Dirt road mind
the ocean on the cold side
and every breath leaves
a wave lapping at the shoreline,
and with a great splash we're
all in tune with the tide

Shimy up to the branches far away,
dangling in a blanket of spray
where the lights are obscured
and are straining to find yr eyes
after the flash paper world burns
bright and lights up the bay

sorry for the way...and went about....

my words may be more painful
than all your minor built up snivel
and peeves and pawns
and why don’t we get along
and sit over tea and strong coffee
cause you’re feeling used
and i unrecognizable
and i want you to know
that i do care and listen
even though
I can not always see your place within me
but i am trying
because i want too
because
at the end of all the nights
i do love you
and i apologize
for everything gone wrong tonight

Grevious Angel, you know that I think
of you every time I feel that lonesome
cactus burn
and I think of your desert fall,
the dry smoke in my eyes,
and I know someday
I'll find you at the dark end
of the street

why dontcha go on
and tell me all about
your favorite state lines
and faith in the next few miles

there’s trouble to be found
in finding “r’s” tonite
under all this keyboard clutter

yer southern ways bring a slow drawl to the haze
leftover from your winter days
and where we left you
or you left us
to carry the burden
through a summer of dust
making us wait, not grabbing the bait
thrown out to sea
when you left,
you left your responsibly

gone to bed

there’s a truth to be of what we do
and when we search
in morning’s dew
through violent nights and flightless birds
of all that’s been lost and left absurd
and maybe passed in that translation
is an unquoted castration
to each and every one of you
all that’s leftover in the mornings light
should bring truth and honesty to the plate
and one won’t mind but moreover respect
the night and where you decided to leave it

Often

often you cross through my mind
and i remember all that’s bitter now
and the zest left in my mouth
cause every time i taste those flaming lips
to remind me once of an unforgivable bliss
your face floats through my mind

blind ears and deaf eyes

they’ve left again
just the two of them
on a quick and contentious walk
down to the corner market
and the topic of their conversation surely consists
of the potentially bad decision
their only daughters contemplating
and what she’ll put at stake
with the choice she’s about to make

road
fucking glorious open forever running road
honest and severe
and completely away untamed
and your St. Christopher
and that bitch yearning


I can feel you so fluently streaming through my blood vessels
and pounding on my heart and crunching at my bones and singing horribly
enchanting notes in my ears.


and I vomit as you turn my stomach under your wheels

Bitch Spit

it’ s quite uncomfortable
sitting in your spit
and although you're ugly inside at times
i know your laugh and i know you can smile
and fucking mean it
like real
and true
where you were beautiful
and my eyes may be blind at times
but i still know the sound of your bellow
and i can still feel you frown
from where i sit
under all this spit

Beauty And All It's Flaws

I find that under summers glimmer
old friends with their memories
and the beautifully violent sting they bring
fly like fireflies through moister skies
and with each light that blinks so bright
for seconds only to fade in it’s own glory
carries away it’s sad story and it’s beauty
on wings that can never be touched again
because once you’ve stepped over the gentle stream
between conscious living and mythical dreams
into that place of pure innocence and grace
there is only the child that you were
and all the beauty that is in her
shines anew but fragile and vulnerable too
and that child, her smile, can be broken
by each memory that claims itself unspoken
in beauty and all it’s flaws
with lust and it’s claws and the infamously raw
and alone all is gone but an unheard scream on a morose string
where every beautiful firefly stings
a child that owns only a true idea and a song of sorrow
that she may sing in hope of the memories
that she may sing in hope of a more beautiful tomorrow.

talking to you about the
where should we find another
anyone else would have been
how was your day
i'm caught in a flash with
don't find the door beyond
come in annd sit on the
fire is close

Multiple personalities

I’ve got this bitch inside of me
Who sits and sips her tea
Silently
With airs put on
And judges all the others
Who partition up their places
In my all to willing psyche

The strummy hymns of the local
Sometimes choke me up
When I listen
In the car
Driving aimlessly
Around the shore
And it’s all dark
And afterstorm
The night and the music

I wonder about your laughter and your stars
About your lover and mother
And how you might look when you’re sad

today
fog dreamed up
by the tropics
a week ago
ice cold water
trigger
that chest tightness
rain drops
and cloud to cloud
electricity sparking out
huge

the barroom mist
and the for a moment golden lies
whispered into women's
perfect ears

green bolgarian eyes
and slavic syllables
from far off
eastern europe land
like a fable
of the shapeless
byzantine empire
with its countless spires

....the most liberating moments of my day are when I am flying down the back of the bridge on my bike with the threat of falling over the side down into the dark water rippling under my wings....

