lust comes
in half burned
cigarettes

for an instant

I stopped believing in time as a physical property you could feel against your skin and knew that we were all streched out infinite lights in our hearts, an echo of the earliest moment that still exists, is still here now, and is still as NOW as you and i, and we're awash in creation, hung suspended, pent up energy at the speed of light squared waiting to explode, and you know you can explode all over me because I got nothing but time, and time is nothing but hair fly'n, yours and yours and mine, waiting for a thought of a tick of a clock. That's all behind me now, or that all IS me now, as I am just made of particles and you're just made of particles and we could collide and and see glimpses of the secrets of the universe.

don't worry kid
the coast is clear
there are no dreams here
to ash in your hands
tonight

notes

Wouldn’t it be better if we waited longer, till our hearts stop thumping so.....

this is all conditional, all relative,
all merely forms.

Bench Warmer

i wrote a good one and she erased it
now i'm gonna make a bad one
and you read it

now she said she remembered the other one

but i don't like that one anymore
she thought that was it
but i was only waiting for more material

this one is better
it's not done yet


by~
~my son is also named bort

you blow smoke in my eye,
it burns but it turns
me on

Little red buds to be opened on your birthday
Leaving scratches on your good leg
While branches bruise the bad
I’m covered in those
Climbing vines
Strong enough to hold your mourning
And your limp and sobbing body

Suspended from that tangled mess of
Wild grape
Sour little marionette, take off your
Vulgar purple dress and wrap yourself
In my more verdant hues
High in your climb
View marsh inlet, your tears to mimic

Through the tide of yesterdays
The Blur is beautiful
Sweet thing letting the salt sting
and scrape
and melt
sugar and lust you’ve frescoed your eyelids with

Sit shaking, held in my Crooke, wild lamb
No longer alone in orphan
Now
A child of the blooming instinctive silent
Crying in her fathers arms

The great beyond
man on the moon
take a picture
take a picture
thank god I found you
blue

Love’s divine
where there’s gold
your loving flame
this loney road
maybe I’m amazed
by a big machine
here is gone
longtime gone

Move your body
when the heartache is over
on silent wings
she’ll leave you with a smile
a peaceful world
jaded
in our lives

A Little Ditty About The Truth

called me "the Truth" you did
and I wondered what you had behind those words
because we’re not even friends
can’t even bullshit the breeze
over unenlightened cups of coffee
so yeah I’m a little bitter
cause I’m starting to think
you just like
the way they’ll write
in all those books
and shit

then there’s the one who
no one really knew
over red city wine
would politely ask
for photographs
and eventually set them
with "true love" as the caption
and sing to me
only to disappear deep
into a self-absorbed fog
without truth or telling it
so don’t hold my hand when your here
don’t even fucking stand next to me

it’s like beating a dead dog
when I choose to talk
about the heroin
and that long lost friend
and his fall
but once again, from start to end
there was no truth there
except my love and what I gave
but I’m starting to think
now that you’ve lost the haze
that maybe what you feel is true
or maybe you’re just addicted to your emotions
so stop calling me and fucking with mine

lets talk the truth for a minute here
and I’m gonna be brutal, to make myself clear
I no longer have time
to read the crap between the lines
so when we meet and if we talk
I would rather you just give me
all you got
instead of a plateful of sweet pretty white lies
or raw throbbing emotion under layers of disguise
cause I really don’t need any more cavities
and it’s always been hard for me to digest red meats
so just say what you want
whether you feel it’s right or not
cause baby, the truth may be hard
but these bones are strong
this heart is true and thick
and I’m pretty sure
I can handle it

we've seen our share of
unexpected new day sunrises
through shaded eyes and
stolen wine
and my feet tangled up in
your feet
telling stories of the roads
they've walked
, somehow sleeping
and not sleeping
in the light of miracle
daybreak

America To Yer Left

Go on, you got
America to yer left
and all it's dreams fading with daylight
stretching between beautiful two lanes
off to pin-point behind those pupils
so let the wind blow mountains
back into yer
face

or maybe the air will stand still
blanketing that land of choked Myths
and you can make yer own weather pattern
tracking Jersey across America's
doorsteps like broken glo-sticks
cause there's dirt waiting to get in those shoes,
and earth waiting to be scorched,
trees to pass out against,
over-coffee background conversations to
make you see stories like fingerprints
laid out over
every set of keys nervously twirled
waiting for a strong breeze to blow

I hear they got a whole 'nother
ocean over there
and earthquakes and scientologists
and cities built
on the backs of Angels
or on a dangerous tilt


so when you get back,
i wanna hear about the great west
and it's apple pie
and pure white vanilla ice cream

Sitting

sitting

thinking

thoughts like

and not talking

no ringing

no headache

or heartache

hangup

or over

no static noise

no sugar-coated faces

no fleeting words

or failed embraces

and not talking

thoughts like

and thinking

I am

not much of a man

and even less

a woman

sitting

tender words

those late night salt lick bar room dreams
like flower glue and chicken wire
its coming to a head and i'm going to explode
dear friends i've found you favorable and easily dismissed
i'm running towards horizons and you will all be missed
except that motherfucker with the ego and the dream about the idiot or litium or somthing there between

yeah fuck that guy

peace children

i'll tell you what a sunset really looks like

debts

Gods like grandparents
Angry at me for not visiting

These apologies will need to be
Green and honest
Surrounded by their eyes
Or I will get no rest
Grounded by my lies

This will not be seclusion
An opening in earnest
To their reason
Washing away my delusion
It is a promise I am making

They told me where to go
In a waking dream
Loyally to follow this
On the path, to the hollow
Their wish I will then know

I’ll bring that old familiar
Little satchel
Upon the root I will sprinkle
Most likely crying
for days this will be ritual
And after

I will visit with
My grandparents

I could just tell that the sun was having kind of an off day. It kept returning to under its cloudy covers and actually cried midday for some reason. I took advantage of a brief but nice spell when it was out and about, perhaps getting itself a small snack. I took a walk; it seemed like a good idea.

