one flight

I’ve seen this car freshener feather in my dreams
Where the dirt is rust red
and young trees bend over like primitive rabbit traps
Cars park on front lawns
Mistletoe hangs from tree tops
Durham stole my fire and your flowery gift
Here I've found the greener grass
and cabbies who open doors for you

dgzdfjzfd;klhjsfbgjk

stupid
stupid
crayola indiglo
perfect specimen
touch me right here
my pants glow in the rain foreets night
i want it so
ripping my own flesh
helps to pass the time
i hate my job
184 dollars and 76 cents
thats the equivelent to time spent doing shit that you don't care about
buy me a new corvette
i'll sleep in the woods in an old style bath tub
allen ginsberg is better than you
i learned all your songs and i know how to fuck by the sound of a place mate on television
oh the happy little trees never quite deserved you
if you can't find the peace of mind to get the emotional rollercoaster in to the amusment park, then i guess you try borrowing the start up capital
wring of lingring digerydoos i can't tell you you

three toes are better than one

elevator door never really closes
as you pass the all state office
neith the obgyn
some where south of all of this i can see a man in rags
laughing bout the life time spent caring deeply for all this shit
stream lined sewage to the old dark wisdom
that the world wasn't built to accomidate you
just one more trip down memory lane
and i hate myself this morning

what happens to the sloth whos resolve has disolved
does he start to look for more from life
climb to the ground and shake of the mold
cut his finger naills
and dress to impress all of you
wonder in to new york
find a job
a secritary
bmw and a pention in a place he don't belong

for now you swallow lightning bugs
like your the one who thought up love
and pigeons are just filthy doves
like you and you and me

so swallow hard the truth and
bite all the hands that feed you cause there be tender meet in the palm
just incase you ever wondered
and curse all but the ground that lets you stand watchful of the rest of the parisites that fuck buttery toast

jeez

that one's chewin on a little bit of oregon
an array of main ideas left for home
air in a friendly philly waits
married to korean gym
new york will claim an unmarked name
entirely told of boston cream coffee
wild berry tales from tennessee
jonesin for nevadian firework nights
one in the jon sipping on malibu and ice
cash and bonds from vermont
aim for canadian comfort
war wicks walk cali coasts
a messed up face wandering this place
cousins washing tons in cold rivers
a bird that flies by colorado style
smiles all over the world
lizards crawling up old men in mountain tops

we all spill the wine
give in to gravity
and everyone sits down to jersey supper

this year Carolina

caught up
searching for the beauty in this place
dismal arbor bluffs
are these dried up days
under dried up skies
on a browned piece of land
a retired top hat
a picnic in abandoned cotton
and face-paint smiles
there's a secret they're all keeping
and wayworn ways are contagious
like a yawn

Searching for the sound of water rushing
Retracing footprints washed away
By wind or rain or breath
Just wanted to get a taste
Maybe see mad eyed reflection
In pitch dark, only a burning point
Illuminating heaven bound smoke

One road takes you to New Jersey borealis
Explosions in the sky expose
The layers of dust on this town

One of these roads leads far away
From where I lay my hat
And the trap of always knowing
When the lights will change

One is open ended
Paved with yellowed newsprint

One takes you where there’s
Sad fingered man whose truck
Won’t run, and women wonder
What those fields on the other side
Of the mountain smell like

One will lead you to the desert
Dry as earth baked bone
Where miracle sunrise makes
Painful break at the horizon

One should lead to left over
Gun powder
Lost it’s viciousness
To gain independence

I know one leads to warm bed
And a girl with honey scented neck
And tender hands,
Grasping tinder, dried grass and
Pieces of past ghosts

One leads to clear streams
Where the water tastes cool
And rushes loud

under the ground

when the flames are extinguished a little too late
or the flywheel comes through your skid plate
when the blood runs cold
when your tumors grow older that your children
when the sun sets last on your poor soul
when the agony takes its final toll
and tommorrow is watching from distant shores
i've come visit you under the ground
the bone spurs cut you deep and true
they've made a real damn mess of things for you
and the surgery only prolongs pain
and there's precious little point to go through it all again
just drop in on me under the ground

I tend to linger in the mind numbing silence of 3am, and the fact that I think my cats understand me better than any human ever will. It's hard to figure out what comes next when you can't even locate the pack of cigarettes you just had in your hand and as you're drownd in someone elses insanity flarring across the screen, you wonder if it's possible that somewhere down the road, it'll all fall into place. I have come to this conclusion; No matter how out of control your world spins, the music will always play so there is hope and my head doesn't feel so heavy.

Crash-test Dummy

Hey your mother needs a ride
I'd take her up the road
but there was this truck
she'll call a fucking taxi

she's drunk

So the woman came down again
said what the shit is "anxiety"
told me to get more jobs
I said I would

I wont

She's sick of picking up the peices
I'm tired of throwing them all around
these messes on the floor
The mess inside my head

Box upon Box

The dogs are back again
this time they're barking barking
Wet pets! Wet pets! Wet pets!
with the door knob in their mouths

so let them in

Licking shaking slippery
tail biting bafoons
The rain slicks off their backs
and reeks to the floor

Let them out

My face met the steering wheel today
as my foot failed to suduce the break
Now I drive myself wild
Running the whole time

into everything

I can't figure out where I am
Or how I got here
Time spent or not
"Hey, what'd ya do to your face?"

It musta been that truck....

what do you feel in the frost bite days

so they split the atom
and the sound barrier snapped
but the ethics of a man in here
leave the soul feeling so trapped

i use to know this thing that made
my soul grow so insane
the time well spent did comfort me
until my heart went lame
and now i know that i'm without
a few pieces vital true
and i know that somthing lies just passed
the last place i loved you

and happiness eludes us as we try to keep the peace
no unkind words ave been disbursed in fear of how you'd break
but i've seen it all this first sad time
i'm cold enough to drop the dime
as i listen to the rim shots of the misplaced memories
and know that though uncomfortable tommorow isn't fate

i know the way you feel
as I seperate your perfect form
and where to lend the heart beat
to make sure that you keep warm
but i'm drowning in the last few days
that we have been apart
and i ramble incoherent until the next false start

strips of hair
dyed acetylene burn pink
searching through a book
on Quantum Electro Dynamics
for the real meaning of uncertainty

i left you in so many different towns

theres too much blood on my guitar
my finger burnt from tip to joint
she slept naked in my luxury
trying hard to make a point
hours passed before i asked
if one of us had better leave
she smoke my only cigarette
and burnt holes into my sleeves

soon days turned into nightcaps
and broken bread was passed around
two weeks i borrowed pieces of the fools love i had found

shaking cold december mornings from our hair in mid july
i had to asked her saturday
how anything survived
when the train still leaves virginia
under cloak and dagger grace
and the pelicans are careful not to look a real man in the face

she said don't forget the morning
cause we're all doing our best
not ruffle any feathers
that aren't lavishly dressed

so the dry ink smell of new tattoo
wakes me cautious
mid day draft
and i've never asked permission
she says simply pay me back

now i'm standing in the doorway
trying hard to hide my tears
ain't much to say in knowing
that i don't belong in here
so i've booked the next hotel
about 12 miles out of town
and left damp pre dawn virginia
without so much as a sound

Im starting to think
I need more sleep
or just
less track of time

3 images

ancient boards creaking beneath my feet
silhouette cut into headlights
the helplessness of being within inches

like the ticking of a clock

I've tried to suck every drop from this pen
taken the wrong approach to wine
closing in on a faster gait
goodbyes like that'll never get you to heaven
lets meet in the dark for a token fix
thinking about all those miles I didn't drive
please don't turn me away from your door
I won't be thirsty, I've still got the sea
these words are old but these thoughts are new
some weird kinda reflection coming off that gun

BOOM

tired of lying bout how i got this scar

theres too much broken glass to be certain
but i think most of this blood is mine
i wish i'd seen that freight train coming
but i must have blinked a second longer than i thought

picking pieces from my palms for about a week now
thinking bout how i just got out and walked away
what i said upon reciing the phone call
that it must have been stolen as i slept

now the hitcher i picked up to take to frisco
has no place left to store his dreams
and every time i close my eyes
i snap awake hearing his screams

but i never caught his name
and it seems i got away
a broken arm and all the glass one man could eat
but that was long ago
and i've since put some miles
under these swollen feet

made my way back sometime later
and found a lonley widow weeping in that street
i asked her if she'd like a cup of coffee
and where a old twisted soul could stop to eat

she said her shade of blue was left from morning
and her fiance was never coming home
she lost hm few years back
found him near the railroad tracks
in stolen car where he bled out alone

Everything is Karaoke

this is where you feel that action
to be plugged directinto the screen
it's precicse selection
if that's the right move, go with it
don't let 'em catch their breath
bottles may break and that chick
just ain't gonna stop dancing no matter
how tight those pants are

that table stretches on forever
slide down a glass of shoe polish
like grainy old western movie, when
they never shoot the piano player
we've all got our own motions,
splendid automation, and you
can see it in their hair
every word is true, if you believe
that sort of thing

sound hanging down
like london fog, getting under your fingernails
where times like these live
where thoughts don't get lost in translation
where that guy just walked
into the wrong bathroom stall

so grab another taste of cherry flavored
lip bomb, clear out that room right quick
and lick my ears one more time for luck
go on, kid
yer a fuckin STAR!

