a worn robe of reassurances
days they tell me don't exist
days prior to, between this

and this
they are grave
they have gravity

they are days
they are days
they are days

we knit machines
make empty pages
a play of fake rains

and real ones

This Dream

the power of your mind
can make night into day
break down walls
move mountains

the will of your soul
can dry up oceans
turn the Sun to ice
fuel the world with love

become your own God
take control of this life
you don't know where
you'll end up in the next
take it all now
'cause you don't know when
you'll wake up

Smoke Viewed from Three Thousand Miles West

I'm thinkin' that if
I set this state on fire
I could write your name across the sky
and that'd be big enough
to show you just how much
I'd like to have you here

Good Night

reach out into the night
find something to hold on to
be a witness to your own miracle
breathe dreams
be damned
dance with the wicked

reach out into the night
find its heart and squeeze
become God
cast down your enemies
take fate by the throat
leave destiny in your wake

reach out into the night
don't fear the hand
reaching back
hold on to it tight

the same hands that birthed you
in your first moments
will hold you
in your final hour

good
night

Tonight...

tonight smells like fire
and somehow
I can feel you in the air here
and the sky is clear enough
to belive in heaven
and hell
and love

This Year is Ours

we can dance in graveyards
on mountaintops
run through lightning fields
tear fruit down from orchard trees
write our own history
make this year
and every other
belong to us

we could walk bridges
discover roads
towns cities
claim oceans
and patches of sky

lets put some miles on this life
before it runs out
and doesn't belong to us

ah ha!
so this is where it leads
where it bleeds
my wild dry eyes
can see nothing
but if i could fucking close them
if
cock
COCK
cock
if I was broken
would you put me in the dumpster?
I'd hate to be left on the curb
I'D HATE IT

your doorstep scoffs
the day halved
the wind in pieces

contemplation

I don't know which is worse-
living in a spacious, empty apartment
or riding in crowded elevators

windows
like cards on a table
artfully arranged,
a child's game i remember
and don't remember

ranting lamplight devours your dark,
pounds nails from your door

seasons speak of other seasons
tender earths
younger despair

a hand of supple sophistry
breaks and keeps

the time of indicative grass,
summer may illuminate,

but it is jaggedly ill,
lying and possessing,

an ominous artisan

a lover of havens,
i feign delight and welcome absurdity

a sovereign window,
a rapid residence of air

my beige rooms choke and perish
like indicative birds, i have breaths

here i am, a mighty girl in a bird
am i bashful?

ill am i who notice the remorse
worse than a summer

a convenient temple,
the house breathes in and out
blood resounds

a cavernous tower,
the throat offers and accepts
mass affection

earthly birds,
the arms cast mountainous shadow
impossible blue

Thought apotheosis would like this one......

"Finally, in the last year of her age,
Having attained a present blessedness,
She said poetry and apotheosis are one."

-from "A Pastoral Nun," Wallace Stevens

Standing On A New Earth

I'm feeling unwasteful

I don't want to babble on and on and on

I want to make a world outside of ego

Not gearing for fearing

Just alerting awareness

To becoming awake

To the idea of the existence of fears

In order for them to become amenable

To dissipation

Via vocal statements and

Change in Action

Living through each momentary breath

As if another might arrive

With the immediate urgency of time

Jack again in the Lower Haight

Jack,

you are here
in this dark bar
with me
while the Dead spin about us
in ghostly wisps of memory
and we are drinking wine
you and i
and the hardwood echoes
while four generations of hippies
tango tulips and daisy chains
and Jack you are here
whispering in my ear
about moving and shaking
and all the ways
everything makes poetry
always

you are here

Such is a day
where worry fades with the fog
and remembering you
doesn't hurt so much

living the dream

he watches porn while he smokes pot
he dances
a lot
to his own tune
in his living room
he goes big on the weekends
and smiles like he means it
he's ADD
and oh so sweet
and sporty
and horny
and careful with money
and drunk on loving
he's a coupon clipper
an under cover hippie
he can lose his temper
but always strives to be better
so true and intuitive
and rightly conservative
he deals with allergies
and clean packaging
he's a coconutter
and peanut butter
and the most passionate lover
i have ever...

he's the only one who knows whats on MY mind
he's the brightest star in my life

he shines

I'd like to take one moment
and stretch it out forever
like an event horizon

living on the edge of a black hole
within that moment

the curtains blowing in the wind
stuck flowing horizontally
in my bedroom
as we sleep entwined
within the glowing
of a summer lightning flash
one note playing continuously
static on my FM radio

no fear of an alarm clock
no fear of interruption
no fear of ever leaving my bed

I've been writing about the same woman for nearly six years...