I didn’t walk far before I found what I wasn’t looking for. It smelled too sweet to be simply mud. I know though that mud can tricky and fool girls like my self into thinking it syrup. A little theater made of a drainage basin had a barrier railing for me to sit upon. So we watched each other from our respective perches. You got bored first and leapt down to search for god knows what in the leaf litter. You had an awful lot of associates with you in that acorn wooded shrub-less ditch but you were particular. I don’t think I could ever get tired of watching you. From the moment you’re chocolate chip eyes caught me and you climbed that Scarlet Oak sapling as if in mimic of my silly stance I was your loyal patron. Every once and a while you would pause to peer over your shoulder, I think you were making sure my eyes were still on you. They were. You made your bop bop bop hop extra engaging for me. And those logic-less patterns you dug in I found delightful.

The clearly menstrual sun had had its fill of cosmic cookies and cream and slid once again beneath its nimbus bedding looking down and pouty. It seemed as if whimpers could lead to weeping at any moment.

It was good to escape. I wonder if I’ll ever see you again. I can promise to visit that same basin, with that smell. Meet me on a maple tree and I’ll watch you and your jumpy dance company.
So sorry I had to pry myself from your showy displays. I know your kind doesn’t mind a downpour, and to be frank neither do I, but I wouldn’t want to appear dramatic when I returned to my friends in that other world. You’re the theatrical one. When I let my eyes slip from you I felt like I was spilling the only punch bowl I’d ever have that was really filled with mud syrup smell. It fell heavy and close to me. I hope to always be sticky with it.

You fuzzy little Prima Donna, I’m you biggest fan.

An Off-Color Suggestion

i have a suggestion, i'm afraid it may be forward
but after hour upon dramatic hour of stalking the jersey shore
we've lost much more than we've gained, equated with energy, gas, and smokes
baby i'm just saying i'm worn out, and driving any more seems like a joke

take a side of the paper like royalty on their cards
hand-covered secrets
jotting with peeking
i think you know
and you know
i think...
we should get a room for the night.

Masturbating to Death & Taxes

Situationally par for remorse
motions dilligent searching for recourse
today as your manhood shrinks
& you spit your teeth into the kitchen sink
you peek magnifyingly close
to the cavernous cavities of your former enamel post
it makes the shape of a fist
& drags itself across your wrist
the grinding achievement
is a binding agreement
only no blood, nothing does the trick
when the world made your skin so thick
of which one layer is madness
and a tougher outer layer of a morbid foulness
bloodshot & tearing you take the mirror
trying to deny you've been dead for years
ironic is the placid apathy
like your blood is still pumping but your heart has atrophied
it's bitter bones and broken hands
jerking off to the american dream and & i'm too tired to stand
so swim i must, in this wading pool of blood & semen
a million half-lifes looking for fallopian freedom
to find my tile flood at their demise
today jerk-offs the american dream dies
somewhere in the cervix of your capitol building
i manage to stand prostrate, naked, and here i will die, willing.

*the italicized lines are by Neilson

hey, did
anyone ever tell you
you give good silhouette

only doing what i was told to....

I bleed calamity
and i sample dearest friends
sharpen broken bones on
sand stone and alabaster
prettiest cold stare
you’ve ever been near
dressed in rags and loneliness
I travel awful light
so walk against the wind into the sunset
don’t blink because it breaths
consumed by mass consumption
with no padding on the knees


~Face

via Lilly***

HEY!

.better days.

better days have passed...
so,
if you're up for being let down
and if you get the feel
that you're not feeling anymore,
then pack it the fuck in...
and get out.
lose yourself
in the world
and in honesty.
make money,
make love,
make some lies too...
because all this talk about eternity
is making
me
ill.
and, if ever there was a time
when i wished you were here...
it'd be now.
so you could see how much
of a waste i became.
how sorry of a man i am.
and how very little i care these days.
in two years' time,
i'll be dead in a gutter
with a knife in my back
i'm sure...
and you won't come to the funeral.
but only because there won't be one.
guilt is a bitch.
but sharpened blades are even worse...
and you can't stab someone
from behind with iniquity.
so,
just pull away from the curb
and pretend this talk
never even happened.
really, i don't think
you understand...
and that's why it's easy for me
to say you weren't.
you weren't much of anything.
you were the night
and the day.
but you weren't.
and it only took me five years
to find that out for myself.
you weren't much of anything.
i loved you.
but i found out that love...
well, love...
is something for suckers to hold onto.

Redder

2 ounces of ferocious
red rope licorice
piled atop my skull
chemicals seeping into
each weeping follicle
I’m aimin for the fifth element
I feel the tension in my toes
that timer better
hurry the fuck up and
shout at me
already
cause my forward persona
is aflame
and I've gotta wash it
clean again

Those strings
are machete
or bow and arrow
Serengeti
On the stage
or the plane
is rhythm insane
and dance in vision
in a place worth
transition

My Personal Movement

There’s a frog in my throat
and every morning I choke
over last nights ashes
and forlorn thrashes
So I’m sorry if I hurt
any part of you
in punch or
drunken misconduct
Cause ,baby, I’m lovin distant coast
and I’m turnin my back
on all that eastern attitude
to face a western peak of solitude
where I can recall
long-distance phone calls
from that altitude
where I questioned your Jersey moon
Even though they say
it’s all the same
from each fixed point of view
but from what I can see,
mines aflame and free
while yours is blue and naive
and I’m not afraid anymore
to be alone on that shore

a stab in the dark at science fiction

Mighty humming digital insects
spotlight eyes blinking
in every direction

There’s no retire in this land
bones pushed into vacuumed dust
recycled for energy fertilizer
no waste
no one lost
in every direction

Although,
outlaw pockets of vintage culture
buried in dirt rings
beneath the steel streets
still surface and ignite gas-mask skies
with showers of metallic fury
in every direction

They never officially banded the books
the ash just settled over them
and people stopped reading
who would want the bother anyhow
when there’s so much wonderful work left
so much still to build
a new erection
in every direction