Want Ad

craving life more then subjects

craving rapture and tears
sunset after sunset
dreams in a breeze
pain and footsteps
heavy eyelids and overworked organs
words that fail horribly
hotizons starlight and lust
tables of empty beer bottles
mediocre women shaking magically
silhouettes in crazy lighting
aromas of far off places
maybe somewhere eastern
landscape and creatures
tongues and ships and visions

nature of the beast

in these science fiction days
the buffalo and mammoth
have left empty silhouettes on the horizon of my psyche
but the urge to chase and hunt
still rumbles in my calves

the gate rust silent in the long winded afterr dawn conversations
i'lll sleep and hour
and hour or two
the one more time around the moon till i drop in on leftover lamentation
for a bite to eat and a warm bath
i built a mountain of idiocy to get a better view of mein kampf

for Lillian, in light of a dieing grandfather

Lily flower of her time
Living Laughing Lovely Fine
head gone for long
heart strong
smells of a nicotine song
No one has forgotten
even though your time has passed
We hold tight to Lilly’s petals
that will forever last:
Perfect Potato Soulfood Maker
made fine to wine and dine
Classy Cozy Comfy Rosy
A flower of her time
laughing loudly picture box
Christmas Elvis sings
secret rooftop rendezvous
precious shinning things
friendly fish in storybooks
bird pool green and interesting
brazen quails all in a line
A lovely flower of her time
Now mother’s tears begin to fall
so we say good night to Lilly Doll
"Till tomorrow then!"
forever framed in memories

Long ago, someone wrote in the sand......Wade

Concealing repressed drops of feeling
now rushing as white waterfalls
down into the rivers that run through the valleys
and into the ocean love flows
flows soft down the cheeks of a lover
for the lover loves the other deeply so

Yet thunder rings through the skies
and from her passionate eyes
the rain does pour
as titian-like tides
and the swells that arise
trap her on the shore

And to venture to sea
would surely be
painful upon return
but to stay on the land
with her feet stuck in sand
the lover’s soul does burn

So she wades in-between
the waters of green
and the sand and the shells on the shore
with tears in her eyes
she silently finds
tranquility in a heart so sore

The tides for now stay
and keep her away
until soon
by the moon
of a new year to bloom
the young lover will be set free

The swells they will cease
and the tide will decrease
and she will rain love in the sea

he ate shit everyday for thirty years. he adjusts his tie in the mirror. kisses his ever aging wife, with her sagging tits & her 6am martini breath. off to the office to get bent over his desk...in a not so literal/not so proverbial sense. turning his ass out for a good pention package. traffic on the way to the office. eventually he stops on the bridge & gets out of his car for some fresh air. he leans against the rail to look into the water. shrieks & shrills, siren & prayers. in the distance a 1oo foot tidal wave of hellfire aimed at him- throbbing. oh god yes. like stairing down a broken nose... to find a beautiful stanger

Before I Beat Your Brains In......

Am I trying too hard to make you hate me
cause these eyes are tired
and I just want to sleep you off already
It's my cat and I against the world!
I know you hate that part
cause you had a teacher once.....

i'm gonna cum

i'm just putting the pieces together
the glass in my foot would probobly fill in the gaps
but it's been there so long i may just leave it
posterity you know
i lay awake till the sun shows traces of illumination
and i let the world slip away
just making sure that tommorrow will be there when i get up
theres a fly on the wall
and he's reading my thoughts
so i'm thinking real hard about his wife in a sexual waltz
easy comoe easy go
got this world looming close
and i feel the edge coming clse
i feel responsible for my lack of action to date
but the theater is ripe for gorrillas
and i'm growing a taste for blood
placate my insecurities
till there gone
and i'll drink to the new life i bought from a catalouge and ordered over the internet with my gold club masterbation machine
bleed for what you need to live
cause life aint worth living if you have nothing good to die for

A strong jaw
a trick of light
or a scar
and a guitar
and the field mouse
who’s fields are on fire
Running
living in dreams and Dance

I like your idea of a high school play;
Juvenile, an erotic musical embarrassment
The magnets in your mattress
and your Eyes
left me shy and stupid
wondering where you came from
when you came from
what you see

Concern in spoiled night
and homeless Peruvian house guests
Tinkering with gingerbread molding
and Jeff Buckley records
Of all of it
I’m just glad you could live vivid
and I learned relaxation
under the power of Nina Simone
in-between deep deep breaths

This is weird
Like a waking moment
in which I could live forever

focus

soft rain on a soft day
no pushing, no struggle
just a marriage, a cooperation
a well disciplined machine
silhouettes in the distance
lighting cigarettes
& tying their shoes
some days everything floats
the newspapers are blank
its the equasion when it
spits out the same command
a rhythmic stream of conscious
understanding ambient noise
it's motives
it's vinacular
become what you experience
touch the hard line that
seams the sky to the ocean
trace it with your finger
for this moment
the horizon belongs to you
...focus

eleven sparks

the ghost of a New Orleans
tipping his hat
and then the waitress
like the coreographer just got fired
and the chefs come out of the kitchen
but the audience is gone
minutes earlier
someone whispered, "fire"

the alien in each of us
under the strange lighting of this world
with LSD
we first concieve
all the strangeness that we've seen
bipedal bottles of organs
typing resumes, making love

pain killers making the stomach turn
and the skin flash white
at 5 in the morning
one look outside and the weatherman's wrong again
but the clock's right, always is
trying to sleep with the lights on

this wine stain
haunting me
with nights never remembered

the promise of rock 'n roll morning
matches the grime under my nails
I never expect "O Tenenbaum"
to end as an instrumental

the bus boy
clinking glasses
the milk shake machine
drowning out the piped in
muzak

something about
the shape of lips
on german porn starlets
during anal

and Ian's story:
cowboy boots
a black lincoln
a red ring masters jacket
pill after pill of morphine
Maryland

never hearing the sound
of eye lashes cutting through air
a small girl in tight t-shirt
with the light playing just right
against her face
small towns scattered off in the night
with mad lustful teens
unbuttoning lowrise jeans
there's a mottled cat
perched in a window
tail moving slowly

these imposing sunrises
inviting themselves into mornings
better left as unmaid night
tossing hair, stealing bodies, keeping secrets
of whispers in smothering sheets
the used and the savored

brought up in Vegas
off the strip, no neon in her soul
the fantastic way
she lets no sentence escape
without a well placed superlative

blood in my shoe

propped myself up against this old abandoned freight car long neglected and ripe with age
twisted my foot a ways back running from the bull through the loose soil
set my roll upon the ground and waited for the silence to pass
beautiful night sky
turning purple black
the rain came slow but i didn't mind
just good to rest without running for a night
tommorrow i'll get back to the race

UNTITLED

I keep finding myself in the same place, smoking the same cigarettes, talking about the same things with the same people. Bored. Loneliness in numbers. Even a crowd can't kill this. Still coughing up gunk and nicotine, spitting yellow. Still reading 12 books, not understanding a word. Re-reading the same lines, forgetting where I left off. Still not undertstanding. Once again, the same conversation. Bullshit theories and cosmic nonsense. We're not making any sense but we're both pretending we understand. "What were we talking about?" Picking up where we left off. "Time travel," "AH, YES! It is a state of mind." "Well, the laws of physics state..." and on we go, until the coffee goes cold or cigarettes become stale. Even a crowd can't kill us.

For Johnny

no one who likes the Shangri-La's
can be all bad

well, maybe good-bad
but not evil

tuck-in truth sleepyhead

in-between the time the wine
hits the back of your throat
there’s a million moments
making you choke

now everything gives you cancer
George Carlin said it best
earth’s got her back covered
that’s why death is spread through sex

for we are but a mockery
a mere experiment
to please the giggling gods above
until they are content

to recognize the eyes of spies
to tame the plague of slander
seduce the beast whilst she feasts
and live in the love you hand her

within it all
or maybe under
someone snores
and roars with thunder

seven pence nonsense
this is all too raw for me
I just want to live within your face
where all the words are free

there’s a true child
and a cold hand
in a battlefield
with will to stand

coughing up ipecac memories

it was closing in on winter
the air had chilled the baron streets days before
those fortunate enough to clamber indoors had done so by now
the rest fought valiantly over steam vents in sidewalks

i helped a traveler afford to feed his dog
now i was broke and hungry
not a familiar face in the sea of commuting sycophants
starched and pressed and pleated making a b-line to the perfect job miles above the filthy street corner refugees

i don't know what it is to be home

looks the same in Altoona

I looked up tonight
saw a hole
you could drive your city through
saw the perfect formation of wind
blow wide open
a framed neon cigarette burn
that's where everything that's spilt
finally makes it's way
saw a white hot ring
you can see it around my eyes
saw the end of the light
measured the distance in waves
and I made sure
to exhale
create a disturbance

yeah, I looked up tonight...

