some sort of revision of an old poem

the cold shoulder
and wandering eyes
my hands, untouched by yours
our lips, unlocked and colorless-
You said it loud and clear
like ambulance sirens
piercing and alarming
it hurts my ears.
there's stinging in my eyes
i'm trying to hold back the tears
the lump forms in the back of my throat
and i can no longer speak.
my chest closes up
i can't breathe
and i can feel the pain run throughout my body
like a lethal injection
flowing through my veins
slowly killing me
like your fading love

the layout of
the city,
it's not as big as the
postcards make it out to be
and it seems hard to stay dead
this time of year
with leaves rustling and soul music
propelled like in
wind tunnels,
and these aren't your ghosts,
they're mine,
I'll take 'em home tonight
and we'll kill that bottle
in the cool air
just like we used to

Correspondence

Dear Lilly-on-the-couch,
- Can I tell you of adventure and heartbreak? The greyhound bus to history and the things that I have done? Or shall I simply say that I have missed you so much and that someone called you tragic, and I told that someone that you were just a poet.
-Apotheosis-

Dear Apotheosis-in-my-mind,
-Tell that fool we are tomorrows eternal slap in the face... we are for its restless seekers... a soda - pop rock generation. We are would 'bes and rusty earthquakes and reality romance novels and unbuttoned cuff links and running with scissors fraying ends upon ends upon ends. This is this and now, and we are all waiting in between the lines of immortality and decomposition and this is a wicked kind of love and an adoring hate and for every stone thrown in the crowd someone goes down enlightened and this is walking walking walking running in a circle and these are electric mornings and brush fire burnings that we light our souls off of and we smoke each others dreams and watch them slowly form the clouds and we are collectively step by step painting every barren wall with light... we write ink and pen we are infinite we are something in this nothing we are for the ones to come and you are one of us and if thats tragic kid...well I'm just fine with it...
-Lilly-on-the-couch-

Dear Lilly-should-be-sleeping-
If I were to tell the fool a thing...and I wont be... I would tell him just that. But really, I should have just told you, I miss you, and I have a check for you, and I love you, and I think I might still just be a poet after all.

-Apotheosis day-job-in-danger-

Dear Apotheosis-slightly-burping-
4:26 in the mourning, I'll be west again by 11 a.m. Unfortunately without you with me. Because ya see I've discovered the perfect remedy for tragedy's like you and me, ---interjection--- "Beer?" -apotheosis---- response to interjection "no silly"- Lilly--- No amount of alchol or mercury, could save you from the poetry. Sleep depervation!!! now thats the key and even that cant save you from your own sanity.
---Lilly-freely-

Dear Lilly-nothing-else
Call a cab
Apotheosis-nothing-else


Dear Victory cab
come pick me up,I've got another train to hop. Apotheosis is too drunk, thank the gods she's still a poet!
-Lilly-

I'll just sleep on the plane

Hey Mark... your snoring kills bunnies too!

And when I get there

I'll come home to poets
I'll come home to dishes
and dead fish

I'll also
come home to campaigns
and office work
and empty staplers

but what I leave behind
is heartache
and new friends

all and all
a pretty full week

Good Bye and So Long

Some kind of fucked up high school reunion
With people I never met before
In a city thats not mine
Singing songs from the 90's

but I feel alright

I feel fully programed
I feel rejected
I feel like I've known you all so long...
...so long

I wish I was there
when America invented
tight blue jeans
and rock and roll
and lusty eyes
and acceleration

I wish
I could have seen the look on her face
when she figured out
what she'd done

Work on Sunday

I'm skim milk now
javascript:void(0)
Publish Post

hey man...
there she goes again
cause since she met yall
well, she don't live those lines anymore
but walks and soars
between each one
and has kept the animal dream
and nomadic instinct
and never excepts conformity
as a final resting place

Living Ghosts

There are ghosts on this highway
hiding in the thickness of fog
slipping through the lanes
searching for their lost purpose

There are ghosts on this highway
peering into your windows
as you flash by in the night
trying to warn you of sharp turns

There are ghosts on this highway
hoping someone sees them
wishing for a second chance
knowing they will never find it

There are ghosts on this highway
shivering in ragged clothes
crumbled up against the curb
praying for death to soon find them

electric pop fizz on the mambo circus diet

a little less than fresh, but i'm finding ways to keep from rotting
telephone chaingang warnings to the massives
put down and pick up and save till your full of time well spent in a dead end paycheck.