Today,
machines only produce
abrasive faces
and ridged razors
for etching out the clouds
with glorious smoke stack
rising
in every direction

last time

Word got out, there would be drinking and speaking from podiums stolen via backstory back stabbing double cross (it's getting so you can't even trust a podium theif anymore), and some how they converged in a dark room filled with wild minded dreamers, not poets really, just people who've kicked over every rock and lived to talk about it. No one was there to try to speak any foreign tounges. That stage breeds men and women with vicious blood burning through their lips.

for a moment
it smelt like snow again
now i don't know
if thats because of
some late winter weather pattern
or the ozone ions let loose wild
as the spark jumped
from her bottom lip to mine

oh, neil young
and bob dylan
where are you now in 3014
after the NEWBOMB has stripped the earth
and changed the color of sunset
this should be the new age
of the troubador
and our fusion technology
brings new definition
to electric guitar
i want to see the way
yer internal rhyme
would treat
these apocalypse born beasts
and worm hole machines
we need a folk rock
of shining silver space travel
and mad government lab
gene splitting

Bulletin

Thursday night
930
Brighton Bar
Long Branch
bring yer poems
they work in place of a cover

the willow trees
and lost dog pin-ups
if the ancients
read bird flight
and animal entrails
am I that crazy
searching smoke clouds
for angelic visions

I haven't seen
a good jagged crack
in the fabric of
time and sky
lightning bolt
fall from my dreaming sky
in months
and then the rains will come
and the smell
of drop beaten
asphalt
with all its
haunting qualities

i want to write poems
about the old gods now
how Thor is nuclear powered
with an atom splitting belly
and Saint Christopher
became a half diesel 18 wheeler

spirits and wild dogs
cry out in the night
about purpose or poetry
or some other man created sin
and i've only got so many hairs
to be pulled from my head

there we were
on the precipice of hungry, sweet toothed time
betraying the great mysteries and wonders,
the very chiseled, wrinkled faces of God
with our eyes

when the cellophane fabric
rolled back with that seismic sensation
we were naked
to the winds of a cosmos
we never really knew

eyes blinked at mushroom clouds
in the all to brilliant dark
I just couldn't tell
where you ended
and I began

boys and girls with untied boots

I usta be a scientist you know
and an activist to boot
with an iron clad will and tummy
now I’m soft round and peculiar
and thinking things like

Truth can be made from word sculpture
Coffee at sunrise and moonset
can make a girl jumpy
Now I get it
the reds to calm you down
but then you forget
and fall in love too much
so you travel

All the time with your bags packed
little sister your life is wild
and the boys you hang around with
know how to dance
Is this the life for me?
Or am I blowing my chances

to be a disciplined child of order
With all this kitten tongued romance
with this karaoke prolonged exuberance
I can never be
academia’s favored daughter
Then the drink is so sweet and
there’s adventure in those veins
and red meat on the plate
Who could resist the opportunity

to gamble on these untied bootlace movements
The fitful temptation filled measures
of boys and girls in revelation

what killed the cat

Do pretty women bring you pills?
I don’t believe you’d be the type
To run with catalog girls

I can’t make heads or tails
Of this coin I flipped over you
Do pretty women bring you pills?
I’d like to know

Bar Stool Drool

sliding the shine of switchblade
into the pit of your stomach
fishin around for something
I left there
and movin like lighting
through deeper water
and drunken memories of you
and me
of fine sadness and sweet release
while my face is trying desperately
to connect with your fist
but if no one meets me in the middle
I’ll just go home
alone
only alone

listening to some
kind of love
sung low
and not feeling
myfingertips

The World You Walk In

oh those feet
slappin pavement, heels clickin
you're just a reflection in street
level windows
the burn from headlights
leaving photographic imprit
for this world of short attentions
a legend in burnt tones of silver

I dream in stop motion
twitching in time to manic strobe
in love with the soft curves
of august avenues
the tar dug into your shoes
the same as the tar in my lungs
I'll breathe in your footsteps
and it'll burn like sulphur
and I'll be left
looking for a path less beaten

smoking one last cigarette
thinking of horizon
with windmills
perfect for tilting

lost in wild confusion
of everyone hunting for their
own fortune
or own gravity
or own hips to move
or old tellers of truth

the heat of the porcelin backdrop
as we drink against sunlight
I almost belived these were streets
we could dance on
but there's nothing you can
grip in this city that's not halfway broken

we're in fantasy in neon
mocking dreams
and this aint what you think you found
we're all each others heartbreak
wrapped in torn shower curtains
looking over hopes and sins

i was dreaming of...

blue skies, blue like sinatra's eyes * the sun breaks through & probes the foothills like a spotlight looking for a hero * i make shapes with the clouds while lying in a field, making wishes on dandelions while the birds chirp & sing my favorite songs * you're there too, smiling as usual * we talk about the good old days.. ah yes, i remember the good ol' days * I REMEMBER EVERYTHING * then you turn to me & ask " isn't it nice here?" * after a moment with no reply you turn to me once more "say why do you have that old can opener?" * then i show you just how black you heart is...