christmas in the sand

pieces of men not walking
not living
not alive
just pieces
for a cause
for an escape
for freedom
now pieces
in wheelchairs
on street corners begging to live or die

anything but this they cry anything but this

the short haired girl, after the party

little Wynona of the suburbs
curled up in a quilt on a second hand couch
saying she's a good baby and a pill head in seperate breaths
wrapping herself tighter in a valium hug and Johny Cash lyrics
this whole house- slivers of the 1950's

let me tell you

i'll be brief in this recolection
i devoured worlds and killed more than my fair share
i miss the simple principles
i swallowed arsnic until i couldn't feel my hands
awakening under blue skys and a beautiful array of birds

this isn't the first time
and the last time will shock them all but when i'm old and grey


how do you perceive perfection
is it a sad collection of words or a single drop of blood
i promise to be more someday
but for now the words i empart upon you are as follows

the night is meant to destroy and come morning your headache will remind you
the blood flow will drive you
and i will be there swinging from a rope with a smile on my face. breathing clearly, neck in tact and telling all who pass that yes it is that bad and no
i don't care
for tommorrow tommorrow
you may be

looking at this electric drill i can't help but see hundreds of world machines jostling their very own bolts and screws loose under their own monotonous powers- the tech droids come to me in the cold tundra nights with the breeze and their shining stainless steal probiscuses enter my flesh more like the jowels of rabid pitt bulls then a surgical needle- when the Control Board first issued the implants we all had a good laugh that the advanced mathematics and the quantum level physics were the first of the black arts to disapear, their truth proving to be the most imaginative fabrications of all- the cylinders side by side in my guts are churning and gurgling now, pushing my heart and it's cardiac muscles into an overdrive completely unimagined in YOUR TIME- mech creatures with their eight sided wings and phlorescent green ocular cavities have gathered at the windows again- on the stiller nights, me and jose sit on the front stoop and listen so hard that we almost hear the solar wind scattering bits of our atmosphere into the nebulae- the oddest thing about the neutron ray is that there's absolutly no way to know if they've passed through us, i suppose one just has to assume, with the odds and all out here, you know- out there on the neon horizon we have to marvel at all the gleam of these alloys under that electric orange star- "Why did the stars stop falling, Daddy?"- the threads tear out accompanied by a noise that no ear can hear simply because it refuses to

Carpe Canis

curl up in a nice warm oven
home is just a broken bottle
anyplace to put up your feet
scraping along carpet imprint
jaw pried open
hard to get a nap in here
fuck that cover charge

Opened every door, every drawer
looking for air that
hasn't been recirculated
the breath of opossums
mirror eyes floating under bridges
and patio furniture
gives a beautiful stink
to an otherwise bone dry night

draining dry a frozen moment

leash-lead through this sleepy, hollow chapter
bound down again
frying under the blistering sun
frozen to the pavement
sick, tired, and empty
wanting quiet cups of coffee
and unspoken understanding
to look up at foreign night skies
through lemon leaves and smoke curls of a moment
haunting and surreal
to be lost

face

false alarm dearest me
the rain brought allignment
a sense of security that i can't comment on right now
think i'll head west again
think i'll drink the warm winds
and blah blah blah this is all bullshit i hate

the sound of a dry heave (through a million dollar smile)

come and let your blood flow child
i'm not here for cathardic misgivings no
but the role of tortured soul played through and through has me typecast and you come with your eager desires to know what i know
to know me
to understand and undburden your heavy heart onto my plate
from which i will devour your pain and loss

so we'll toast to things like existance you say cheers i say less
tommorrow you'll wonder what i meant when i said you were smaller than the day is ugly