I’m developing a tickle (or maybe just a trickle) down the back of my throat...either way it'll make you sick.

There’s at least a few of my teeth that
decide every night to take in a piece of you and chew
till the blood fills my mouth and impends to choke out
every weary breath and wheeze that
i have
left in me

the mirror of
100 proof shimmer,
dangling without any ropes, with
the sound of push button velvet snap and
spare change rolling through my fingers

nights like these, crumbling concrete
and dollar bills lost on the rail road tracks,
I can see how you sketched still life motion,
the lust in every song and notion,
when you thought romance had to be stolen,
washed down with pills and winter rain

Listen for more stone to shatter

I'm covered in streetlight smoke
and drawing faces on astro turf
counting 15 far off candle lights

feeling heavy, like a flag made of clay
caught in a frozen ripple
one instant of meaning, hot off the kiln

I've got that taste of sweet soot on me,
blackface against a whitewashed chalkboard
spinning with a cast iron heart
blurring at high speeds

Some day this beach'll be washed away,
waves slowly pulling the earth away
so listen for more stone to shatter

and dance to the music it makes!
resonating into a fine mist rhythm-
the night and all the rust

here's to you, moon
and all the wine drank
under your eyes,
and to lovers who feel
your breath on their necks
and streaked ripples
cutting through ink black puddles
and to hanging on
to the last streaks of the night

wasted that half-drawn sunset
I should have kissed you then
and seen if you'd have
held that moment, or tossed
me into the yellow glass sea

Spotlight

I'd always follow
spotlights on
aching clouds

Stole this line from a song

"With eyes like yers, who needs enemies?"

-The Weary Boys

sometimes I want
to steep into you
like the tea in your cup

Angular Momentum

all this spin in every point,
every particle brushing past
and fumbling, clumsily,
turning on their own axis like
infinetly small worlds, wrapped
up in a moment ago

tumbling chaotically at every point
in space and time, like world of
wine blurred sight, dizzying color
and mad, spinning, flying motion,

the dance in every peice of the universe

warm faces on cold days

so of late there has been....
and older friends have known you then
just shells of what we’ve felt and said
only shells of where we’ve thought and been
but to enforce upon the rest of us
a renewed bliss and tasteful lust
of old friends who knew and know you well
of the souls that linger still
and on and on
and more to come

and i quote

"something always takes the place of missing pieces you can fit and put together even though you know there’s something missing" (Beck)

tornados

The closest thing
I've ever seen
to a tornado
is driving with
all my windows
open, poems
and idioms
flying everywhere.

I like hearing
you whisper to me
on the phone
as if hiding yourself
from me and you.

People are like the Sun

People are like the sun
and when it rains for three weeks
you start to miss it.

At least thats how it is
for most
hence bars,
clubs,
and malls.

But me I walk in the rain
on a beach
after a three week downpour
the sand not feeling like sand
but like the mud where the tide
pulls in, and without a sun
to dry it out its all stuck
together, not seperated
each grain
in a desert of grains.

Asheville, NC

While in Ashville, North Carolina,
A very hippie town
where wheat grass juice
pours from the faucets
and the goats are made of hummus,
I climbed a mountain
I made it to the top
but less than half way up
I sat on a rock deciding
whether it was really worth
it, or if I should just die right there

Sweat poured off me and I cursed
my more enthusiastic friends
who wanted to see the whole town
from the top of this mountain.

The rock I sat on was nice
on the edge of a cliff
and when the time
was right it was all just
a simple jump.
I could wait for a bear,
some coyotes, or wild cows
to come and drag me away

but I gathered what I had
left, with the help of a
walking stick and the hope of
an astonishing view,
and made it to the top...

could see for miles...