Fair Exchange

While I watched
It rose
Gathering a
Rainbow halo
Moon and I
Exchanged glances
Also fancies
I showed
Sallow bubble
My field notes
In exchange
For light to write
Them by

To Cross the Little River

Spent the afternoon

Erecting bridges

From windfall

And forgetting

All previous afternoons

Bowie

I can’t touch myself
To thoughts of him
That
Extraterrestrial
Homosexual
Redhead rocker

Without thoughts of a car ride
And a fun night all things alien
Converging then dispersing
Years from now if it is never spoken
we will still share that strange evening
Dirty and stinking wearing yesterdays clothing
Off and running en route to something
Engine humming bumpers bumping
I saw the disk before the cracker clouds
An omen surely the music would be loud
And thumping
I hear it still when kept awake
Not being able to get off because

I can’t touch myself
To thoughts of him
That
Extraterrestrial
Homosexual
Redhead rocker
Anymore

i can't see winter trees, passing by at high speeds

Nauseous with pine needles
poking through skin, translucent
anemia and a nervous twitch
and I had to spontaneously combust
for them to believe the burn in my bones

I can remember nights,
that starved dirt snake of a road
where trees were striped
snow blanketing their naked bodies’
prickly limbs penetrating every direction
my plump childish cheek
pressed against the pane
welcoming the soothing glass chill

I could never undo the knots in my stomach
as I watched those ridged skeleton trees
with their long needlelike fingers flying by
and feeling they were scratching out my eyes
bleeding on the wood, running windblown

Nephanalysis

the sky’s at war
it’s noctilucent against cumulus
like dragons with ballerinas
twirling atop their scaly heads
the stars sought refuge
behind blackout backdrop
and the weather’s
getting all involved
in the moons hazey business

I’m pleading with you
look up for me
just once

spinel-tap traps

sat too long with this gravity
pulling apart seams
lifeless clutter
obscuring dreams


I want free form floating
waves of antiquity
involved solitude
and my own god damn armchair
to rest
distractless

on top

melano giants screamin
west coast blasphemy
hipsters and cowboys
brawlin out bar room corners
her lips finding their weird way
home to mine, smiling relief
and later I think
we’ll all masturbate
to our own broken promises
over full plates
of east coast lust

.hai.ku.for.the.bro.ken.

.i.keep.your.swear.jar.
.in.biz.ness.be.cause.you.keep.
.fuck.ing.me.o.ver.
--------
and yes, i know i went crazy with the periods...

it's what i do.

.hotness.

things just got a little tougher...
because blowing a kiss
is like throwing a fist;
and we don't stop until
one of us is
bloody,
bruised,
fucked,
or all three.
we're no longer shooting
from the hips,
but firing downrange
from the mouth,
taking every precaution...
every precaution
not to have a complete misfire of emotion.
salivary-like projectiles
always exchanging blows...
words stop.
breathing pauses.
breathing pauses.
breathing resumes... heavily.
and we are holding eachother
now, like we've never held
security blankets
resembling the ones crumpled
at the foot end of the bed.
socks in a pile next to the door,
shoes not far;
shirts slung from mirrors
and thumbtacks on the walls,
and pants, showing their innards,
commiserating on the rug,
underwear lost in the mixture
of bodies and moans...
we're floating, rolling,
trying to combine ourselves
with one another's skin.
we're trying...
we're trying.
we're trying.

a flash dance picture of you

daft feet movin
with wild mambo
or salsa,
or some strange kinda hop jazz
just fightin the hotel floorboards
stampin out melding flower patterns

and I thought you were still wound
with song on your brain
and imprints of narcotic dance
holding holy hot metal
and coils of wire
whipping about

each step was forever
as the hallway stretched
away as you shuffled oddly
and the air conditioning
and the florescent lighting
roared in epic battle with my mind

my skin was strawberry seeds
and the white light moaned
around your wiggle
as I drew closer to your movements
and humming ice hoards
and colorful cavities encased

filthy toes boppin around
and the sound of your dancing frenzy
caught the drum of my ear
that elevator whisper
that jingle, that silly secret noise
and my face nearly fell off laughing

the ceiling was singing
and you stood in 4 by 8
full sound barrier swing
the music was like light fog rollin in
over our heads settling
heavy on our souls

woke up tin Georgia
with reggae in my ears
and a sun well into a morning sky
for a moment
thought the pill burn
and asphalt dreams
and fine southern swamps
were just to much
consoled back to sleep
by infinities of white lines
racing past me

all being is void
all the different places,
all the same
the more things change and all..
the budhism
of wide bellied AMERICA

three pop culture casualties
down 95 in the afternoon
are the heroin
pumping down AMERICA's
asphalt artery

like chemical visions
from a kalidescopic
mind's eye dreaming
we perused the body
of that woman, AMERICA
with all her curves and heartaches
the demons in dirty bars
the hilltops
grass covered
and smearing out whole worlds
there's a scent to every inch of her

we descended down
through the now meth driven
bible belt
the holy land of dixie
where religion and politics
are still discussed at dinner tables
over corn bread
but never politely
down further
toward the land
of the space shuttle
and the fountain of youth
coincidentally it was
bike week in daytona
and my thoughts flashed
to Kesey's bus
being escorted into that rally
by Hell's Angels in full getup

you want to sing heavenly hosanas
down here in the swamplands?
That's fine.
but do it withh yer whole body at least
and do it pressed against mine
cuz the angels
hear sex, girl
loud and clear
in the dark lonely human night
I'll be a spark
You be a fire fly

the songs gunnin outta the radio
the pills swallowed on interstates
visions melting in the ice cream cone mind
a love affair car chase

What is AMERICA?
i saw it one time on the interstate
i heard it one time on the radio
i fought it one time in a bar
I PRAYED TO IT IN THE BREAKDOWN NIGHT
and i chased her

we're all wrapped up
in the sky
always,
nothin you can do about it

the moon's a crazy sarcastic joker
laughin deep in the dark
at all the running around
down here
and on the bank of this Florida river
with a dreadlock hippie
and a crazy eyed girl
and all these old world alligators
the moon over it all
laughin deep in the dark

on the otherside of this glass pane
that chills my cheek
and fogs under my breath
out there in the everywheres
of AMERICAn night
there's sinners and bohdisatvas
dreaming up this life
that we're livin

in split light moments
Georgia off the road
takes on the attitude
of mind conjured
central african morning

the desolate
car carcasses
on 95 in the
south

eerie lifeless cars, blown out hulking rubber tire skeletons, a white dog or a ghost of long forgotten AMERICAn myths, bilboards as signs of the times, smokeys with sleeping sirens on center dividers, a pile of logs, roadcrews with treasures and accents and trashbags, snoozing truck driving saints with halos hanging off the exhaust pipes of parked diesel titans, mile markers hinting at progress, high tension wires pumping their cosmic juices all over the planet

bumbling drunk in the crystal night
with kalidescope eyes
waiting for Savanah
trying to trade Columbian pesos
for tomorrows
or whole weeks
where is this dream going
but life is traffic
and traffic is life
and oh you light hearted moon
please
keep laughin my way

he was stoic
freewheelin silent budha
in the interstate morning
and 95 turned under him
with a constant karma
gas pedal

yer moon expressions
been gatherin dust
in the bad lighting
of this place
sheering sheep
finding gods in between
the letters in Wichita
and the words don't rhyme
in a rhythym
of waves lapping boat sides
cold beer foam
in your nerves

and in the end
there's only one question
I'm left to answer
"mother nature or arnold palmer?"