"Can you comprehend infinity? It’s beyond my mental moronic mind."
one poetic explosion
when Bert Reynolds is you breaking point
and Rock-star shades are thrown over derelict hotel rooms
where tired souls sleep together to keep warm

~~~~~~~~
Oh,
by the way,
the movie was
"The Longest Yard"
also staring
Adam Sandler
and
the brutha
from "Good Burger"

there's always a fire and some way to put it out

A tidal wave has been bursting through
shoddy seam work sewn in haste
and I just today learned how to really cry

Not for myself.....no, not at all
for many a tortured soul
often weeps itself away
or wallows in the gray
behind their own swollen eyes

I cry for a man I loved,
the one you killed
the man I know you are now,
I can’t even look at
so I’ll sign these papers
and you leave
while I turn away

I cry for my mothers tears
the ones she crys for her mother
not for loss or death
but for the memories

I cry for my brother
on the front step
waiting with me
when that man forgot about him

I cry for that man
for all the regrets in his life
how he feels when the people laugh and enjoy his food
how he suffers with himself

I cry for the one who married into all of this
how he tries so hard
his monotonous mask
and ignorance

I cry for the kitten
with the terribly blue eyes
the one that runs away
the one I left behind

I cry for the baby
and the babies now
the world they’ll live in
and a hope
that they wont ignore it

I don’t cry for myself anymore
or what I couldn’t mend
or the booze or novocain
the numbness
or the pain in my head
and the scars on my heart

I cry for the falling stars no one sees

Falling Back

I fear my musings this eve
shall be the death of me.
So before they are
presented to me,
I shall retire in a haze unlike one
I have known.
And inspite of everything I have
known, I will thus be unsure.

And have you noted in the
time you have doted that inspite and
inspire are but two figs in the
mire and so close in relation that they invite
all sorts of damnation and anything else that
might disarm or illusion you so?

umbrella shit storms from the holiday seasonings

i have my reasons
and the hamburgler is masturbating angry in the fry pan of the disillusioned kafka fans
but i don't realy mind the smell
theres winter in a daydream and i awkae to snowy nightmares
what a beautiful existance from behind the telephone pole jungles

ok so when you here the jingle about xmas and the woman comes on to tell you the true meaning of it all change your attitude for the rest of the month and be nice to bums and donate to charity buy toys for tots and compliment your friends you really can't stand because folks if radio personalities can pretned to have a soul then so can you

1000 Words

Found an old picture today
hidden under yellowed thoughts
had to drink a gallon of water
left me even dryer
couldn't soak up a drop
spit up dust all over my shoes

That day on the cliff
heading due north
it's been a long time
since she wore her hair like that,
but I can almost
feel it in my face still
draping down

Maybe we didn't know
where we'd find a tree to sleep under
or that Maine has birds
that look suspiciously like penguins
I remember 1000 miles of road ahead
but something about that cliff
and that vertigo
climbing, and the sensation of not quite falling

Henry Hudson looked up at those cliffs
dreaming of spices and women with wine dark eyes
we kicked pebbles over the ledge
with 1000 miles of road ahead
dreamt of dining on rocky beaches
not remembering history
that this way lies nothing but dead ends

"sleep paralyses and faith healers" she exhailed
well, everyone needs someone to put up with

Wine Bottles and Brownstones

I went to Brooklyn tonight
and saw fire cast shadows of you
in the faces of every girl in Williamsberg
I saw the brownstones and wine bottles
you played with in your slow told, tongue rolled stories
thinking of foreign California
and the vegetarian foods you were
learning to cook there
you without wine bottles and brownstones
you with all that ocean layed out

I thought of that time
you rolled a car in Tennessee
and the quilt you wrapped yourself in
and all that stolen time

now who visits your brother in his orange jump suit
who does Roger fall asleep next to
who's drunken eyes listen in my dashboard glow

and the night you dangled out the car window
yelling in french to your mother

I went to Brooklyn tonight
and saw fire cast shadows of you

if this is hell, at least it tastes good

there’s a man wrapped up in a seizure
sewn shut with a guitar string
there’s 70 years of a white-haired rocker
headbop banging in the dark
there’s snot on the floor
and cocaine caught in the folds of a bartenders brain
there’s tonic
and a stomach pain
there’s publications afoot
a pear, a tomato, and NyQuil
there’s a bohemian dream here somewhere
and a girl speculating the validity of rancid organ players
there’s an intense watchful eye
and absolutely no way of getting around this fire hydrant

under the mistletoe-
the narrowing distance between lips
under my eyes-
dark reminders of forgotten sleep

If i have to hear Beautiful Tonight one more time

delilah
on the radio again
turning the screws to everyone with empty arms
who are you thinking of
in this big black lonely soul of a night
and who's warmth are they wrapped up in

delilah,
can't a lone silhouette
stand against these winds
against this horizon
huh? delilah

cuz I know and you know and the bartenders know
a lone silhouette
can taste human salt on their unoccupied lips
alone and poorly lit
over a bottle
that lends something to compare the burning with
other then the sound of a single voice

yes delilah
there's a tier in hell
reserved for romantic radio personalities

what a waste

spilt black coffee
makes for slick black ice
in a frozen sea side night

Hymn

Every time I drop the cellophane
Every time my feet turn lame
Every time it's almost
Every time I breathe in a ghost
Every time I feel some sun stroke
Every time there's burnt throat
Every time this blue rubs off
Every time this red gets dark
Every time a prayer is said
Every time you find my bed

some colors don't taste as sweet
make you hate your own lips
they don't disolve quite right
I'm not quite awake enough for this dream

I try to order coffee in chinese
lose a nail dug deep into flesh
take some comfort in parsnips
and the way you bend your knees

Every time I imagine a sound
Every time the corners aren't round
Every time my teeth turn black
Every time I bite you back
Every tim there's a glint of gold
Every face, every fold

Greek Wedding

dance makes my head spin
I can't find a starting point
to break into
dizzy celebration
moved into hand held serpent-
like form ready to eat it's own tail
and I still don't know how to drink ouzo
but it drinks like licorish
tastes foreign liquor-ish

while I sit there sipping
young women and little boys dance
there's chit-chat, no one talking about the future
but I keep looking over my shoulder
at sad, sore footed girl, keeps checking her phone
waiting for a slow song
another glass of ouzo
only one way to learn
and damn it if I'm not a good student
and I look again
over my shoulder

7:18

next train just half hour, 36 steps away
7 kids think no one knows what's in those
Snapple bottles, stand in current of grease
makes the air thick, they're sliding off
each other, can't quite grip, or hold on,
burning newspapers, turning off street lights
they're hanging off parking garages,
suburban jungle-gym, hiding from one way
traffic, perfect 7-10 split
tonight they'll lie through cell phones
and try not to giggle, a whole other world,
a whole not-jersey, promises of sin
and youth, back of their necks itching,
on fire, breeze feels good
next train still 25 minutes, 36 steps away

one less tree in the world

affected by new
razors of daylight
there's a thought
there's a flick of ash
there's wind

Pining is nine tenths of Murphy's law of love

I see all this love. All this devotion and it makes me want to wretch.
Oft times, I am content (in the very least) with that which I have
obtained. But it isn't the same. It isn't the same as getting so
wound you're bound to spew. To breathe, sigh, live and die for that
one subtle moment of orgasmic recognition.
At first, a flicker in his eye, a tug pulling rank on the corners of his lips.
Then, a hand, misplaced in its rightful position on a limb curving into temptation.
Unto the blissful explosion of life as I knew it, an enraptured kiss followed by
complete and utter fulfillment.
Now exiled, the tumbling of his words would suffice. This alone my indulgence.
Letters slipping together, contorting until wrapped in melodic union.
Not unlike legs, limbs and minds on a night seared into my soul.
Embedded in my spirit, more engrained than any genetic code that he might have spoken of.
Forsaking all convenience I willfully abandoned comfort for boundless love.
And now I am bound, forsaken by the very fate which willed me to pursue beyond comfort.
This love, was not mine to savor nor his to return.

no more from now

Don’t look for treasure in shallow waters
or lose you breath diving into the deep
Just row within lily flowers
and pick one petal to keep
Cause no one can own the nature of things
and a butterfly will die if caged
So try not to blow the dust off it’s wings
or hoard what good this earth makes

simple

creeping up the stair for one more
i scramble the egg of a shoe soul
and break a strong sock in the process
if only i had seen the foot-stool sooner

a grey cat sleeps only on my lap

infection runs through me
wild like geese
spread thin
like melted butter
blind with intention
and oh the noise it makes

disabled verterans day parade float

little innocent day dream
friends of death and indulgance
promise to fall apart giving me somthing tragic to look forward to
and i really don't mind any of this

rain stained sidewalks
cigarette butts
bottles cans and notebooks
broken teeth split fingers
the dirt and blood that won't come off

holding my boarding pass white nuckle tight
the land of coal and iron and desert sand spread out before my tearful eyes
i've waited so long to have nothing to lose
i could chew glass and vomit peace of mind for a dollar and change a quart

he sees me off
i kiss his lips and he gives me a copy of the old man and the sea
kindling for future fires

after shopping

this holiday traffic
in the parkway night
break lights taking on
the attitude of
christmas lights
strung out infinitum
up to the december sky
and the bells
of the salvation army
singing in an imagined ear

like incredible people and great musicians

a light snow never
sticks around long
enough to get filthy

one waking moment

this house is cold and I’m frozen to it
two steps away from out the door
and I’ve finely found something worth the world
and the words
the moments within
the hours
and other increments of time
but I have an oblivious habit
of stumbling straight onto the tracks
resting my head on it’s shoulder
and running the train off it’s path

this house is defiantly and icebox
preserving all within
and Id like to peek behind those doors
runaway with the cat
and o’ a bottle of thick red sin
shout at the sun for waking me up
and the heat rain that makes me dance
and the peace and stinging toes of the snow
and the part of a flame that’s blue
making you wonder
how blue can warm anything at all
and the trees that whisper seduction till my legs throw me up,
(weather I want to or not )
to hide at the top
and see all through a mess of green and growth
and the wind that rustles a butterfly loose of a long enough land
and the pride of a mountain as it steps onto your path
and the little rivers delicately carving trough them,
always on their way to ending the pilgrimage
in Great Mother Ocean
and that fucking ocean, just like the whales within
tossing and turning and playing with you
till she swallows you whole
or gently rolls you back onto the land
and the sand that sticks around
all over everything
for days and weeks and months
till Grim eventually pours it over your dead head
and the music that’s strong and will forever live on
and the dreams and children in the stars
and the moon that smiles and wont let me.....
wont let me
wont
let
me


Sleep


so if you can see through
this wonderful haze
of distant disaster for sure