And all I saw was another mountain
Another obstacle for me to climb
Another obstacle my friends praised.

On top of that mountain
the conclusion I came to:
That beauty is a man made concept,
and man isn't very natural,
Therefore nothing in nature is beautiful.

So give me yer skyscrapers,
yer cars,
and yer smokestacks.
rising in the sky smoke coming out
covering all yer daily sunsets.

I think they limit
the amount of parking
outside the emergency
room just to determine
how big of an emergency
it really is.

The Things We Do For God

a 10 piece brass band,
retired marching band players,
on the street
of Charolette
playing for God,
me,
and themselves.

That busdriver was a cunt.
Every single one of us
on the bus knew it.
Hardly a half hour into the
trip and she had to stop at
Burger King for her daily fix.

We didn't understand.
We all wanted to move
as fast as possible.

Some of them home
from the war to see family
for the first time in months.

Here I'm just a Jersey boy
but the people who knew
the Virgina Area knew we took
all the wrong roads. That cunt.

She talked on her cell phone
smiling conversing with
anyone but us.

And like a good audience
for a bad opening band
we heckled.

"Get off the phone"
"Don't go this way, you rag"

She gave us dirty looks
and we hid behind the seats
I guess embarrased by our
immaturity,
and we looked at our watches
and we took it
as we waited for the next band.

A poem for Ben, Erin, Tina, and The Bunny

I am in Virginia on
a balcony and I am
at one of those times
in my life when all I
can think of is you.

The outline of the
city over the water
looks like the view
of New York from the
NJ Turnpike
when I would drive north
to see you.

The only sound I hear
is the traffic from
the main highway below and
I know you know where I am,
the occasional breeze, your skin
and a sign at a mini storage
facility across the street
calls itself 'The Safe Place'

and it reminds me of you and I
look up at the moon which
also reminds me of you,
so I look directly down
18 stories at a plate glass
roof
immediatly tempted to jump
for a quick rush.
And I think to myself its not
18 stories its only 17
due to superstition

and thats all the comfort
I'll ever need.
When I think of
safeplaces and highways
that remind me of you
jumping in rivers
and outlines of the moon.

My Wafflehouse Lover

Every time I take a trip from jersey
I hit the first wafflehouse
I come to.

I think I recognize the young black waitress everytime
I'm there and she claims to remember me.
Asking how I've
been, where I'm going
but never when I'll be back
to take her away from her waffle house
from all
that syrupy goodness.

I feel like an
old russian man,
not so outspoken
and i keep my thoughts
of others sins within me.

Well I’ve been reading Voltaire
Off the glow - Of my lovers’ hair
And it leads me to wonder
Why I think sad stories will lift me?

Now I’ve been wondering round this town
But I haven’t found my way
I guess - it could be worse
And though I probably should
I can’t cry- my eyes stay dry
And I
Still can’t find my way

remember

To write about the bull and red in the morning......
or afternoon

buttermilk and crossroads

you run fingertips across my mind folds
and escape the day with thoughts
like tingling appendages

how hard do you have to stare
for the sun to blind you?

I've taken quick peeks
to see if he's got a face like the moon

trying to see a cosmic
fusion smile

solar flares to melt your chair
and sun spots, like the gods casting lots

and I've been on fire with the sky,
queched myself in the cool horizon blue

just enough in my bloodstream,
maybe I'll catch myself
in a dream tonight,
old scents firing tired
synapses

Little Bits and Lost Meaning

she holds him like a man
but in her arm he is only child
tired, tumbled, weak and bleeding
patient, held and peaceful, mild
and no words like those unspoken
can reach a soul so broken
as to let the bitter water run clearer then
he could begin to love again

and she began

still she sat, and wondered where
that lost feeling hidden there
could rise up and create
a beast like the one they make
and if a wild thing so strong
left fading into song
could run the water free
like little bits of you and me

every bit of what could be

Your

Two to be less than more of what one soul can accomplish
Two to be like you and me
and what was left behind us
and you spoke so slow
like a needle pull
behind your eyes lay something vicious
and where would be a babies weep
is nothing more of you and me
Is as blind as I can see
is nothing more of you
and even less of me

...