coming to terms with what hurts

25 minutes ago
we were one forgotten republic
and you're a mess
and I'm on track
and I'm not even
sad about that

cause you've got your choices
and me,I've made mine
and maybe
one day together
we'll step in time
but now I'm all movement
and you're stationary shrine
I'm all rhythm
with no use for rhyme

when I’ve gone away
I'll buy a card that’ll say
some silly sweet line
like ''Hope you're well, I'm doing fine"
still I'll remember a time
under cloak of red wine
where your life intended
to smash into mine
and a love I could never find
without the help of you steady hand
in the back of my mind

You're good
real good
far
maybe lost
in all those big city lights
and it's yourself that you fight
cause you're afraid to live
and me, well,
I've got so much to give
and I don't plan on stoppin any time soon

Ha! oh of the history books

I was millions of universes on collide
and foam fruited circus
and the dance and dreams
of fairies with wings
livin outa vans
with my feet in the sands
on the wang of a shore
so far from home

I was chineese counting beads
and animals and reptiles
singing in the swamps
behind reckless hotels
where irons travel well
and orange pants
and pinkie promises
lay their roaming heads to rest
on the stiff salted mess
of sunshricken grass

I was arcade game
played intently
movements considered carefully
under alcohol and lsd
and the literature spoken
over key bumps of molly
with our lips aflame
and the undying fame
of a juicing madman
and the noise we create

I was right
I was wrong
I was lost in song
intent and driven
fulfilled and stricken
not sour or sullen
or rancid and runnin
just me and the moon
over floridian dunes
and a dream I remembered
in the Jersey mornin

yellow and blue sunrise
from a slightly sloped
rooftop
and talking about
the different colors
of days

You carved
Your mark
Into my heart
With a souvenir swizzle stick
All these open wounds
I’m bleeding to death

she smelled like I
imagined south Asian breeze
all red curry and coconut milk

i thought long and hard
about sleep
in a haze of tylenol cold,
coffee and house red

please let me be
horizontal soon

learning to live leaning back on my heels

It's not every night you see
the moon flying low and fast
knocking off tv antennas
and I must be half way
fallen down because

that knocked me to the ground
and I thought I had
spun myself silly
but I cut myself off
so no more spitting in your dust
and no more burning out
my retinas staring too long.
fuck your explosions
and everything that melts around you

I could be a bus driver
with an heart of gold
and shoelaces to match
and you could be criminally insane
and we would part company
over coal black coffee
sitting amongst smudged out sailors
and bankers on brunch,
vicous like fire ants

tell me I've got beautiful index fingers
and maybe I'll buy you another drink
then I'll fill my pockets with complimentary
toothpicks till I'm as dangerous as
a porcupine on ecstasy
under the right light
you can almost see the devil on your
shoulder
I'll be a parking lot away
with the memories those
fumes bring back

we project ourselves into others

in a poem you wrote,
you asked ...where's our neal, our fire....
sorry to say it but it's you
did you think you were jack?
all he was, was a translator to the world
getting the information out there,
neal stole the cars
neal drove the cars
moved everyone around him.
how about this you keep
doing what you're doing
burn like fabulous roman candles
exploding like spiders,
and you'll be our neal
and i'll be your jack spreading
that sweet word as far as i can.

saw a tree
wild limbs
dancing from wind
careening off
urban renewal
and in the dark
for a second
I thought
she was beautiful

ghosts of sea blown hair
that you can't put
your fingers on

always floating
around the edges
of words, can't
quite breathe it in

fuck off you hacks

stop touching the paint its still wet
you are trying my patience with all these words that all add up to look at me bullshit in scratched out silk stained with oil and filth of a malignant soul
put off by all of these shit talking cancerous void barring mouth pieces
who knows what and who knows who
just following the leader to the edge of the wang of america and taking cues from a narcicstic idiocincratic madman who charles manson would call boring and demand the return of his friends

i was never hungry
like i was
the rest of the emotions

Uncertainty Principal

How can anybody sleep?
Knowing there’s no link
Gravity to quantum mechanics!
So I’m told that these laws
Are for the very immense
And these are for the minuscule
Like politics and dating
There are two worlds
I don’t know where I fit in
Give me a social string theory
And a bottle of scotch
And tonight

I’ll lay a physicist

Today all I can do is pause
On the steps momentarily
Forgetting regrets and
Getting my eyes lost
In the new tulips

Yellow was up days ago
The purple shows today
I’ve been told
Those are the colors
Of the lonely all-stars

Astray in young petals
And the wasp on the concrete
In front of her
I don’t feel that foolish
Lost in the tulips

Someday soon, I'm running home

Just under the surface there are points of light
Stars that fell long ago wet and alive
It was my dogs’ discovery
When she was digging

It brings me back to balanced times
Not so long ago when I knew well
The smell and feel
When my prayers
Were carried in the smoke

I had time then and solitude
And self control
I’ve lost I guess that quality
To charm the birds

It calls me now with its fallen stars
And taste of mystery
Dig deeper child
It seems to say

The song she sings may grow
To fever pitch some warm day soon
An itch I can’t resist
Moth to moon flower

I’ll run toward this and leave my life here
Back into the brush and thistle
With trees to climb
Where you have to look to see
Listen to hear

