samsara

as all this samsara
is beautiful and holy
all our footholds
will be worn down by time,
leaving the world and us
sheer and shimmering, beautiful and holy

sing me a song, beautiful and holy
ooh-ooh, la-la la-la
don't you see i gone too fa
just gonna stay at home with my ma
cain't see for the light coming off that sta
sheer and shimmering, beautiful and holy

as all that is in the universe
and all that isn't in the universe,
time lapping like waves
leaving us battered,
sheer and shimmering,
beautiful and holy

too many days without a decent burrito
and i'm telling you darling i miss your smell.
i keep a lock of hair to remind me
of that time i almost dove out into traffic
in an effort to escape that song.
i'm trimming nails with my teeth and buying two dollar burgers on the beach
waiting for low tide.
just a man with a dream of nudity wealth and love.
brown toned skin from the all week sun and even on its bad days i find it so apealing.

living a rich lifestyle on a shoestring budget trying to remember that i'm only acting like i know what i'm doing.

Child Prophets

ive got my hand in the plate
will you deliver it unto the king?
my tongue is sharp, cutting through the collection
with shattered excerpts of prophecy
we babes are speaking do not turn away
we share a leaking
its dripping into a pool on a tile floor
where you'll all seed deceit
and it will flourish
like an infection

the orgasm of this wicked sowing
will chill you to your home
and the mountains refuse to give you comfort
and the oceans wont swallow you,
no, this station will not serve you
its not crippled its cocked for self destruct
its indifferent to the human plot
look out

shaking hands wet with the washing of hands
kept with the shivers of man in a place where light is in a great demand
ma'am i can't feel your fingers in my grip
the branches are slipping away slipping away
don't let the blockade of complacency stop you on your way
it's made up of wires soldered tight to the board
feeding their greedy little beadies greedy little fingers
great greedy arms of a great greedy bastard
beast is unarmed but LIVES like a weapon
beast is unarmed but lives like a weapon
throw us overboard
we're going to have to be the tribe of exception

Unmeasured Tides

for now its walking in the temple,
the cannonball through the mosque
paradise lost

christened with the toll
cremated at dusk
fire and rust
were his only parting gifts

but you can shake a hand
and feign to comprehend
we're full of failing dams
wither us, we rust
envision us as dust
its welling up inside me now

apply pressure release the puss
boils inside my throat
vomiting water
let the dogs come home and lap it up

i'm shivering shaking
we're a bomb without a casing
exploding little eyes to find the
carcass where she hides in this mosque
i'm quivering quaking
we're a litmus tounge into the acid changing
and when i think i'[ve got your hands
you'll be thinking about how long the fall is taking
we've reached the nexus
but it's just the vestibule
we've abandoned our dear friends
we've reached the next place
the unquestionable
its in our written end

turn off here,
the engine
may be on fire,
or there

may be an
electrical storm,
the sky ripped thru
with jagged fire

or maybe just a
beat up old field,
and we can build
a lean-to out of old
poems, radio
waves and opiates

I mean, the clock's
busted, so maybe we've
been on this road all day.
my eyes are starting
to reflect the pavement
in that way they do
before momentum
simply takes over

"Always remember, your focus determines your reality."

don't get carried away with the labeling people
...seriously

Only My Name as a Title

I put my number in the pocket
of your coat with only
my name as a title.

And tonight was the first night
in a while that I listened to the Keith Jarrett Trio.

Sometimes it's what's not in a poem
that makes it sound so sweet.




*Winner of The NJ Poetry Society Contest*

Spiders

She said "I love spiders" more than she said
"I love you"
But that was okay because
She was my first love and
That was enough

And when I helped her
Bring the Christmas Tree home
From the woods,
She brought the spiders
In with her

Scolding her
Parents for trying to
Keep them out
As they moved from the tree
Onto the railing, the walls, the ceiling

I suppose they’re safer than I am,
Shielding you with their webbing,
Appreciating your
Beauty with a thousand lusting eyes,
Suffocating you from the rest of the world

And from me
With Eight
Million
Caresses.

A Poem About You

You asked me to write a poem about you
But I couldn’t because we were talking about
Me writing a poem about you.