The glue wasn't dry
I shouldn't have let you near it
It was torn out and stomped on and broken
And the glue wasn't dry
You said you'd be careful, you said it was safe
I believed you
Liar
You tossed it aside
Now it's missing pieces
And the glue won't dry

Ladies love your windy lifestyle
The way turnpike streetlights
Reflect your intentions
The way highway smells
Cling to your clothes
In the rear view
They chase you
As you chase the blue skies
Across wide fields
And all the other visions
That dance across your windshield

I sat letting the water get lukewarm and dirty
With eyelids drooping half closed to the damp air
Knowing that when I washed the grime away
The bruises would remain on pale legs
Legs I only half believe belong to me
Weak willed and clammy staring into filthy water
Letting the only thing fit to lick me
Candlelight
Do its best to cast me in some better shine
More suitable though is the cherry burn glow
The grey curls in the mist having no prayers to carry

Last call in the all you can love saloon
Swoon swoon for the ones that fall for you
Cry cry for the ones left behind
Bleed bleed for the ones that never die
But buy buy the package goods and try
To swoon and cry and bleed

Children
And lovers of lightning
Leave me alone
I’m too weak to belong to you
I’m to tired and burnt
Let me be
Just past ash in your tray
Let me be
Just carefree memories
Let me be
Just
Let me be

Chance means both luck and risk

The ride is hitched
The money is hooked
The girl is alive and well
This is your chance

The girl is only
Only a girl
The best time
For a girl to begin

May I recommend
A girl
Hitch and hook while she can?

Train is good
But he is a better
Way to get
Because the chances are chancier

Hitch and hook while you can
Dream and be while you are
Young and regarded
As a hotter chance

Love is a chance
The bartender makes
You are a girl and a chance

In a nation of confusion
In a struggle for identity
In yet another war
In a clash of cultures
In the deeper meanings
In folklore
In time it will be revealed

This war sung
Between two portrayals
Between icons

Shall we go looking as a nation for identity in our folklore?
We would find even in the stories a culture war
Between old hero’s
These mythic men representational of all we are

So there is a war, but no contest, between
Paul Bunyan and Johnny Apple-seed
Frontier folk from a young America

But no challenge is there really
When
Made literal
He
Is larger than life industry claiming mastery
So turn toward the man with the ax for strength
And know in him we will be safe

For our other option is simply comic
Planting little tear shaped seeds
With a pot flipped backwards on his head
A silly boy with silly dreams
To feed or shade his countrymen instead
Of more noble things
Like lumber

drunk slaughter

there was a monument in the night
gilden
the venezuelan cana
having shown me all the gods and universes
my eyes having gone poor at seeking out
the romances and scents of this world
and my synapses bumbled about the chaos of to much life

but then in the dark and the booze soaked night
i saw thor heavenly and bringing forth promise of sight

when the truth of plutonium tongued brotherhood
echoed in my ears and one thousand tomorros
overran the night bound train
cluttered with hobos and truth
and the fantastic visions
of a million humankind transcendensces
i realized the crossroad
of every moment
and every girl
and all we promised ourselves to be
in the mourning
and there in the daylight of mindset
and coffee was all the fists
full of mercury of ten million tomorros

with an army of countless beercans
and suicides
and global truthseeking missions

when i saw the mormon wagon train
and the ak 47 pointed straight down my eyes

through the lens of all human past and today
i tasted human ness

you could feel the fog on the tip of yer tongue
cuz language binds the soul
to a hell self controled
and tin encrusted

and the dreams we dream are whats left
of psychedelia

and thats the death
and theres a billion deaths
left to die

we wasted life
why wouldnt we waste the afterlife
in the night
in the goddamn afternoon
of all human existence

what could we become here on
this whirling ball
in the possibility of it all

and i cant even give up
the wherewithall
of the godhood moment
to send my poems to publishers
because of the flaws of a race which left the trees

so there in the sunset of yesterdays
and dreamrays
solutions come in phonecalls
un der unholy starlight

bring me the promises of my childhood
the promises of ginsberg
and all the prophets
bring me the promises of tigers in the brush

and i cry for all the chimpa

If music were a woman,
what color would her hair be?