I think of sins that might be forgiven
The day I run home
My cigarette broadcasting the sacred
Toward falling stars

hey you there,
answer your phone
so i can sleep
without all the ringing

smokin cheap cigarettes
swayin to slow low tunes
under a wiley smirk moon

with the ghostly Barnegat Bay
and deep black no feeling night
painted across the windshield
my arm around the girl

I think all of AMERICA
could be lost and drowning
lonely
in the all to low music
and other worldly dashboard glow

and Desolation Angels wouldn't
have it any other way

what ever happened
to analogue technology
with all the lost romance
of turn dials

today

tomorrow I’ll be leavin
but today I’m just here thinkin
it’s kinda dark in here
and I really don’t wanna turn the light on

I wanna remember when
all these thoughts crammed in my head
how "I" came to be
and where the road wants to take me
so I just gotta leave

for a while I tried to be free
I tried to fly
I tried to sing
and don’t mean to place blame
on what’s driving me insane
but I just gotta leave

I’m gonna say straight up
I’m a sucker for all that pretty stuff
half-hearted whispered words
secret smiles and fluttering birds
intense eyes
delving deep into mine
but I just gotta leave

to forget all that enchanting shit
and the tingle between the hips
the slow dance and the romance
the red wine has no chance
for a while its just me
and the gray cat at my feet
and maybe I’ll remember how to dream
but for now I just gotta leave

poems and poets

A poet is a person who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.

~~~Randall Jarell


"A poem . . . begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. . . . It finds the thought and the thought finds the words."


''To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. "

~~~Robert Frost

pebbles in the rain

his mother, oh daughter, and how you can caress
a man who signals his distress
you'll burn the candles at the right time
the sky will open in its night time
bridges and byways
collecting these highways
in a bucket of numbers on the dash
like a toy chest that fills too fast
are you a part of the machinery that surrounds your place
with the most comforting gaze on an android's face
like you're a part of the machinery down the street
but you know whats right for a boy that needs some sleep
his mother, dear daughter,
alone to tend the multitude
daughter, nurturer,
romance like milk from your breast
so tell me when the time is right
tell me when you must send me along
across the bridges and byways
under the new jersey skyway
i wont hesitate to call it a romance
whether daughter or mother
passenger and guide
lover
for as long as the rain will hide us in this room...

restless hopeless drunken focus

attempting, at best, to be someone I could love, to be someone you could even stand to be around
im not very good at much and by much i mean im a completely helpless waste of life
i guess i would try to get up out of this miserable bed i made for myself
but i kept getting tugged back into by the woman in the shape of a whiskey sour
and i hope it makes you happy that im suffering this way
im ignoring all the answers cuz they dont make any sense to me
im rewriting all the questions so i can bitch about it more
and im drunk of all my mistakes and hopes because they're both the same
i cant write fast enough to avoid the liquour from doing the talking
and i cant care enough to avoid the liquour
i love the way your heart beats when im passign out on your chest
but you're not realy even there so this is just pretend
but i can sure feel that pitter patter like you were right here
with my hand on your breast and you speak softly of my inebriation
you'd tell me im too far gone to love you tonight
and id give you that agreeing goodnight kiss
there's no morning that could be as warm as one next to you
when the dawn cracks open my walnut eyes
you always felt me waking up and knew just what to say
"last night is alright you dotn have to explain"
and wine can get me romantic, but this whiskey will get me just where i want to be
my hands are working hard to keep my body from toppling down
when i reach for the bottle i know i wont faulter now
and i can love it like no other and just let it hush
and no one has to understand or ask questions that dont have answers
because between me and the lines of clouded thoughts
we dance till dawn and everyone can touch me to get to you
you're a whore and i can accept that because you have such a bitter taste
but ciggareeteessand cheap wine
are no one without youre blessssssssssing
we dont have points of view we jsut have different blurs in our visions

iwish

everyday is slow and tedious and somehow in all these moments in all of these match head moments there is not one spark and every last second is freezing cold the cold that you don't feel unless youre alone the cold that bites through and reminds you that you took anything warm for granted like it would always be there and now that it isnt you hate this cold with every last frozen fiber of your being. you can tell me all the time you dont mind the cold but i know you do because it is the worst pain i have ever felt and i will not lie this is the worst pain i have ever felt and i will not lie i wish i was warm and i will not lie i would rather not feel this and i will not lie... i wish i was dead.

File It Away

a good poem is when no one else ever attains it
because it's torn to shreds
from all the times you've read it aloud to yourself
and let your own words echo their meanings across the chasms in your head

a good poem is one read carefully and painfully
through spatters of blood and watermarks from tears
read by someone the writer will never know
who files it away in the evidence room for years

but a great poem is the one you've never finished,
the one you'll never know
the one you won't receive applaud for
the one you'll never show
the one that racked your brain for nights
trying to conquer anything post-scribble
what makes this the greatest poem?
because it

mermaids and marmalade

and electric shocks
and broken myths

messages scralled
feverishly on formica

ghost in the machine
with a spacey beat

dead end trails and
fingerprints on chalkboards

talk of poems
and rosetta stones

after all
it's just a rock show

found this in a cosmology textbook

gathering stars by the bucketful
enlarges the bucket
and sets it ablaze

-Timothy Ferris

a good poem is one you
can real aloud
and it flows so nicely that
it really only needs one read
even if you don't understand it

A good poem is one that
makes sense and relates
to everyone in a room
at a reading or to someone
alone in a dark room thinking
to themselves even if it takes
more than one read

But a great poem involves
all of these things and will sooner
or later make it to everyone
everywhere through word of mouth
through a magazine or through a daily
posted blog on the internet lost forever
in that jungle of a mess we call the internet.

hang nails make me feel like I want to shit

Nothing can go in my
right pocket,
and I feel so weighed down
on my left side.

"your life and attitude depends on your car"

it's true
I just got my new car
(well used
new one)
and the mirror isn't cracked
for one complete concave viewpoint

My hair looks nice
without the static elastic
roof hanging onto my head
(improoved my posture
too)

First to Second gear is one
smooth action

I don't get the shakes
above 50 mph
and the windows
go down the whole way electronically.

