They say it's lonely at the top

But never speak of the bottom

I just want to rest

Somewhere in between

Somewhere that's forgotten

The Last Late Night Dance

I WISH I COULD HEAR WHAT YOU'RE SAYING
I WISH WE NEVER FOUND THIS CLUB
WHAT?
RIGHT
HE LOOKS GREAT TONIGHT
I WISH YOU'D REALIZE WHY
I'M STANDING HERE
I WISH YOU'D REALIZE
EACH OF THESE DRINKS
IS HALF MY PAY CHECK
WHAT?
YEAH..YEAH...
THIS IS GREAT
I LOVE THIS SONG
NO, THESE UNENDING STROBE LIGHTS
AND LASERS
ARE NOT GIVING ME A HEADACHE
maybe eye cancer
WHAT?
YEAH I CAN GET THE DRINKS
CAN I JUST WATCH YOU JUMP FOR AWHILE?
YOUR STUPID SMILE IS GREAT
YOUR DUMB ASS LAUGH IS THE MISSING PIECE
OF ME
WHAT?
NOT AT ALL
THIS IS GREAT

if you get sick
in a bar
on ladies night
remember
none of these guys
are really doctors

I Wasn't there

I was just thinking about you
while you were thinking about me
I know you were
I wouldn't have thought of you
otherwise
you must have just realized
exactly what this is
and you must feel stupid
you must feel betrayed
I can't pull that off of you
I can't ease this moment
I was drunk then
I was dreaming
and I thought you were
some one else

Sun-kissed bliss

When the World Around you has Changed (aka...Leaving Newmarket)

I guess you cant stay in one place forever,

because the world around you has changed,

but you,

you haven’t,

and the still waters that run deep

through this town seem distanced

now that you are not

supposed to be here.

There are tears

joined with heavy places

that come at me

like a mountain top

comes down the mountain,

and though it spins me out

I feel awake, knowing

the weight I will leave soon

to rest with this forgotten place

will go lumbering off to live

another of its many lives,

overlapping, as change

outlasts us all.

I am left with nothing

but a solitary goodbye.

No words exchanged,

only sedimentary salutes

as silence hovers over dirt.

No understanding glances,

just the quite footsteps

as I walk away,

shedding my skin

like a snake

who has caught fire

in the underbrush

and is fighting

for everything in his life.

The World Happens

I saw a man with a steel pole pulling his teeth out

--one by one with his fingers.

I saw a vegetable, dressed up like Francesco Guillamotti,

--curving around in a Lexus automobile.

I saw a skylight pointed straight at the sun

--to blind the children with time honored shame.

I saw a rickety old wooden man, pushed to hard

--to smell all the roses he saw, break into tears.

I saw a dovetail, homeless, because he wanted to be

--for god sakes.

I saw ten roller derbies, five Japans and two Germanys

--throw rocks to spike blessings with spite.

I saw a teeny-tiny hand emerge, and hold onto the light

--for a year before it was ripped proudly away by others.

I saw a swan in the economy and wished him well, but

--I had no yogurt covered raisin to offer, so I sat silently,

--hands folded and empty, with blue dragons in the rain.

In Laundry Mats the Dog Years Go Flying By

Back when it was still legal
Dinosaurs ate each other for food
And orange prescription bottles
They could keep their marijuana in.

The Sea It Wishes

and the fishes
they don’t want to work on land

but we tumble hard to imagine

that without these tragedies and passions
we would all surely throw ourselves
right off a cliff

just to joust ourselves

and have a little fun
with bone crunching gravity

----------------------------------

salt away your tears
in its blind rage

and let loose
your fundamental tensions
with the world
until
your mind fumbles

right into a beautiful pattern of colors

like a school of fish
swimming in the
bright
cold
sunshine

If We Ever Meet Again (for amms)

(Optimism)

If we ever meet again
we could both watch the sea
turn a bright red,

then purple
as the seagulls flew past

to a better world, where white
was as close to gray
as there was

and the spray of salt water
warmed the bones
like steam.

Or maybe the trees
would all grow peaches

and a thousand of them
could be heard

hitting the earth
at all times,

splattering against the world
like pink plastic paint
spilled from a 4th story window.

--------------------------------

(Reality)

It is possible too
that they are right,
and nobody will come

running up to us
from the center
of the circus tent

to sweep us off our feet.

------------------------

(Joy)

I think
that should we ever
really meet again

it will be the earth
who bows down
and sighs
with deep relief.

20 Prayers

If you only have twenty
prayers left,
then go ahead
and do thirty

plus the sacrifice
of an orange
peeled and presented
on a plate of used
titanium steel alloy

from the after market blowout
of 2017

when I was juxtaposed
to the idea of dancing.

I hurt when I am hurt
mostly because love
does not stand curiously by
awaiting our arrival
like a limo service guy
with his airport sign,

your family name
etched upon its surfaces.

The momentum from others' lives,
which we absorb
like darts

through our feet
to the cross roads
of our daily lives
leaves a small portion still
where Elvis screams

from a roof top
and sings,

ooh, laala lala
─ain’t this some world,
──────────────we be livin in
─oooh laala lalala
──────────────ain’t this some world.

i recal slipping further into the doorway, forgetting my self, the room i was in as well as the one that would follow. just a soft incoherent jumble of white noise combined with an inaudible scream that seemed to lack origin. a warm scent of sickly pine and sweet smoke fused in a nauseating aroma that challenges the stomach not to retch and recoil/ a lesser man would have been sick, and better men should, but this day, no meal would resurface in response to such an affront to the nervous system. instead, like fingernails clawing the pavement on the slow drag to the furnace, i resisted, swallowing my fears and what little breakfast i had not yet convinced my stomach to pass along.