stuck

The deluxe pistola
listless, waitress in the raw
berries line her door
she’s a rare firecracker
in an angry salad
screaming to the saint in all of us
till she’s all outa names
bare, like a one man army

the rain plays taps

sky whites out with heavy cloud cover
as the rain slaps the windshield like an upset lover
there’s a wall of water fall that hovers on the horizon
like the broken sound you hear before you feel the car crashin
it’s not dark, just mute gray
as the rain falls on everything
and doesn’t let go
for ten miles or so
then an off ramp east
as the rain seems to cease
and a patch of blue shoots through
upsetting the doomy mood
it’s just another highway home
during a torrential down pour
one less
no more

current flashing through
rain soaked air, blue
all around the edges
so thanks for the burn
in my retinas
and hair jumpin offa
my skin
and the smell of
spacetime
singed

the shapeless shapes in-between tear blur

If there could be one moment
where you didn't cross my mind
I think I'd live forever in it
and leave the rest behind
cause I don't think
no, I truely know
that mark you left upon me
is a scar that runs real raw
and no matter how I try to fade you
from the corners of my heart
I can't seem to dull the rougher edges
to make your memory less sharp
and it's times just like these dreary days
where once you'd be the one
to hold my head tight in your arms
while I cried out all the pain
but you are just a memory
one that refuses to wane
and my own arms are my only comfort
and no tear is cried in vain
cause I don't believe I've really wept
since last I saw your face
but I'd really like to mend that now
and let every single tear cry out
so I can breathe in the fresher air
without the blur of you that lingers there

start a fire with your flames

to take apart a piece of fire
and break it down to flame by flame
would only make the wind blow harder
and flames more smothered by the rain

now a fire's lights much brighter
when those lights flicker over laughter
and fickle flames are bound to rise higher
if they're keep close through darker hours

and even when the flames haved licked
their last taste of morning dew
and all that's left to tell their tales
are embers fading hues

a few take off, on an up draft pull
in search of more dry firewood
to bring back to thier smoldering friends
fresh fuel to start the flames again

with that heat, dormant hearts awaken
and from those flames rise a new creation
and each flame grows high and can't be shaken
cause flames are more elated when it's fire that they're makin

All the guts
Are Americana and flea bites
Sticky human itch and tobacco
Frescoed eyes black and painful
Lusty and rock scared

What is handsome in the Asbury Night?
Not but the salt smell and dateless
And the periwinkle grey and foggy
Writing its own poetry
So what is the girl?
Dateless

With bar breathe
And loneliness
Hotel party and funeral
And baptism and gallery opening
Pointless and timeless

Biting at fingers
Eyelash batting at strangers
Beer buying for hangers on
Shooting stars flailing desperately
In the salty sweet Asbury night

4:44
and the bleach burns my face,
drives holy Mother Mary deep
into these water color pages
and the most naked of eyes

4:44
and a patch for the broken
idiot soul, trained on marble
chill - pure sensation of touch
and pure synapse motion

4:44
and she sees frayed rope
tethering wild hearts, hears
the sound of black powder
lips, awash in stained melody

4:44
and the posible world exists
as we scrape off any ivy
with our own sweet posion touch
and climb our way to the heavens

i tell myself lies
about the mercury in my hands
you see,
mercury is fluid and self propelled

lets all be conquering generals not drunk kings

my soul coughs the crumbs of hope and disaster in the deep midnight dreamings
cuz all these sagitarius memories leave burn outlines on drawn out momoents
there's a certain shiver that runs the spine at a speed of light
and it makes the world burn like hot chrome reflection visions
makes a man speak so reckless and rapid that he blows out every apostrophe
shhh...i think i only saw one lantern in the old north church

in one day,
i saw
sweet dreams
and flying machines
in pieces on the ground
and there was no glimmer at all
in those well chosen words
just a sting and a smell of burnt fuel

and i know i'll probably see you again
but you won't look the same
cuz i stole something from yer eyes
and you stole something from my breath

...in pieces on the ground