grab yourself and a smoke
hold on tight
cause this ticket never expires
and you bought one at the door
boarded the train heading for chaos
stowed luggage and all
and somewhere down the line there’s a girl
making love to the tracks and the trees
cause the moon is out along with the wind
and she can’t even think about sleep
and there’s a chance she could wreck the train
or just hop on
heading homeward
instead

help wanted

somewhere in Ti
there's got to be
drunken wandering bohdisatvas
mumbling inaudibly
who can help

somewhere in Heaven
there's got to be
sinners with halos
and a million churches and miracles dedicated to 'em
who can help

somewhere there's people praying
and chanting and meditating and
lighting votive candles

somewhere there's a lotto ticket
or a lunatic with million dollar charisma

somewhere there's a signpost
with a sign on top
pointing the way

somewhere on a hill there's a scarecrow

a few more lines about wine, shocking isn't it

the blood of the bull
and he uncorked it
in the afternoon
making the face
one makes after
slow tugs from wine
that hasn't sat

winter again

this season
the concrete and cold of it all
that wind from which direction

collars pulled up
force the soul deeper down

life takes on
the depressing majesty
of a pendulum

cavities in the waning daylight
like eyelids dropping

even the sun seems listless
especially in late afternoon

but there's a phantom of a promise
in the electric character of these stars
something in what the cold does to the light

pishau

gee i like nice smells
like perfume and rigger mortise
and that one time
gee i like nice things

shaddow boxing my clown

you gotta be colder than hypothermia
if you plan to walk around this place
with head held higher than floor board scuff

no new part of all this shuffle and groove is promise or accention
just the bang crash tramplin of the good bad ugly through the windowless delivery of punch line obsolescence

laproscopic innuendo and the forgery uncanny
mistakes are made to vent frustrations
and diet coke is ugly like toe fungus
polish that trophy case empty my boy
we swallowed it up in confusion
don't remind me
i can't recall anyway what it was
but i bet it was

pirate slipdisk

tattooed Philippino women
lifes work from a farmhouse circle k
tasteless and pretending
licking constant the roof of my mouth
like the first words post trechiotomy
apocoliptic promises itchy skin flakey tomes
blech, idiom, toronto
don't touch that
dance dance dance dnace dance dance dance dance dance all night long
glaven with the flubber and the hoil

dang ol no good tell ya hwhat
bottles and monkey dung
fingernails pushed back to get the lash out
and in secret i have none to keep

first snow

the first snow cuts through me
an unexpected change of events
calls for an unexpected change of my mind
i look now for someone who understands me
someone who bathes in my mind

for you

if i'm ment to remember
there is snow on the roof of my cup

Reservoir tip conclusion pocket perfect

44454647484950515253545556575859606162636466667689707172737475767778798081828

blue factory
shoe street corner sympathy scratch
goo everybody listenings tounge
flu throwing stones from glass houses drive
stew no one hangs curtains all just ride coat tails stale
brew men in thre cornered hats hold pictures of the lonliness dead
new but i'm here swallowing quarters in the vauge hope nothing
who that i'll shit a fortune in due time green
pooh
lou

lie
pie lipstick and rouge
fly the company is thinning and there isn't much to prove bugs
die the butt of the agonizing joke laughs tremendously fuck
eye as it is all the same mindless jabbering silly
my just remeber that time when i ate shit and showed everyone my teeth rags
why purple octopus umbrella rage
shy meat flavored idiot urgent
sty can you spell pterydactol sea
try soft like the rain season piss bye ice water placenta truth

tote
float cock rock junkie mirror
wrote bottle rocket force pose
boat aprehencive linsead labido lower
note i never had but i imagine the taste to like that of silk or honey dew touch
goat perhaps flash dance and split logs under rainforrest skys ask
coat swallow grenades and the chest walls expand dance



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whose got smallpox

head throbs with early morning confusion
after watching magicians reveal their tricks the whole night through
a wet nose came pushing with the sun
he's quite simple, two in the morning one at night
pamplona
the hat dances of silver microphone tongue
waist deep in watermelon seeds
i'm all ash and nullification
when i thumb through the faces
ponder cigarette burns, overcoats, madness

a tale of two cities (in two parts)

part two

rolling hills and fluid transfer
dear sweet prince of lake and blacktop
made whole by shedding parts unneeded
like stagnation and recidivism

traveling on the backs of dogs
and i follow slow behind him
to a place called little personal
i've had so many dreams

the subway trains are carpeted
the air a cool thin overcast
take your weary commoner
to elevations peak

now sand blasted machine
running down hill in reverse
a city wide tourist attraction
that i could have birthed myself

just let me come again
to that place that eased my anguish
the embrace of a dear friend
who wants more from life than memories

ragged and smiling
no one speaks like this
passionate glory bound
letting the hills develop beneath him

longlost brother
i saw him off
my ticket ill timed came
the pavement stretched between us
i'll be back to explain myself
soon

truth

eyes roll beneith sheets
sad dawn makes fools of us all
two three times a week

somewheres in that big black lonely soul
rolling out forevers
right up to this pain of glass
we call it the night

there's a sparkler of a girl swearing catastrophe
a giant thinking about his inhales
hop head kids hittin bowls in the disco flash of lighters
lovers rolling over quivering
beauty and drunkeness

somewheres in the wind and sin and streetlamp wash

an old Volvo's ticking clock

inside that shoe box monstrosity
in-between the Rain
eagerly waits the rest of a life
Tiny compared too
and gray as well
gray that shines blue in the Light

just one more Window
to be thrown through
as she tenderly paws at the pains
there’s Glasses to fill
and quotas to meet
under all this acidic Fame

Butterflies
they know their place
exactly where they’re ment to Stand
when Time tells to flee
or flit away free
the length lingered upon hesitant hands

now where you are heading
is Not who you are
behind paper and quill
and the Urge you can’t kill
cause colorful ties only get you so far
so remove those Shoes
with the Afterglow’s hues
and walk proudly back into
your own Backyard

I love to hate my Love

i would have cut my skin clean off
to get your essence off of me
a mild cleanser
never did the trick
nor the clorox bleach in the closet
a long couple of months passed
i still won't let you see me
the caress i feel of you against me
it doesn't wash off
it never will
i can't fade the moments
Me won't let Me
you on me
bloody, messy romance
it clings to me, Always
pain from you stirs my heart's lust
you tortured my love, now i torture yours
we share the same broken, black heart
the pain we put each other through
i'm in love with only You

Jack Said

there is no hope
but there is bordeaux

RLW, shuffling my feet at his grave

the sun on the rows of marble blocks
the way the W is cut into this one
the birch waving at my back

stumbling over words about myself and this world
for the silent man I'm ending up like

conjuring him in my skull as a leather bound flask behind the seat
as a voice calling back from up front in the car
as a desire to just drive a truck- turning a continent under his rubber
as a bank president in stories
as a smoke stack of Vantage exhale
as a war tale where the Germans suprisingly surrendered the barn
as a black and white photograph of a man
cigarette dangling, beer glass in the left hand
each arm perched on the shoulder of a woman

you see the handprint he left was the stories I forgot
you see success is a funeral
like his where the bum from the bus stop
shows up and listens to the eulogy
and cries with the men in buisness suits

native american cheekbones
come to me in my dreams
whispering secrets
of the feeling of what i've seen

the queen of the mechanical bull

on two feet, eyes might simply
roll on down the bar
but there she was in full horseshoe strobe
in bedroom shattering throws
her hand and her hair rising
the moon courting venus
then wrestling with gravity again
the way this barroom angel's
thighs and pelvis
danced so close
with the back of the hulking mechanism
but then the other hand went up
and she pitched
the first buoy in the storm
with all the waves and momentum

so?

it flows from spout to porcelain
and it hasn't rained like this in days
i'm a cold sweat in an awkward pause
but we all fumble for perfect words

where's the phrase thats going to turn her
as they all delve deep into pockets for the scrap of paper
carved with passion
that will no doubt ease their longing

another toast to oblivia
who knows without knowing
the blindest eyes can hear the truth we miss between syllables

but no ones blessed or rested
we're all just serving time
and you can't dig forgiveness
without fucking up the perfect crime

but all in all theres a bathroom stall
with everyones name in ink
so we all know each others secrets about our stained glass intimacies

parched

Light shifts from the rain
Isis and her nagging question
drowning outside
I'm squeezed in the back of the life raft
all that's New Jersey floats by
gas station arm chairs and catch all catch-phrases

let me get one more sip from that bottle
my mouth is getting dry

Isis looks up at the rain
"you're not going to remember
this tomorrow, the dance
or the flashes of open heart
or the pavement"

let me get one more sip from that bottle
I'm parched

the crazy sound of tatoo pen
burning up the bottom of my feet
I'm not crying from the pain
I'm weeping from the colors

a tale of two cities (in two parts)

part one

in a room over looking a city
that holds no remorse
street corner proteges
sell all they've got
an urchin in rags rings a bell
as the snow falls
it's business as usual
hold all of my calls

streetlights and indigo blue
turns the pages
a few blocks away a trash can fire
that rages on
and huddled around or a sleep on the ground
are the hundreds of maritime street demons
celebrating a days spoils with newsprint duvets
and the food from the corners of mouths
that which was expendable
not necessarily that which was needed

falling over-not down

that light keeps dimming periodically
and the spaghetti westerns reel in the true nature of your foot long breakfast sandwich with Mandella and a side of fries
oh sun ravaged bean sprout
the saddest day is tuesday between 4 and 4: ten am

its nothing sexual
i'm just trying to hide the wine
and the world is slowly shrinking
and the belligerent fools stand eagerly on their heads
with two other mystic old souls and good spirits
scrambling for another cigarette
attempting to explain the probability of five am

hallucinogenic toreadors
the stockmarket faith healer
sangre de toro
the blood of the bull

ease into the rest of existence
a cool deep breath
let abundance signify solitude
and let me drive
you'll kill us all

Norman Rockwell's Unfinished Business

suits litter the highway
naked they walk
once enslaved
now free

the glass all breaks from the cold
but the huddled companions share their heat
one soft reluctant mass
never falling

Bowling Shoes

there she was like still life
lit by neon
with bowling shoes
and the booze on her breath
flavors of a devil, innocence, and wanting
in sharing slow kisses
her eyes had seen rolling hills in Tennessee
and streets and wine bottles in Brooklyn
demanding embraces
unable to speak fully
anxious and splendid
in between
the moments she leaned in firmly

still and silent

in the inhale pause
before a night lets loose
a passionate yellow eyed sunrise kiss
the only surviving ricochet thought
balancing above coarse wooden dock planks
slips as a whisper

in the still air
still lit flags only
tingle and shiver
above salty marsh grass

the whole bustling rabbid dance world
reduced to the demur of a Charlie Chaplin film