Ten years and two phone numbers later,
The page is empty and the pen is still
As I sit here thinking about you,
Wondering if you’re still waiting for
Me to write a poem about you.

So Much Depends Upon

I
Brush my teeth with cement toothpaste
On a bristle-less toothbrush

I scrape, spit the blood out
Look at myself in disgust
In the mirror spackling with spit
So old it reminds me of
How much inactivity I’m capable of

From the corner office we
See an accident on 18th and Cross St
Where an old man in a grey sweat jacket
Is professionally re-directing traffic
We can’t hear emergency vehicles for miles

As the traffic depends
upon

A grey old
man

Glazed with rain
water

Besides the white
wreckage

I'll Give You My Sun If You Give Me Your Rain

I'll give you my sun if you give me your rain
Drops of tears and smiles could only be so sweet
The black clouds amidst the white day.

Give me your days existing in vane
When life is blacker than it seems
I'll give you my sun if you give me your rain

And accompanied with foolish grin
I’ll lend Maddening laughs far more upbeat
To the black clouds amidst the white day.

My glass is half full, yours half drained
Earthly realities clashing with skyward dreams
I'll give you my sun if you give me your rain.

The typical yin to my typical yang
Only the Gods would kindly beseech
These black clouds amidst my white day.

You're the fishhook to my open eye
A queer union of love and peace
But I'll give you my sun if you give me your rain
The black clouds amidst the white day.

"Before I die I want to swim with sharks"

Of course she meant

Inside one of those diver cages where

Sharks can only glare sideways,

Like a Weight Watcher's consumer

Glaring into a bakery,

With black hollow eyes that

Need their promises to be

Broken

For one single meal.

Can't break your diet though,

Doctor's orders, your

Hearts are in bad enough

Condition, you stop moving and

That's the end. No,

No red meat needed with that

Hanging over your dorsal fins.

Yet they continue to stare,

Hoping to resurrect some

Ancestral Megalodonian strength to

Manhandle the thick bars of the

Cage to get to the soft

Chewy Center.

You can see evolution in its most

Sincerest form as you witness the

Same frenzy a little kid has

Ripping a cereal box

Apart to get to the prize inside.

Before I die, I want to swim with sharks.

Ripe

she's crying on your shoulder
begging the ceiling to make it stop
and you're the one who has to answer
you have to stop the world
from the everyday things she does
days keep coming
deadlines get closer
problems get bigger
this
woman
is no special case
but for now she's all
the room and the town
and even the air
and why is she with him or her
or him or them
or me or him
or him or him or him...
nobody's free once she's graced them
with an empty brooding smile
and me here with her head
on my shoulder,
I'm the newest toy

My New Year Revolution (resolution)

if your life isn't a movie



make it feel like one

Neilson likes to pick locks
but he doesn't like getting in
behind doors
he likes tumblers
and moving them
and he can draw them
from memory

mechanical, like
clockwork
Copernican universe
movements,
planets in orbit,
epicycles in fine detail

Neilson and the universe,
all musicboxes moving
tumblers and gears,
all heretics,
all for the sights of beauty
in
pure movement

weak seams

an observation of your mind unraveling
contemplating taking over the morning
what is this disco
galactic limo
booze and bumps
dip and thoughts of breakfast
before the sun rises

picking up lucky pennies by the dozen
we're a rock show
from the east coast
and sometimes
finding ourselves caught in a net
of disillusionment
out of the corner of my eye
I see the machine of your mind
spin and snap, threatening

there I catch myself wondering
why do we humans
continue to exceed sin
to replace lost innocence?

who in their adult life
full of deadlines, dating, and procreating
finds the time
of their own free will
to roll around in the grass
and laugh?

when did the simple things stop cutting it
and when did misery become so attractive?

you break
I watch it happen

flying from the sun
sequestered in the great belly of an east bound bird
are one hundred hungry mouths
on one hundred hungry heads
discussing their hungry lives
feeding their hungry minds
in between time heading into darkness
all facing away from the sun in earnest

cigarettes on the west
burn faster
due to the airs
lack of moisture

that couch felt better on my back
but i'd take sharing cross-words
and the softness of your skin
on a lumpy pull out mattress
over a good nights' sleep
anytime