fingers split and blackened from the time you wake
and your back aint been the same since the bottom fell out
i tell you this again that the nuetral colors make for borring conversation
i'm an earth tones kinda stumble with a grin to dimly light the room

she wore that brown dress today and i hope i didn't ruin in with all the rattle and crash and back seat indigestion

you see i'm almost back to gravy baby, just a few more decades and i'll be growing up a little

it can't be all angel feathers
and cumulo nimbus
sometimes
its got to be
leathery
bat wings
careening in
pitch

saw her lookin for an NA meeting
outside the hospital
she was tellin someone
that she just got outta Carrier
i could barely make her out
wrapped inside the addict
i can't remeber her name
but
i remember when she dated Steve
and
when we ate oxycotin at the diner
the night before i left for Peru
how warm that high was
all through my calves and thighs
and
how her eyes got looser every time
i saw her after that
and
how she started to fade

last prayer for the cruisers

bread on the strange soft light
of haunted strip malls
baptised in the mirk of convenience store coffees
we marveled stumbling at the pagan mess
that asphalt interlaced on the earth
and made love to it
we were cruisers
with giant eyes at night
and worn jeans
with radio rosaries
hungry and fast
and hunched from so heavy headlight halos
zippin and mad with motion

and now in the sunrise
the whole culture of the thing
slowly settles
into age

like the consecratin mist we split so
unbelievably and mystical for the simple sake
of momentum in the night

(inspired by Liz's photo and caption)

brutal angels
the fabric of our clothes
scraping the very light streaming over us
and our hands jammed in our pockets
with the weight of our footsteps
echoing slowly and molten in the planets mantle
then the spinning milky way, a halo
brutal angels

"Rebecca" and "Hippie Girls"

she seemed vaguely free
at least in the hips and the eyes and the movement and thoughts
in the sparse barroom night
and flowed
with snaking arms
through the accoustic guitar chords




maybe its their skirts
or the way their arms move
like sexual and charmed snakes
but not really with the music
or the hollow eyes
staring past this world
deep into some zen in the dark
or how they replace the word God with Music
and love it unconditional
and trust it unwavering

or maybe its just cuz
they seem open at first glance
to the thought
prowlin
through my head
at that
moment

but hippie girls
spark my eyes
in the lonely lonely loud
barroom night

something about getting on a train
when you're not quite sure
where you're going

Moondance, by Van Morrison

it was some FM classic rock radio station,
and we had been talking about music and motion
and then Moondance came on
seeping into the car thick like molasses

"more songs like this" she wanted
excitedly
and jumped in her seat
but I didn't have anything quite

still I can see her swaying
sometimes
and when she sways like that,
all angular momentum twirl
and hips
I figure she's got Moondance,
and it's jazz swing yeah whiskey piano chords
in the back of her head

i was hoping
i could catch
a bit of certainty,
a moment truth
clear eyed
but all I see
are hearts,
like mine,
superimposed,
in a restless
quantum state,
no certainty
is a fact of the universe,


October rose,
not a trace no more,
yr buried deep
in the cooling ground,
yr not the stuff of
winter foliage,
the gray would
have leeched yr
colors,
as the sun grew dimmer


several feet down
the soil turns to
uncertain sand,
shifting

we’re sitting
on beaches
carefully shrouded
in concrete,
annihilation and
creation
in every split second,
split
with fission force

i was on my knees on my 'art gallery' floor
flicking cigarette ashes into an empty beer bottle
my body all sticky
saturated with sweat
overheated in my air condition-less apartment
feeling exhausted
when i noticed the scattered spots
of glue and plaster on the floor
remnants of the creation of a four foot volcano
sitting in the corner of the gallery
active, and full of life

is this the night drawn into light
or
has dawn finally come?

fumble through ink and words
and blood and stones
in the dashboard glow
in the dashboard glow
over and over
to craft something angel winged
and smelling of truth
which might be beauty
and Keats said
that was all
i needed
to know

williams,
sometimes i see yr wheelbarrow
and rain water and chickens
in just the right light
in every subtle thing
just for a moment and shivers and exhale
and then everything else, all the whirling
washes away

There's a fully functioning volcano in the backseat of my car

Literally a 4 foot paper mache volcano
with the insides made of bird wire.
My trunk has one bag to hold
all my clothes,
one bag to hold
my students papers,
one bag to hold my work
as a Master's student
and one bag to hold all
the submissions and contest
pieces for the next issue.
The passenger seat, well, thats
where I sleep, put my feet up
on the dashboard and think about
all the things that I should be doing.

Thats not science att all amy!

You can live on cigarettes, beer, and intentions
I’ve proven that already
But I think
And this is just a theory
That you can live on love alone

You can live and survive
On unrequited love alone

So now, when things seem bleakest
I can become a scientist again
And prove a practice
I believe

WE Post

I appreciate the support I've recieved. Thank you, honestly, but i know when i'm outgunned. We'll meet again.