Bears

We all make mistakes
so forgive yourself foolish one.

The bear who dances with the honey
has none left over
to bring to the pot luck,
and shows up empty handed again,

until next week,
when he will run into fences,
camping out beneath the stars,
zig-zagging his way across this
broken country alone

The TV is Blaring

(Hey this a newer one and still maybe a work in progress)




The TV is blaring.
Ain't that some bullshit
I got myself wrapped up in.

The silence returns
and feels good,
warm and stable,

and fruitful.

The book of poets
that should be by my bed
is missing.

I still dream of it though.

Hard cover, green material,
and someones god
scrawled along the inside.

For now though,
that is a hard bridge to cross,
and the mental capacities are used up
in other ways.

Electrons.
Hiesenberg.
The fruits of a different god.

A more demanding one,
where Math and Vectors
are the Kings and Queens.

A world so mysterious and bright
that even more straight lines
moving in a forwards direction
could not impede up on its beauty,

because I believe
humans and consciousness
and art and math
coalesce somewhere
in the 4th dimension,
and are attatched to Pluto,
or anything else
ranging across this
great complexity
with eternal and intimate
strength.

I Will Ride My Bike

I will ride my bike over $1.49
and into pizza shop windows

I will ride over the rainbows
and fall
my bike against my body
until the ground
shatters up against us

It is 11:19 in heaven:
you pull the covers from your face

Whole lifetimes that we are left
with only seconds to explore

I will ride my bike
and make the upholstered atmosphere my own

I will ride my bike
into a giant glass herd
of masking tape tree frogs
calling out blacklisted words
from a lengthy list

"Tantalize and Blueberry"
erupt from my lips
before I go reeling off the curb
like so many dinosaurs
before me

America

America

Oh America.
The land of the free.
Where the dumbass can do

whatever he wants to do.
And the honey from the bees is left
freezing in the combs,

as snow comes
to cover with a hushed whisper,
a tear,
and a silent prayer,

for the relentless tides.
Oh America.

The land where topsoil
is a legitimate topic of conversation,
and cheese means as much to people
as other people,

you shine your light
in some of the most fucked up
places of all time,

your glowing cock guiding the way
for us to follow
to some dumb ass
hotel complex

so we can jerk each other off
while playing pictionary,
because the normal way
is boring
and doesn’t so directly involve
our penises.

Me Ears Go Pop When I Go Up High

The hard roads
are the ones not taken
without cigarettes
in your little gay purse
that has stayed so blue
through so many
long winters.

Ahh, so the deeper the connection
the more confusing it is.
Who cares?

…………………


This life, or the next,
Are not that important,
Said the elephant,
Out in the rain
With the other elephants.

You Came into my Life (...for amms)

You came into my life
and out of my world, so fast
that the naked eye could not see it.

But you,
you saw it.
And me,
I felt it.

Yet still, lost moments
slipped past onto other moments
and the lives maybe lived
drifted like dust before us.

Enough to taste with our mouths
and sting our eyes on windy days,
but never enough to hold.

Never enough to run our hands through.
Never enough to pile up like sand
we could sculpt into a silly castle
and go running from

into the ocean, happy and free
as the waves of the sunlit sea
rolled just beyond us, breaking
before the lives we dreamed up
for each other could be ripped away
and carried
heartbreakingly into the
deep blue water.

The Life of the Party

The shampoo bottles
Were all white
And filled with soap
Like we were used to,
So we partied,
Hard.

The tin man
Drank a tin cup
And almost died
By the weigh station,
So we stop partying
And put together a play
To make him feel better.

The fox was the good guy
Dressed in hard green fabric,
Like the disney movie.
The evil purple octopus
Almost swooped in one time
And ate the fox, but the badger
Was there to save him.

“Over the warm brown earth
Of sacrifice.” We all said
For that was the end of the party.

Feeling Sorry for Yourself

It is pain and reprisal
waiting motionless around every corner
like a lion sits, hungry and mad as a cow.

Bottomless and diffracting agelessness
the fish wonders who he is
now that fame has swept over him,

a blaring streak
pulled across his life story
the same way
a blunt object can deliver
near death experience
damage to your soft head.

It is During These Times I Dance...(literally)

Sometimes when you step inside yourself
You can feel the earth turn
And hear the warm sun hit the spreading oceans,
And even things from a thousand years ago seem close
And heartfelt.

Sometimes when you remember your whole life,
The black and the white of all the colors combined,
You can imagine how beautiful this all is
Compared to how beautiful this actually is
And be greatly humbled.

Sometimes the blue specks of red light fragment
And shoot lazer beams out into the sky
And past Jupiter, until, with head held high
You can march on to death and only wonder
About the giant smile across your face.

It is during these times I dance.

Men and Women

I could crack binary codes.

With the right kind of paper
I might even be able to bring my baby to the moon.
Swing her around and show her what it’s all about.

We could talk about the comets.

Blue cars with engines
and firefighters,

bright red as the sunshine from earth.

Call it what you will and I will throw rock shamans

into the sparkle
as these awful pink glory days of hypnotic cathedral bashing
go flying by.