The cup holder
spills nothing
and the temperature
is a comfortable 84 degrees.

And the radio,
oh the radio
free of static
can play my
'back to the future'
soundtrack
and picks up stations from
the rat to new york rock.

Fuckin' amazing how good life can get.

Tonight I listened to
Hank Williams'
lonesome cry
and wondered what he knew
about your heart

the tall tales we tell

we stride across
our own landscapes
and I've seen you
kick over mountains, and
bathe in great lakes
and piss on Nebraska,
scraping Dakota Badlands
off your shoes
and onto mine

we all grow to the
size of our cages
and one day
they will wonder who
could have made those footprints

An Empty House, An Empty Home

i'm still not sure
there is a bird inside my ribcage trying so hard to sing out
but he is iron bound
doesn't it seem like the answer should come with ease?
like the choice between drowning and surfacing to breathe?
an instinctual reaction taken for granted
an airbag, of sorts,
in our cause/effect banks planted
i am consistently riddled with perplexion
how foolish would i be to give you affection?
which eye would i suffer to watch if i sent you away?
surely the blind one
which hand should suffer to feel your face blow away?
surely the severed one
on which leg should i stand my ground?
the strength doesn't lie in the ones to which i'm bound

sleep by yourself

oh, to know the cries of a crime's mind
"how could these hands have betrayed their master"
oh to know the whore of a guilted mind
she lays in the bed that i filled with disaster
every night there is not enough room to breathe
every night there is not enough room for me

i'll find someone else to sleep with tonight
i'll find a rose whose hips don't have bite

the radar and the lungs
green mystic visions
the flashing reds
of planes
you wished on
tasting aluminum
betting on
chemically driven horses
is my scent still curling through your nose

in the haze
of empty bottle night
the glisten
of eyes undressing
and creme in the coffee
colored skin
as the shirt slides off
more gracefully by memory
than by drunken bumbling hands

blankets,
like bandages
for our
little kid
souls

breaking up

now, my words
sting with memory
cuz i used 'em
when i was drunk again
arm wrestling and shooting dice
with the only thing
i ever loved
unconditionally
the bottle
and those beasts within

well babe
i think it might be better
if we went splitsville

I don't remember writing this last night

There is no
But if there was
Lord
Help us all
Cause I
Just got dropped off
By a celebrity friend
And my father,
Not my daddy said
“Ha ha you came home”
And I said
“Jesus Christ your up”
Fathers shocked
“Besides your alive”
Was the response
“Oh father, no I’m not”
Because
No
I’m not

these chords
write my words
and send my pen
to many places

browned soles
rest on coffee tables

dear friend

if I'm to lay it down
dear friend
I wish your heart strong
song long
and steady
a beautiful dream
a friendly hand
the touch of warmth
upon your frown
dear, we all tend to float
downstream
to wash our souls
anew and clean
to find our own
one true beauty
within the skin
we live in
dear child
just rest your head
and know your heart
will beat again

below me, cities
as spilled marbles
on the night's bottom

4 days in FLA

no fountain of youth
no astronauts autographs
no oranges

she's quite warm

i like to wrap my cat
around my shoulders
like a mink

she likes the way i look in gray
and thinks i wear her well

it's a kind of decay

lost my words on this blacktop backdrop
befriended mexicans
bright she is just bright
kissin all the women
and i saved some there for you
down deep on and into
but decided you'd be better off
without my influence

then the other broke
not only broke
but spread like marbles on the floor
of a friends old crown vic
i'm lost to you once more

so there's lots of distraction
to supply satisfaction
like liquor and quick words
and lost birds
and friction
n a few conversations
bout ol' mother love
and father castration
and sex that aint happin
still it's your face that i'm slappin

cause baby you broke
not only broke
but spread like marbles on the floor
of a friends old crown vic
i'm lost to you once more

this wont end like i thought it would
not thought but hoped
no dreamed
but thank the lords i'm drunk again
just long enough to scream
so pretend to speak philosophically
while the rest of us pretend to sleep
it's just, sweetness i know only
that they aint got nothin to show you
i guess
i'm just
another bitter poet

now it's none but evident
where these words lie on your page
cause darlin you broke
not only broke
but spread like marbles on the floor
of a friends old crown vic
i've come to lose to you once more

arachnophobia

hey there dear tarantula king
why don’t you come crawl my way
I wanna get to know your venom
and set you loose upon many a dancing frenzy
to watch the noise you create
there will be no rolled up newspaper slap
your long strides will carry far
I’ll lure in the meat and drink
if you’ll lend me a bareback ride

wobbly matins
even before
tenacious rays
force eyelids open
unsteady feeling
in this dew

I am not an early morning heart
but a laggard and inadequate
stumble into sunrise

H.M.S. Uncertainty

i dont suppose you've got a cure just yet to make this feeling go away
the panging nausea, the sensation of having lost my way
inside this body i dont know which is bleeding more
the ulcerated stomach or the heart that's ridden with sores
i guess if you look at it from timeline perspective
it's a nicotine whisper on the ocean of things accepted
some expected
but this may be a sickness far too afflictive
a shortness of my breath that might have been addictive
i felt the spikes of heels before
i've washed up on other shores
but i find i miss tides unexpected
time has found i've grown fond of the wreckage
tear my sails down
let this ship become wasteward bound

The Box of Solitude

How dare you distract
My decent into madness
It’s none of your business
If I say I need this

This box is my mother
There’s no place I’d rather
I don’t want another
So don’t even bother

And I’ll take my chances
Erect cardboard fences
Fill my own spaces
Set my own prices

So stop your diversions
Pointing out my delusions
Making your assumptions
Calling institutions

How dare you distract
My decent into madness
It’s none of your business
If I say I need this

How is it possible
That I should feel such sparkle
On starless a night as this?
How could it be
Simple thing that puzzles me
My Cheek still feels the kiss?