For Jon Matthew

Spill it over Scott street
Pour it off the curb of Fairview
Dump it out on Morton street
And meet me on Monroe

Let it wash across Washington
Let it bounce past Spring Garden
Give it life on Carroll and Webster
And let it loose on Pavillion

Find me on East Hancock
And walk me down to Bridgeboro
Share a smoke and a stupid story
And make it all feel real again

Keep the Faith

I saw you
in your brand new coat
you're all bells and whistles
and your congregation knows it
the staples in your stomach
will rust and bust inside your corpse
so have another toast
another dull success
I can see everything that's punching you
read me one more passage
maybe revelations
maybe Cosmo's worst dressed
These days
I can't tell the difference

untitled

The mirror's reflection reveals
the orange freckles she hides with make-up
every inch of the curves on her body
and how snug her jeans fit
the mirror's reflection reveals
the dark hairs which peak through
her over-processed bleached-blondes


The mirror's reflection reveals
her natural beauty
unseen through her eyes

Brooklyn

rip rage rant smoke
skinny jean indie queen
punk rock stud
fans of the over-priced 'thrift' store
lurking through dark corners of bars
wipe me down, snap your fingers
jumping screaming dancing hipsters
hypnotized by excessively bass induced music
and noise guitar
saturated in sweat and cigarette-scented perfume

Is It You

In ragged little shelters
where deities huddle up on the drink
their fickle little whispers
of who would drown first
In the nasty dampness
of the misty back alley
praying to spots
their eyes have made from fog lights
In the isolated cell
where your comfort is the echo
of the snap of surgical tubing
and the slow release of madness
In the backseat of some rocket
blasting bass beat through the speakers
the guts clutch the rib cage
you have to wonder if it's you

even though Katie says she's not

her movements soft
fragile porcelain and feathers
the angle at which
her wrist and elbow joints swung
cupping the coffee up to her mouth
called out for the draped flowing sleeves
and all the other etheral detail
of a victorian era

my night, his words

that night
so many eye blink eternities ago
and visions of johanna
mingling with acoustic guitars
and barbaras backup vocals
sung all throaty
aint it just like the night
to play tricks when yr tryin to be
so quiet
(tryin to be so quiet)
that night
visions of johanna
with seductive MOLLY and cornstarch
tickling synapses in the
blurred throbbing visions of johanna of it all
that night
swimming in acoustic chords
with that little girl lost
holdin a handfull of rain
wonderin if it was me or her that was insane
that night visions of johanna
in the pot smoke
I watched float in the damp dark
and dance with that timid cat
before those eyes of all those all night girls
and shaved head boys
with ghost electricity howlin
in the bones of their faces
while the country music station played soft
but there was nothin
really nothin to turn off
(really nothin to turn off)
that night
smelling of pine needle gin
and soakin in honey brown ale
with the acoustic guitars like loose strung angels
and barbara's throaty vocals haunting the backdrop
and all the unamed chemicals and the way they creep beneath the skin
and those visions of johanna
kept me up past the dawn
(past the dawn)

this is knowing

this is west 80 at 90mph
this is 4am in a Jamaica promotion van
this is passing Jersey Shore PA
in new colors brighter than lightning
this is the sweet road in emphasis
this is radio waves stretched and sleep deprivation
this is strange travel and a lone mind
this is knowing i carry you with me
in pockets so deep
all throughout this country

this is knowing i carry you all with me

skip to the back of the faceless nameless stand on the shoulders to get a better look

burn all your resons to the ground baby doll theres a fortune to be made on that new fangled internet. boop boop im not so far gone



i'm a little less than fresh they'll tell you where to find the end i'm just a lucky dog i'm just a nother drunken slob do do do

visions of the virgin

mary
i hear
you show yr face
every afternoon
over in PA
in some poor schmucks driveway
and now there's this elderly crowd
that shows up
an' touches you and cries
an' sits around in lawn chairs
as th sun sets

in my next life I want to be a housefly
cuz I need a short and simple one
next go round

read that passage
where Steinbeck introduces Slim
the way he embodies
something bigger
more mythic
then the jerkline skinner
the way
he comes in the doorway
as something
more then a man

the flash
of magnesium
and the whisp of smoke
yeah
i want a night
like that
again
yeah
i want people
like that
for a moment

she was
David Bowie
unreal
in that uncomfortable light
all stuffed doll
and cellophane
and pete moss

untitled

our footprints
once embedded in the wet sand
are now washed away by the tide
and all that remains are the black and white memories
of endless summers along those Jersey shores