
this life that overwhelmed me and pushed
and pulled and ate away till I asked,
begged and pleaded to be taken.

More, More, More

Being rejected by Loyola's literary magazine again = lame
Being recognized by drunk girl at party for recent reading = awesome
An old one from October:

more, more, more

we laid on the floor.
you were drunk and i was tired,
you were bored, i admired,
but i pretended we were in love
while we stared up above
at the ceiling,
the wall paper peeling
like our fragile lives.
your words pierce me,
as i look back at you and dive
into the tidepools of your eyes
and swim around in our imaginary
love affair, based only
in our collective drowning.
based in our desire
for some life more astounding,
less boring and less drunk,
more soaring and more spunk,
more lives lived in love on the floor.

While You Were Sleeping ...

Two poems, Bust it For Justice reading at Loyola 4/18/07

"Can you see anything in the dark, with your sunglasses on?" she asked me. "The big show is inside my head," I said

First, a moment for Kurt Vonnegut.

Second, another poem. I promise eventually their will be something other than bad prose poems, but thanks to my writing teacher, who is more impressed by prose poems than verse poems or anything that resembles verse, I've spent a lot of times this semester experimenting with prose poetry. I smushed this one together into prose and liked it better that way. So it goes. So it goes.

Fall 2006

The leaves fall and change, infecting each page and each day, each love and each way, falling vertical like the seasons and bar codes, strangling the modern man into submission where he stands, where he falls on to the pile of leaves in the front yard wishing he were young again for a while.

The trees stand tall and bend, they don't break like the man, who holds his woman’s hand and fends off other suitors so he can build his white picket fence and fill his drive way with cement and his kids will sign their names and imprint their hands and it'll outlast the change, snowfall and rain, outlast the painful divorce and hours of remorse, hours crying on a pillow at night, squirming and screaming all broken and falling - all sad driving back to mommy's house after a weekend with dad - that painful, awkward silence and exchange of kids like their goods, not something you did together, bound under one roof forever, bound like soldiers and slaves - or are they same? - bound together, bound for some buried treasure on a hot, twilight sea, under the stars, man and wife to be, hand outstretched reaching for the heavens, unafraid of death and all the bad things awaiting under the eclipse, cause this life is fixed - they're destined to fail after this fine sail, this desert island fantasy only leads to life in some shanty - some beautiful, disgusting white picket fence, two story, four bedroom, three bath, pool and spa, prefurnished mess in a nice quiet neighborhood, surrounded by fake smiles and the leased luxury cars of doctors and lawyers divorced three times, unable to even commit to a car for a few years, it's only nickels and dimes, hiring some illegal immigrant to make his baby shine like another mirror to stare back into and watch how disfigured and diminished and empty his soul has become, faded and fallen like the leaves on the front yard and the oncoming breeze and talks with the kids about the birds and the bees, all awkward and uncomfortable now, missing some former self, some how less a man than one used to be, less at home and more at sea, staring at the woman laying down at his side on this old water bed where we made the kids and said all those "I love you" things we really didn't mean - things we never understood and should have saved for the kids.

The kids who we've shipped far away to some overpriced college where they're hid from the mess we've become and someday they'll become because life is a cycle and we never recycled because we never really cared and because everything was perfect till now, in bed, staring at the ceiling, more alone and barely believing that this is where life is and will be - this is life forever, like that promise we made, another lie that we said in front of God and everyone, cause "I do" and I did, but now I miss the kids and I'm afraid they're more like me and my father, why did we even bother?

They've got a destiny, they're just like me, that's who they were meant to be and it hurts when they don't call because I know they're making the same mistakes I did and they'll feel the same heartbreaks and some day they'll lay next to a woman who they hate, just like their broken father; their soulless, empty father washing his face, praying he can somehow wipe it away and get out of this place, this disgrace of a life, this battered and disgusting mess he calls home, that woman he calls wife - did he give it his best or did he just fall, change like the leaves and ignore it all, ignore his kids and all the things he did, all the people he ran over, all the emptiness he feels as he rakes the leaves in the front yard.

Poetry is Dead

Oh God, here it goes again. Remember, I don't care what you think - this all comes from rejection in the first place.

In the City I Fall Out of Love with You, Poetry

I walk on the train and sit alone like I've done so many times before. I stare out the window at the tribal dance of flames through Chicago. But this time Allen Ginsberg sits down next to me. I turn to Allen perplexed and ask, "You're still alive?" He stares at me bug eyed and retorts, "Is it that big a deal if I show up in a few of your poems?" I nod in agreement and try to mention how similar this is to Whitman and the Supermarket. He tells me that I’m ridiculous. And he's "sick of hearing about that stupid poem." He points to the corner of the train and says, "Go ask Baudelaire about getting drunk and then you'll really understand." But Baudelaire has already passed out with a ginger smile across his face. Suddenly Ginsberg’s head starts sprouting endless coils of hair. And then he's himself but seven years old. Seven year old, long haired Allen Ginsberg is my child. He smiles and drools and holds my hand. He whispers "Daddy" before thrusting his arm down my throat and pulling my intestines out. He howls, he giggles, and he eats them. Michael Drayton and Thomas Carew stare at the child smugly and whisper to each other. "What happened to the verse?" asks Carew as he points at my child. "No structure?" adds Drayton. They kiss each other and they walk off the train holding hands. The child Ginsberg stares at me. How did we get here? Pablo Neruda is breathing down my neck from the seat behind me and William Blake, etching graffiti into the train ceiling, bites his tongue till it bleeds.

We all get off at the same exit and stare at the flickering fire that is Chicago. Everyone dances around burning piles of Norton Anthologies and the Selected Works of so and so, and so and so, and so and so, and so. The child Ginsberg reaches for the fire, Whitman contemplates the scene and plays with his beard, I begin to cry. I love you, I love you, I love you.