in the morning haze deadlights
the anxiety of awaiting dew
so much infinity in a tic-tic moment
(a man could live forever there)

serenity
whispered in the seldom heard sizzle
as a cigarette but meets bay water

another one from the west

my ears have gone septic
in to many ways
my poems flee to the recesses
of brown coffee stained napkins
laundry in my trunk
three thousand miles more on the odometer
the desert's dust on everything

and burnt feathers smolder
in a Colorado rain

there's a girl named Jersey
there's a girl named the West
and there's a girl still out there-
ambiguous dancer, vague promise, etheral

in the roadburn sunrise
I remember tumbleweeds
and native american cheek bones, and momentum, and frenzy, and delirium, and a dry mouth
and the roadburn sunrise

December, looking over the dunes

and these winter heros
riding large swell on long boards or guns
cutting down the face
drenched in chilled spray
obscurring their halos

Burlesque Nights and Fireflies

reminded of my grandmother as I slink around this sultry bar
peering through windowpanes, slowly losing control of the vehicle, drifting off the dock at the end of their street, pregnant again
he was right about the car crash
someone was on fire, but that’s not enough
you learn these lessons after a few stiff drinks and solid dialogue
none the less
this woman is amazing, there aren’t enough eyes on her
dancing as if an albino constrictor gently wraps around her waist
a tongue tickle across her naked shoulders
bathed in dollar bills, as the musty blood red light plays blackjack on her dreams
house wives, horned toads, all the kids "not" in costume gather favorably at the bottom of her twisting feet
craving, mentally caressing the silk of her skin
enlightened and taking notes
accusing, burning holes in her back as she gyrates away
when its all over and robed, she tells me secrets
vagabonds filter through doors, spilt onto this broken town, pinned beneath the smog of night
retiring, turning homeward, if one still stands in their minds
Sandra D flipped Betty Page, fucking confusion into the briefcase of a husband behind his cubicle
while street corner shoppers stumble fearlessly through vomit down dark alleys to their favorite strip mall
the solitary souls holding their own hands, admirably indulging in a mess of masturbation
She
dances alone
in her clothes

The Ones That Swim Away

she chalks off another infatuated unfortunate heart laughing it up
keep your eyes wide and words pretty, you’ll reel um in
and when they’re choked to death by the magic in her air, breathless beauty, or her need to
dissect and analyze every fragment of her egotistical life, toss them in the dungy bucket
if there’s any room left
but don’t forget environmental law, you wouldn’t let me,
gut them all and sing while you sever their heads, pretty words, pretty words
linger in every lick of their torched flesh, pick your teeth with their fragile bones and
SNAP! she throws back her head, crys cause there’s no fish left to listen to her song
flings their innards to the dog and hands me the scales to fashion her a crown
cause that’s really what this is all about,
sport, sport and pretty words

broken traction, 22 degrees

someone peel my face off this blacktop
keep singing, all I can hear now
is my tounge scraping the gravel,
looking for the last drops of spilt chianti
and freezing breath, dropping like hail.
blood and wine are indistinguishable
again, sea of glass tinted red, building
upward, against gravity (as I give in)
it's fragile in a way distance isn't
but I wouldn't know that, all I know is
this isn't a real parkling lot, just a black, friday
impression left behind in the air
as I drain through cracks in the ice
as we drag our way back, away from
serene landscape, it's almost first thaw
anway, but right now it's 22 degrees, and
I shiver as she cuts off the bleeding

those trees are none too subtle
showing me red like blood
orange flamed leaves
are a warning

even the squirrels see it coming
two of every animal
try to slip away unnoticed

two heads collide

two heads collide in silent screaming afternoon till night
the piniata effect
don't go in that room until we get it al cleaned up
the bits of skull and hair and teeth and gray matter adorn these walls and the two of us are now this one blood speckled entity finally having found our common ground

in gardens of ice I rest until the cold kills me, or the noise
stomach brimming with unwanted nourishment, not conduced by affliction only an obligation to fulfill
mostly with red wine and bananas
either way this is all just one more sunrise over an Atlantic seashore suicide
a bubble if you will, and a longing of immense magnitude ripping away at the fibers of this party dress
throwing around train tickets and fairy tales, blinded in my left eye only to walk head on into another sleepless night
whispers from the king and queens’ room travel well to the ringing ears of the opened minded
I wish they’d just be real, slam the door and scream
creeping over a bridge, she turns toward the muffled music and a bad painting of the sky
saying to me
"isn’t that beautiful, this is our home"
home? that’s up to you , only an opinion and everyone’s entitled to it
I’ve felt better though

what a mess (part 2)

those beautiful memories
the erotic sunset
the desolation of an arizona near dusk
i long again for Barstow and a quick shot across the land without reason
now the basic beauty seems stripped and no one laughs
the screaming is doubled up in the house and in my mind
i find it so comforting that one day none of this will matter
these plain old complexities running down hill to meet you in your pine box

well, the decades have skated past thus far and with a bit of luck i'll be long burned out and forgotten but for the tongues of those my insignificant words remebered now roll off

theres a place i miss so immensely that i cant even bring myself to tell you about it...that and i can't remember being there
i think that i have cried in the past couple of days over some such silliness that left my life so hollow feeling
this isn't a poem
it isn't a story it isn't anything creative
i hope that i'm dumb sometimes and i just don't see the shit

Einstein said that imagination is more important that intelligence
i believe him
but i also imagine that i'm careening along a narrow desert road at 110 mph wanting to be struck down by the hand of the truck driving god approaching from over the up coming hill... to die in this abysmal dry heat of a blistering afternoons paranoia and not have to worry about the beauty being eroded away by what i'm told is the way things are

fuck you
i'm dead too and i have no one to drink a toast to my death with
fuck this
the days get sooooo short around here whenever i think that the sun is my dearest friend

i enjoyed surfing this summer
what is wrong with me
nothing i'm fine
and you ?

Julianna

smoking halves of cigarettes naked on the balcony
in the rainy Boulder morning
and she puts on this accent when she says her last name
sleeps with a knife on her hip
on countless mexican beaches
on countless mexican nights
draws out her words then fires them faster
forcing brains to reel and runaway fishing line spooling out
injects verbal pins into asses
just to see a feedback dance
and frowns when the boys just line the walls
bathes in power and finds it uncomfortable
swims if she has to
is free
swims

what a mess (part 1)

yellow and brown index finger skin
black that won't come out from under
the windows broken the door is ajar
and i'm pickled in the tragic basements of america

small shreds of paper with all knowing verse
39 cents
sick from wine and time and friends and lovers
desperate to break away

theres a girl over there who knows the music all too well
i watch with great anticipation of her next sultry move that i'll beat my head against the wall over
remembering for days thinking goddamn theres such a beautiful innocence to the sexuality that she basis all this on

i drink to everything in sight
i'll be on a bus someday listening to head phones and just trying to get out of whatever hell i've let loose around me
that same old song will come on and i can cry

"jerk off in the bathroom or in a woman with the help of a movie about birds your lives are all sing song happy shindigg shit house idiocy and who am i but a cautious observer and a reckless participant

you’re just one more butchered Radio remix
overplayed and understated
a misinterpreted mangled Mess of unappreciation
so I’m going to Dance over there

today i stopped and turned away from all the words you yern say
hung the chicken wire from the fan into the fire, smeared your love across the walls and bowled potatoes down the hall
then i punched you in the face inside my head
rolling over roaming through this land inside my head, reviewing all the shame within shit that you’ve just said
i plan to take my time and analyze them one by one wondering, all the while, in which direction i should run
now when you took my hand and asked me for this dance, i should have seen it coming i should have smelt the burring flesh
the shell of you you scarred upon my skin will still taste stale, but when i turn my eyes inside i realize it wasn’t i that failed
so go ahead, except his offer, do it now, i wont stop you, who doesn’t want to blow balloon animals down in hell anyway

in perfect worlds we dream
but only half believe
the horizon's crashing down

demands

fuck poetry
fuck dreaming
fuck the romance of breathing
but above all
fuck this numb sedentary life

where's our neal, our fire, our amphetamines?

visions safely in our heads
and no sounds of feet shuffling

i want to dance all over this crazy world
with an audience of stars and gods

I want to slaughter gazelle with my powerful jaws
and sleep with the flawless torsos of women everywhere
cry myself to sleep with the light off
move and be moved
play stadiums and sideshows
not just in my head
drink authentic mountain spring water
not like the commercials
clap cuz i mean it

Concerned

little punk rock girl
with the glimmer metal shining
don't you fear
that ferocious safety pin
holding the Used patch
to your back pocket?

A Toast

tonight
beneath a thousand stars
let us sleep as beasts
one with this earth and these trees
but
at first light
let us wake and live
as gods
with thunder and lust and majesty

of lust life and law

drown in delight
a dancing desire
bitterness broken
nights filled with fire

patiently punish
leisurely sway
ascension to summit
leading the way

expanded indulgence
enabled to enter
seizing the moment
to heaven he sent her

thrilling the triumph
harbored the feeling
deeply demanding
to unwrap the healing

bounteous passion
pleasure pursuing
scenes of seduction
to taste what’s been brewing

exquisite forbearance
higher than high
a coming of nature
breathless you lie

continues in calmness
deeply deliver
the freedom of fugitives
fulfilled hearts quiver

Timing

One second in either direction
And you can miss rearview sunrise
Blinding flame tounged burning cloud engulfed in
Orange, pouring from broken seal, cracked horizon

Sometimes I sleep through it
Sometimes I just have my head up my ass
Once in West Memphis the sun never came up
It doesn't always make it across the Mississippi

If this is your idea of morning you can keep it for a while
I haven't had enough time to map the stars
Never got a clear enough view of scorpio
Cold air makes stars sharper, serrated

Enough time for one more cup
One more drag, one more lean over
Grab dos sugares and move along
I'm sure I'll catch you on the other side of that door

Clocks move slower at higher speeds -
Albert Einstein said that.

cut me a slice of that old 65

you died in my my arms in a dream i once had
and i'm truly ashamed to call you dad
but the bruises on my face all wear you signature
with a belly like steel and a soul to match you stumbled off with out a scratch and i think i did the hurtin and the hatin for the both of us

this tender spot above my eye brings me back to time when you should have died but i put down the knife and picked up a pen instead
raped and pillaged, strung along
a feral child that can't belong
abandoned in his youth to follow none

now my problems you say are all my own