they set their European leather souls
on these New World sands
fully ready to believe all the foggy mythos
and maybe they were really gods
wielding thunder sticks
and off into the wilderness they trompsed
slaughtering for
fountains of youth and cities of gold

hey Neal,
when you put that steel boot down
in the lunar dust
with the solar wind at your back
were you shocked
that no man in the moon
rushed up
to offer you green cheese

a few more from fla

something like hotel mornings
and buisness suits carrying carry ons
beside mesh shorts and sandals
but everyone and their toiletry case
has a purpose
round these lobbies
the minor league mets
looking so dominican
speaking some sort of crazier
spanish


last night
over florida's route one
I saw the moon
all sliver and sideways
grey smile in the pitch
now, it was an authentic moon
but, it was not an authentic grin
everything down here is bittersweet
tropical weather and tropical insects
the golden years, my ass!!!


seen more real estate agencies
in 3 days then
seen all my life
their sellin the tropics
plot by plot
palm by palm
to old folks who love
holy air conditioning


gotta wonder
just a little bit
if all these fogees retire
to this hell of a heat wave state
still chasing
the fountain of youth
they learned about in third grade
maybe we all still
believe in myths

.once again.

my pencil broke.
my pencil...
broke.
once again,
this time with more conviction...
my pencil.
it broke.

i started writing.
and i stopped
because of a graphite ailment.
it seemed to me
that they didn't make things
like they used to,
but we'll still keep
buying them,
those things that are made
so inferior to their priors.

now, for the last time,
my pencil broke.
broke right the fuck in half...

there are two kinds of people in this shithole of a town:

the "do-ers" and "dewar's";
those who make the shot, and those who take the shot.

my pencil.
it fucking broke;
so i'm typing instead.

.the difference.

you're setting...
just setting.
but, if the difference
between settling
and setting is just one letter,
why didn't you send it to me?
why not mail me
all that you thought
and all that you felt
and just get it out there...?
because, frankly,
i'm still confused as fuck
as to whether or not
i should have broken up
your wedding like i did.
was i wrong?
was i wrong?
are you okay anymore...?

thank the sweet seasonal gods it's March

on the beat

Oh where is darling Vollmer
as a river merchants wife
she was there for the beginning
till accident claimed her life
And Corso he insisted
upon many female beats
like Sura and her Li Po
and electroshock Prima
Notably sweet Carolyn
went off the road in time
but where are all those lovely legs
ODed or lost their minds
Now in this day of movements made
by dinner booth and rowdy bar
the existential poets sing
while the artists strike the chords
And I hear their calling this addiction
a bold new generation
where controversial creativity
is spontaneous and messy
and the production of non-conformity
is style drinking alone under the moon

Burroughs wrote about cats

landscape, animalscape dreams
and visions about milk

I write about barroom implosions
and pinpoint road at horizon
and the burn of whiskey and karaoke
and free form skyline melodies,
remembering scents in between thoughts,
something bright out of the corner
of my eye
or driving circles around these bricks
and sometimes... about lips
I've all but drowned out
with rivers and wine

but none of those are cats

Burroughs wrote
we are the cats inside. we are the cats who cannot
walk alone, and for us there is only one place.

that's the last time I
try to breath water

there goes that whole plan
to be a fish...

reading desolation angels in americas wang

dear ghost duluoz
you and your crazy
ramblin' cosmic consciousness
i'm down here
in the land of the space shuttle
done with this morbid expenditure
like a penance
these banana trees
and scampering lizards
so anyway
where was that diamond hand
to lay on yer brow
i could use it

FLA

o' land of the legendary sports fisherman
o' land of fabled space exploration
o' land of ill advised alligator wrestling
o' land of glaciated slow service
o' land that does not believe in breakfast

o' land of lizards scurrying in the grass

the palm trees harassed by hurricanes

the way a late afternoon florida shadow falls
something tropic

and this is forever...

and ever.
and ever.
and ever.
so, let us take this time
to learn of eachother...
let us not get ahead of one-another
and just learn.
i want to know
the last time you really felt
like living was the best option.
i want to know
what your middle initial means to you.
i want to know...
i really do.
so, tell me, dear woman,
what your car really means to you.
and tell me, dear woman,
what your favorite ice cream is.
because this is forever...
and ever.
and ever.
and ever.
and i want to know
everything i can about you
before forever ends forever.
can you dig it?

Good Times

It blows my mind that these could be the good times
And I’m learning to live with Coyote
It was weeks ago that I was told
That if the groundhog claimed spring
All the ladies would lose themselves to urges
When even in the cold and dark of winter
I find it hard to keep my composure
And my clothes on and it blows my mind
How indifferent I am during the good times

Should not the music move my mood?
And remove my sooty attitude and scrape from me
The dust and rust and brassy tendencies?
All the potential lovers in the rhythm section
Should be wary for I’ve forgotten all my decencies
Abandoned wholesomeness and grown despondent
Drunk and rowdy I asked frankly and Coyote told me
That I no longer could depend on rock and roll to set my soul free
But I should count my blessing and my crimes
Because though hard to believe these are the good times

And isn’t this the season that reminds
When the weather turns towards wetter climes
The Turtles Back Creation Myth I cling to
Hunger too to crave mushrooms spring new
Created in the melt mud leaf litter fog dew?
Tulips again watching Robin’s pluck earthworms
If I am a book then why in specific would this age
Beholden the high five good times picture page?

While I sit on the hard floors
In the hallowed hallways of higher learning
Lazily gazing downward it would appear
It is also that point in the circling year
For students to purchase new footwear
Shoes for finding mates for falling in love
And if I asked the bodies balances on those soles
Might I find they believe these are the good times?

Even at my most unbound moments flying wildly
Down the parkway the wheels I ride are not mine
If I roll down the window betrayed will be the sunshine
While the miserable cold strikes a minor tune
In what had promised itself to be foxtrot afternoon
Still only the green I see is in the ever-present pine
The dull and leafless highway whines
A prayer that these not be the good times

Oh Coyote won't you please tell me
could these really be the good times?