I remember you
the way you
cracked your back
first thing in the morning
sitting up
twisting around in the sheets
as I opened my eyes
and you would

squeak

and yawn

and stretch

than you'd curl up in my arms
and we'd begin
our last day again

Getting the Point

It was a night you were sure
you smelled something burning
every where you went
the sky still with no clouds
thick swampy heat
popping up off the asphalt
and we were in this jungle
sand poisoning our clothes
drinking
smoking
thinking about sex
he was dropping pills
he liked that kinda loose
I'm on a whiskey tequila excursion
with my favorite jeans
the ones I never wash
and every one worries
but us
not us
with a live bootleg record
coming through the car stereo
burping up beer suds
with menthol chaser
our only worry
is to live past thirty

He's out there
and I don't know where
and that's fucked
some one keeps shouting,"father"
in my head
some one keeps pretending
they believe I'll listen
but I'm probably drunk
like last time
when all the sense
all the sharp counter points
only bounced down the empty hallway
that used to be a young man's emotion

Chuck Drank Alone

All you people
wanna do
is sit around talkin'
'bout obscure music
or micro brews
or hole in the wall thrift shops

and while
I like my Dead Guy Ale best
when listening to the Afternoon Naps
wearing my favorite
little league t-shirt

I'm kind of tired
of being so cool
and I'm likin' it more
when I'm drinkin' alone

Route 37 Westbound 6:30pm July 9, 2008

the timing
of a bird in flight
is awe inspiring
as it torpedoes itself
through four lanes of traffic
and comes out on the othe side
untouched

Don't Try

there we were again
two old friends
I've known you
since I was fourteen

you were talking
about the rooming house
and your typewriters
and I could feel
all of your pride
and your love
for the machine

not just the typewriter
but for the collective machine
and then you showed me
some of your poems

I caught you falling in love with me
at the red light
right by our headquarters

you smiled and waved
while I played it straight
until I felt my face smile
and I was forced to laugh

Because I'm really not interested
but it helps my confidence
and I find that hilarious

I told her
she was beautiful
just the way she was
no boob jobs
no make overs
she was perfect
stranding there
drunk and smiling
'cause ya can't
cause problems
in your own house

and she told me
thank you
for such
kind words stranger

but I think
I was lieing through my teeth

and I hope
she finds someone
out there who really
really loves her

people
always define insanity as

repeating the same action and
expecting different results

they always define
it like that
every time

always to people
they are hoping to fix

and these people
never get fixed

any of the times

marks right sometimes

i want poetry to stop being honest
and start being a little beautiful
i need it to be
like my memory of women
forgetting love handles and bad manners
and remembering

perfect 6 am light
falling heavy and holy
on the parabolic curves
of a naked torso

i need it to be
like children
angelic when it cries

i need it to hold
every strong emotion and scent
with force
as sunrise
and prayer

thewse nights
i drive home
bathed in brakelights
and paralyzed
by thoughts of women
with their wispy hair
obscuring one eye

around the city
around the city
over these bridges
with howling metal
and forever shadows
under planes
massive
and wanting to be wished upon
all these people as pieces
moving and throbbing
and crying
in the traffic
of this earth
praying in some sort of moving
zazen

these nights
around this city
sparkling

she advises us
to listen to
tupac
about women
and theft
all the while
quoting him
in a rhythym
that
reminds
of ancestral
drums
and days
before
language

we live
days between bridges
with their span
and their steel
and the way they sit
on horizons ahead and behind

we live
days between bridges
thinkin of the waters they crossed
turbulent or rushing or stinging cold to the bone

we live
days between bridges
in their shadows
listenin to waters below
with our choices

it's an old one
may '06


amongst
blooming flowers and falling leaves
You,
once blended-in colors of a sunrise
becomes the light of my desire
and I,
your dark-haired infatuation
slowly fade into shadows of night

yr face caked in make up
and teeth glistening from
the house lights,
clenched over this
moment's cigarette, and
laughing at explosions
in the distance

I can see your eyes tear
from the wind
running down the coast
the edge
cutting at you
and the needle pinned

and in the end it all seemed
so tragic, you as poor doomed
Ophelia, drowning in grief
over an American dream
gone mad

remember when we drank our rooms black
leveled love into something we could swallow
lips to the faucet now,
i bathe

light glitches
the planet snags
earth gives and does not give

acid hands solemn upon
black scabs
promise, a chanting wind
a cool well of reds
barely stirred

"...speech is not dirty silence
Clarified. It is silence made still dirtier."


-Wallace Stevens