as i try to refurbish this broken home
with dirty finger nails and broken teeth to remind me
a phone call in the heat of drink can really stop and make you think of the child you tortured and turned a blind eye to

well i'm glad as hell that your ashamed
a deadbeat crushed in his own game your dead to me and that still gives me hope
so i found him lying on the street 60 years old in a handy -capped seat
a bitter old tired shell of a never was
with a few spiteful words i was on my way and you were left to desintigrate and the only legend you left was a tale of a fool
so from time to time when i cross this stool with a bottle of red and a puddle of drool i think of you and smile that you have gone

no after party
no rock and roll
no kiss good night
no promises broken

here i am, stalled

with a bottle, empty and dangling from finger tips
the way the sunrise replays itself
begins to hurt my eyes
and my muscles like a burning

I recall phoenix
and all that meant
but dust is like sand
the way it behaves as it falls through hands
and it doesn't seem to be leaving any feathers
behind

what are critical mass and escape velocity?
...this time around

Drape my body in the rags of star spangled lies

they're shedding skin down by the theatre
and handing invites to the masses
with grandiose proclamations
gifts of knowledge,honor promised
it only takes one little man to change
the world is what i'm told
so do us all a favor
lay your body in this hole

you're coming home oblivious
well the parts that we could find
you've done our reputation justice
letting blind lead way to blind
and you're family's been compensated
for their tragic loss
precious life cut short
for freedom at any cost

now there's fabulous arrangements
strewn across the parlor floor
your mother holds a flag
and your father holds the door
now your captain says a few words
and it's clear he knew you well
when he says he "saw it coming
but he knew that war is hell"

you're coming home oblivious
well the parts that we could find
and you've done your country proud son
thanks for swallowing these lies
and this tiny inconvenience
shouldn't turn you off war
you're such an inspiration
to the hundred thousand more

that'll soon be at the ready to join you in the ground
you won't believe how many little soldiers we just found
who use to play in ball games and operate machines
now precious putty for the molding
of the united states marines

and you're coming home oblivious
well the parts that we could find
you've done our reputation justice
letting blind lead way to blind

old skyline visions from a box car 2am

alicia'd seen it coming
the accident that tore us all apart
she's sweeter than she looks he promised
as the dagger pierced his heart

a plan to get thee nowhere
and anywhere but here
a grey hounds back is stable
when your destinations clear

a short stint in manhattan
to the rail yard with the sun
a bed roll and my lover
in a mad dash built for one

in newark to penetration
a few fences left to mend
and straight shot clear to baltimore
stoed away with new allies

judas rode mule to box car
who had just been released
for a fortune earned in stick -ups
20 years ago this spring

and aging rapid descention
to a grave so premature
was a life i'd left just weeks ago
for a world thats never yours

rust colored fingertips
and food for not quite three
the four of us won't make through another
nights ecstasy
and taking leave of boundless love
i'd shudder to think of how
but tommorrow there'll be lonliness
and it all seems smaller now

place-mat peices

punch for the Spoon
while I steal
the Shit that no one buys
Knows nose blows
Bathroom breaks
neon Nights
suduction
cold Coffee
Hot Wet Cantaloupe
TireIron-like strangers
Oil changes
egg vomit in frying pan scum
Once again the only woman that comes to Dinner

bad coffee and a cranberry sauce sea

Snotsplatter
shoes...
lost
I throw-up Hell
all over Fisher
Fisher and his Rush hating Heart
I want to go home
find a Toilet
make love to it
Punch it in the face
then apologize
"you're not a very good Addict"
....and......
"you Reek of fermentation"
oh by the way,
porcelain keeps secrets well
so make shure
to make up
in the Morning
fall off
fall over
Fall on
this Road was never ment to end
these Strangers taste just like old friends

On cool airless nights
I have a habit
of breathing on windows

Foot Path (taken down by the Exxon then turned back following the scent of #2 pencils)

Dogs can smell you coming
and see hands hidden up sleeves
taste nerves
they know how burnt fingers
leave lost impressions
no trace of having grasped
well I'm glad something can see
through table soaked in cream
didn't trap your heart
can't let this season breathe

Cold down to these painted finger tips
not worth near what they sold it for
can't quite grip this illusion
suspicious eyelids blinking to keep
the light out in turn
and that's not liable
to get too lost
nothing a good sextant can't fix

Sand paper makes for friction. I don't have a
thick hide,
I don't scratch, I just mark
migration, drastic charred
foot path
worn like gold crosses lazily,
just a fact that gleams
off your shoulder
just your shoulder
where I lean my weary head
a drop of dew on ivy
condensing

Traded Karma

(I'll take yours if you take mine)

spodiodi

telephone junkies
and remember whens
whats a silouette between old friends
didn't look at my watch once
pretend you heard it in a movie
no time passes like the time we passed it up
and telephone junkies have a way about themselves
the weight of massive tank engineers
evenly distributed betwwen cogs
sip wine and bellow for the evening train to hear
a story seldom left untold

i've just past marker 114
with the promise of the things unseen
i'm leaning in to catch the groove
that isn't old or borrowed blue

a junky waitress
steals a bite of my pie
in love the second time this week
making love where bathroom stalls get high

i'm still as lonley as the time i followed suit
but i know that nothings coming
but the taste of bitter fruit

collect the spoils as i roll
through states of mind like arkansas
where pretty aint no commodity
but she's still working just as hard

from here i wonder silent through the magic of the paint
if anythings worth dying for
and is it hard to hook the bait

just missing a little money
and the diget next to my ring
i can't be held responsible
but i promised you somthing

despite the horror of the day
i'm still apt to lick the spoon
the stunning iron grave yard
at the sullen gates of noon

Right Where I Want To Be

Over fifty fags
Kid Rock in Tennessee
What is stranger still
one gets the roalties
I wait for more
Nothing
Forks against plates
Wet and tasty sounds
Apparently
vibes are sour
A show in NewYorkCity
Salt :TAP: repeat
Substitute pepper
They share Ham
Snatch silverwear
That's twice so far
these Homosexuals
Know
the Kids whole story
They sip tea on ice
Break faces
Mosh pits and broken country
Do they really think of rocking hard?
Someone's BUS is burning
Miles sings background grooves
Chitter from a new adventure
They just walked through the door
Nothing stops my scribbles
I should smoke
I should leave
this room is full of men
Who wont ever want to take me home
The salted pork
Devine
Something spills
I linger longer

when days get like these and the way we stare off

trying to get through Tolstoy
drinking to much coffee
smoking to many cigarettes
running my fingers over my skin
breathing
and hearing the hearts drum beats

when days get like these
i think i've got an ulcer or cancer
or some other ailment of a man twice my age
with a mortgage

payphones are becoming a romantic ideal
like a greaser's boots

i miss all of europe, impersonally
see south america and the west in my dreams
worry about the atlantic ocean
though i know it can take care of itself
hate the second hand in weaker moments


and i'm falling in love again
the way we stare off
with the literature of a situation
dear jack micheline
how many women did you cripple
with the poetics or romance of it all
for the poetics and romance of it all
and shouldn't they have seen it comming
in the firelit nights and the crickets
sometimes i see women
as used ashtrays and sunrise
shimmering
the way we stare off

the Romance of things

cigarette cough, the six o clock news, moving vans and moving men and appliances, operating systems, want ads on the back pages, overdue library books, peeling paint, crumbs in the couch cushions, the rainy season, a mint condition automobile from 1973, ripped jeans, a job interview, the tassels that hang on the arms of leather jackets, the shape of rain drops, a clown's fingerprint facepaint, egg shells, leftover turkey and stuffing, tuesdays, november, a cheap thirty pack of beer, half price drinks at happy hour, a horror film, dog hair on a dress shirt, the taste of a girls lip balm, metallic colors, dark sunglasses, the second hand, a squeaky door, a swollen lip, the sound a lighter makes in the dark, a thin line of rising smoke, hard candy, sticky hands from breakfast syrup, a ceiling fan on low, the smell of band-aids, khaki pants, bourbon in the back of the throat, the little whiskersleft in the sink after a shave, red eyes in a photograph, a baseball cap on a young girl, pay phones and dial tones, the sound of an engine starting up, a reflection in a window

Trainwreck

Butterflies sleep ugly

Shy I Will

She
has appeal
like Sun ripened grapes
hang high upon the vine
So sits the shriveled raisin
concord
left behind
They all must gape at the luscious grape
for she is a sight of splendor
still Raisin sat
to ponder that
and of Days she wish not
remember
The gleaming glow
we all should know
in every Color
every Dream
is tainted....more
an unsettled score
by the grapes
that steal
the scene
Now hidden well
in shadow fell
sits raisin
nothing more
No gleam
No glow
No fancy show
no gapping eyes upon her
So still she waits
consumed by Fate
for One will look
to find her
and He will know
an inciting blow
The Gallant Grapes Are Sour!
where the sweetness lies
within the Eyes
of Raisins' silent power

Blossom all ye fading faceless

Never you believe until the knife is in your belly

always run
always running
not to or fro
but running

the season to illuminate the deterioration
aging with you and the lookers on

" I've never seen a tree in late October leprosy,
unabashed by skyscrapers and revolving restaurants".

fall in the amusement park

clothes covered in the dust or the ghost of rust
porcelain horses laying slain or asleep
one more coat of deep red paint
in one more off season
wondering about the myth
of a life after jersey

diner jukebox sparks (title collage)

finding myself out of my depth
when it all goes wrong again

the fundamental things
on silent wings
remain when the heartache is over
over my head

take me to your disco
forever down the lonely road of faith
a new day has come
and i'm alive
alive underneath your clothes

immortality
in the rearviewmirror
please forgive me
babylon

a little less conversation
gnawin on it
in the space between
this lonely road
with a band on the run

only god knows why
these are the days
i showed her again
the black velveteen

sympathy
just like a pill
everyday
all the way
one more time

here is gone
big machine
wherever you will go
visions of paradise

desert rose
after the rain has fallen
every other time
dream on

leaving samhain

the town was beginning to look like germany after the bombs had fallen which was a stark contrast to the times square gates of hell mood lighting of the place just hours earlier. now the roads were lined with pilgrims half clad in costumed skin, hexed auras, and beer goggles causing me to recall dreams of whole disney worlds evacuated for reasons of plague or strike or communist witch hunt. i remember the various recruiters who had shown up to vie for our souls- some claiming to be cowboys, some claiming to be heros, some claiming that wasn't why they were there, but all distributing pamphlets or profilactics. now it seemed that the protective and holy properties of lsd and the jersey edge had held on for just long enough to endure all this spiritual warfare, wave after wave, but there was still the threat of hartford traffic to wade through before we were out of this fog. i think i saw a black magic woman, i think i saw crisp daylight, i think i've seen enough. in the end we were lucky to have made it out with what little karma we had stolen from new england.

Chirping

This dropped thought conversation
over coffee and bracelet
and there's pineapple in the desert
I wonder how long...

Will someone please stop that damn cricket?
PLEASE!

4 booths
13 nights, not what you had in mind
I just wanted a cup of coffee
not to be troubled by your
frustrated traffic light saga
keeps coming back to that same traffic light

And that damn CHIRPING!
It shouldn't be hard to find
stand over there, we'll triangulate

Hooded sweatshirt, traps her cigarette smoke
"I never thought of it that way"
Yeah, I'll bet you didn't

This was no one's first choice
but you put down roots
get tangled up
and they make sure to get just enough sunlight

you're cricket food
you're in shambles

last thought of next traffic light
yeah, next time it's gonna be different
don't you ever change that clock?
Maybe I'm just moving slower
I'll sink away now
I've had too much to
or not enough yet

windows fracture to spider webs
to catch the cricket, next step
up on the food chain
you can keep climbing that chain
I like the view down here

sir william of frisco

walks through haight to pawn his dream
and steal another week
handful of cash to get him back
to chinease food and motel sleep
former days of poverty preparing for the road
in search of ash and diamond he goes sleeveless summer cold

Like Clockwork

Drowning out sounds of broker small talk
same AM radio speach
warming beer perspires
warming neck sweats
scratching at it
dead skin under fingernails
"Those kids don't belong here!
They're breaking windows,
Slithering up beer slick tile...
This place ain't the back of a Chevy"

Stradling half-life
soaking up sunrise temperment
earning their keep running mezo-American fairy tales
they sing of La Chupacabra
they've got revolution in those boots

searchlight reflection off a thousand compact surfaces
slow slow slow progression
somehow there's a dance
and someone falls out of step
that moment is captured in pixels
before the floor gives way
before gravity
but after the last important steps

waking up to roses
guess I slept outside again
The dirt smells like thumb prints
not usually seen by the naked eye
blanket of earth covers me up to my waist
fills my shoes
gets between my toes
leaves me with wiggle room

miles of bridges to burn before i sleep

pure idiocy
stop all that thinking
let the blood flow proper
so many damn words for sympathy
call him frank or geena or little dave
get me outta this train car
heading north for the holidays
think i need a breath of fresh air
bathrobe clad and i'm spoiled from time
every motherfucker has an artistic side
wanna see mine
it's drunk and wandering empty steets with a paper bag over my dick and a chrismas hat on
fucking a light post till i bleed from the anus
wana see more
i got pages and pages i use the best ones to soak up the urine under my chair
staple that to your weekend drive through the way the other half lives
wanna see more
look closer
take a deep breathe and i'll expose him the leper you won't invite in
he lives in my overcoat well under it anyway
you know who i am
where i came from
his name is
still can't look away from the car wreck
your infatuated you wanna see more you wanna see more vultures all of you get the fuck out of this world you don't belong just dropped in for a peek at the underbelly of the boar, covered with scales and skin tags a blister here a callous there
smell the air down here
rabid foam pours and i can't wait for your wife to develop the pictures to make kodak slides and prove to the world that you were really there
in home movie format with the in-laws crashing on the leftover sofa
wanna see more

babble

madness or meloncholy
well lit and old newspaper yellow
grinding teeth and a chalky taste
the way fingers run themselves
over worried knuckles
the empty sound
vibrating at the end of a question
that inhale the sky takes before a sunrise
what disaster that night
and in what sense can the past exist
lunch served on that certain white only dishes possess
all the shapes and textures
which glass seems to take
how smell triggers memories
out of nowhere in a thought stream
not remembering the print on the last page
a car door shuts somewhere outside
neckties and needing a shave

a barroom moment

he was wearing all black again
with some obscure seventies rocker t-shirt
complete with deep eye liner and long hair
so everyone naturally had their preconcieved notions
when he stepped in front of the karaoke screen
the 56 year old lush with her big hair and heavy blush
the young guido in his striped collared shirt
the girls who think to much of themselves and their jobs
the latina bartender
were prepared to ignore
3 to 4 minutes of loud screaming
off key
but all that went haywire
faded as a smile does
when the intro to Prince's "Kiss"
cued up
and in came his unexpected falsetto
and I saw a dark skinned woman begin to dance
and later people got laid in hotel rooms
and beers cracked open in the dark
and the heavens know what happens
in barroom moments

peace

termites keep me company
the last good frineds I've got
we share a meal of splintered oak
and speak of plans to travel

anticipating great disaster

a birds eye view of the world in ruins.stop.i couldn't be happier.stop.
above this little crater that you've built your world around.stop.have you found it yet?stop.that little somthing that makes this worth while?stop.the love the lust the pain and such.stop.oh joy the day is coming where the tumors will all fester to a boil and the truth will be exposed.stop.and i in my recliner.stop.sipping whiskey from an old brown boot.stop. and thinking, hey, this could be the best day of my life.stop.as i put the barrell in my mouth.stop.and hunger for the taste of my own mind.stop.

two images and something about the lighting

pelicans and their shadows
hauntingly like the ghosts of magnets
with the way they trace the surface
as it flexes and bulges
all that gliding
so little distance
a kiss that doesn't happen

naked female lines
an arm obscuring nipples
just enough flesh behind something or other
the framing
of a girl in a doorway
thoughts of entanglement

Hooray today!

from the barrens of brick walls
faces search for shape
noises mimic actions
mimic gestures
mimic empty moments
the notion of relevance binds memories to conditions
perceived relevance anyhow
as the fluorescent lights flicker in locked foyers
locked like cages
barring all from the eternal bliss of cable television
barring those inside from funnel cakes & funeral processions
the rain
the rain dances hard down the street
finding it's fate against the black top
each drop another lemming
smacking against car hoods
finding cobics
!
the sound of a blender whining it's little motor
rips the new morning in half like a chainsaw
a chainsaw having it's way with a phonebook
she makes a new concoction for a brand new day
a healthy new day
first the gym,then the office, a love affair at lunch,
& the opera after dinner
she fills with excitement as she rinses her glass
she finds the keys to her BMW & makes for the door
she already wears a body bag
how could she possibly know?
her toe is already tagged
she is eternally stepping in front of that bus
it happens at 1:30 on her way back to the office
on her way back from adultery
it happens forever & it's been happening forever
since the dawn of time
same bus, same dress, same "just had sex" hair
her slip is always 2 inches visible on the left side
just below the knee... she never fixes it
never sees the bus
the world is a sick joke
& time is the motherfucker telling it
yesterday is all in your head
today appears fresh (every time)
tomorrow will be no different.

Hand to Mouth

Not quite
punk rock girl
says "Did you ever wake up
in the middle of spilt beer
wet dreams?"

I cough a cigarette cough
the door is 12 feet to my left
Gil Scott Heron breathing down
my neck
The revolution is 12 feet to my left

I excuse myself
she wasn't listening
says "I'm not above
living hand to mouth
as long as it's my hand
and your mouth"

Avenue of Americanism

American cities can drown
and black turned purple bodies bob around
like lilypads reclaimed by hungry swamp
and when the last of the street prophets,
deshevled and disrobed, snakes his way out
under the radar, unseen and un counted
I see America bathing in shit
handfull of painkillers and lips marking
high water point, sinking down

In daytime I don't know my drunken, stumble down streets
anymore, concrete softened by churchbell sun
antique shops open their doors to sell me old family photos
sepia toned borrwed history, but that looks enough like grandpa when he was young
I don't wonder where they got it.
Cigar shop indian asks me for directions to 3 star bistro
with 5 star prices
No, not indian, not even made of wood, but he
smells of cedar and his eyebrows are painted on

Johnny Cash is begging for dry socks,
while I'm wading through cheap Tuscan wine
they lap it up, like feral dogs, only vaugly remebering
their owners hand, they see me as a threat
I don't have terror eyes. I'm their twisted
acid burned mirror image. When the desperate, naked-from-the-
mustace-down camera man
goes to record his last
moments for posterity
I'll be sleeping under his Toyota
to stay out of the wind
used to be Main St
renamed Avenue of Americanism

grendel

grendel
came stalking out of pure mythical night
from the fringe of the universe
-the unintelligable boarderline
and when he split open
those heavy meedhall doors
in their drunken myth-laiden fear
in the back of their heads
those unfortunates
saw him as
the grand accumulation
of that which trully
drips from the air
the sweat of the void

Beach Haven West, June

a little blonde girl
that I've been back and forth with
to many times to count
in my arms- eye to eye
trading footsteps
with a grateful dead backdrop
that I've been back and forth with
to many times to count
outside there's a savage fog
almost palpable
it won't shake from our hair
and the would-be budha
radiant and placid
clings to an enlightenment beer
maybe this one will get him there
all these to many times around girls
and get drunk let it slide boys
heroes of anonymous Manahawkin night
bayside in Jersey
the crack of beer cans- the smooth caress of female hands
the liquid evening, the game, the kickback, the dance

beneath twinkle twinkle dark

Moments Above Water

odd the resembelence of the womb and baptisms
the way water tension gives way under gravity
sometimes
and all along this was the beauty of the stuff
lost in the bottle
with Marley off somewhere
"free yourself from mental slavery
none but ourselves can free our minds"
september with its daydreaming
of Niche's landless bird
making love to the idea of Amelia Earhart
in all that Fear and Trembling
and the heavens
flitter between ears and inhale just before the splash
a serenity found in submersion
all the worlds barrooms
the heavy base and tormenting wetstone eyes hushed
and fading

Is there enough space
between notebook lines
to fill in your own story?

Space is rationed
and your lot is 1/4 inch
and your joys
and sorrows
and left field sucker punch
epiphenies
have to be squeezed in

Coffee soaked thoughts,
sleep talking your way out of
bagel theft, arson,
impersonating a shrubbery,
only footprints in volcanic ash

Shopping List

1. wedding card
2. 9 volt battery
3. mayo
   
4. 31 green candles
5. trebuchet
6. Canteloup (if they're in season)
7. Shoe leather
8. vaccines (whatever's on sale)
9. claronette
10. squirell feed
11. squirell traps
12. corn bread stuffing
13. contentment
14. laser disk player
    

This Queen of Camp

this queen of camp
with wide appetite eyes
having reigned herself to tight grasp fate
and this thirty-minute asphalt conscience
deliberating issues of place and action all the way to her
the fuzzy claw-game boardwalk dice
holding her in their midst- soft multi-colored aura
her fingers at rigid attention
and the cheapest cigarettes at their extreme
pursed lips
the picture of a fourteen year old’s first cigarette
she exhales THC and ghosts
over a plastic Pan Am bag
having borrowed cultures from men in lobster suits
big breasted snot nosed animation
dancing on the screen