5:47am

i drive down the highway
contemplating
trying to reach a destination
come to a conclusion

the fog gets denser
down the road
and it's really hard to see
the sunrise
through all those clouds

Split

Today I twist myself until I snap
Split open
My insides raw and loathsome, old dough
I twist, snap, and call it dance

In a city full of beards and shields
I stand
In cellophane dress
Cold

Everything around here yellows and tears
A cancerous pool
Sick fruit and abandon
These fools upon fools

all the ways

from a sunny balcony with a picturesque panoramic view in Russian Hill

from a staple stoop where birds sing their hearts out all day long in Alamo Square

from a fire escape where NYC eludes to be just blocks away in Lower Pac Heights

from the back alley entrance way perfumed with sweet olfactory essences in Lower Haight

from a comfortable greasy spoon cafe that caters to all senses, destroying hangovers, and feeding the soul for under 10 dollars on Divisidaro

from the 12 galaxies of a dark windowless bar that hosts local bands where on any given night you can find a friend and the drinks are always stiff in the Mission

from an occasionally shady bus stop in the jazz district where the trees that line the street are lit up perpetually on holiday, where footsteps sound like saxophones and the history is as thick as the locals are black on Fillmore

from the window across from an ethnic mural on a secret street cornered by the Beat Museum and the first strip club in the area to go topless so many years past, where the ghosts of Kerouac and Cassidy laugh in the seediness of night over slices of pizza in North Beach

from the front room with double doors and lavender bedding in a house, on the outside, identical to every other one on the block, where the fog lingers longer and the breeze is salty in the Richmond

from my seat on the grass behind me a DJ plays while an eclectic group of beings flared out drunk and smiling playing slosh ball (kickball+beer) watching the frothy spray shine in the sunlight as they slip and slide from base to base in Golden Gate Park

from the entrance of the BART amongst the hustle and bustle, towering buildings, abundant beggars, street vendors, mass transit, business suits, and brand name outlets of Downtown

I love this city

A Warm Kind of Gray

I feel like something I think
A person who trims orchids might feel like trimming orchids
Where the furniture is a warm gray
And everything is clean

And not
Not right now

Like the way a person who wears bruises well would feel like when receiving them
Where the sky is getting lighter
And the gray is cold

on the sand

Wet salty cool air
Has a way
Of making me assume
All my delusions
Have some founding
Down here in the clouds

I water the fern
And the geckos
And the kitteh
And stumble around
The internet
Getting closer and closer
To the future

Once and for all

I’m throwing out this handset
Once and for all
To a cordless phone
We never owned anyway
Because so many things
And people
Just hang around this place
Collecting dust
And bottles in our only corners

My Angels

when i am low
bottom of the trough
dirt in my lungs
rotting
like neglected fruit

when i am so low
only earthworms and anglers
greet me in the morning
that never really comes anyway
for i sleep through it
because the cold and the pain
rarely permeate my profuse dreaming
so low a smiles a burden

when i am that low
angels come to me
without warning
and wake me
lighting my heart
and lifting me up

they never say or do much
or present themselves as such
they leave as abruptly as they appear
they are discreet
and i have yet to encounter one
wearing white

but they sure do fucking shine!
and it's aways undeniable
that i've been touched,
looked after,
by the renewed hope in my heart
and the tears
washing the dirt from my face

my angels
are cab drivers
of all ethnicities
overflowing with wisdom
and drifters crippled
bearing honesty and kindness
in it's PUREST
my angels are quick and beautiful
and when i am low
they change my life
every time

that peacoat in your closet
always
catches my eye
the one you always wore when i was a child
its 50's style
the way it weighed you down
because it was a size too big
you wore that ugly coat
without confidence or style
its musty smell
combined with old cheap perfume
still embedded in its fibers

the coat always reminds me
of that night dad picked you up from nyc
i was lying across the white seat
in the back of that rusty toyota
"aqualung" blasted in the background
while you and dad sat
silently and cold
your eyes heavy
from the tears
the lies
the guilt
finally revealed
the decision to separate
my eyes wide and intrigued by the city lights
not knowing what was really going on

the peacoat remained in your closet
since that night
you had bought a new coat
one with style
one that fit
one you wore with confidence
and your eyes were radiant
eyes i inherited

22 years later
i wear musty old clothes from thrift stores
longing to be in the city

Act One
scene one:

woke up
thought well fuck,
the night had killed me
I died dreaming
the light and sheets and ceiling
white like heaven would be
and soundless
like purgatory
I roll around a bit
it's comfy
clouds or pillows
engulf me
then I feel you
warm beside me
the fog lifts
with my eyelids


Act One
scene two:

make strong tea
of the Chinese variety
love please
I'll smoke cigarettes
on your porch
while the dark haired woman
on the rooftop
of the building
across the street
tells (yells to) me about
her illness
and her kitten
and it's stitches
you invite her over
she just wants a soda
root beer or ginger ale?
we turn our heads
she disappears

when you stop to think
you should hurry up and start again
make every decision based on the breakfast you ate in 1972
all th elimo drivers in all the world and you had to walk into mine
sunsets are pretty and homelessness abundant
but i'm tired of fake smiles and white zinfindel
give me the rude crude bastard child of rock and roll and crooket teeth with fist marked faces
where cigs are 7 dollars and gas is as expensive as milk
where the lights illuminate something worth looking at and where you can get in a fight at a bar with a stranger cause he spilled your beer on your cleanest pair of dirty pants

listenin to soft guitar driven
art rock
in parking lot desert
reading poems from america
one state at a time
in a suit jacket
before goin into
a bullshit job

thinkin about mans three choices
(staying with the pain
running to some eastern metaphor
riding the mechanical bull)

i feel the muscles in my jaw tighten
with stress and desire

i see
the new punk
standing tough
outside the cinemas
of america
on friday nights
in expensive and pristinely worn
skin tight denim

and i play a movie over in my head
where
the dead milkmen
walk up

and kick the ever livin shit outta

the whole lot of em

bloody fuckin wenkers

strange
the way dancing
freezes the world as a picture
resting on the mantle
and leaves
you with the girl
swimming
through the baseline

she was tension
pulled tight
like force contained
and the snap
when it comes
will echo
angelic voices
and
steel twisting

metallic dreams
breathe
on me in my sleep
the light they catch and reflect
perfectly sharp
and clean

of convertibles and messiahs
and friday nights
late for curfew
and redemption

of swarths of light
smeared by mass and acceleration
and the uncatchable
wind, all holy

of murdered youth and innocence
by the clean sharp edges
of pleasure

of faith
lost AND found
of rebirths just as painful as the first

these kids playing banjo music
dancing in doorways
right in front
where they throw cold coffee
and snuff out cigarettes

no slow heartbreak waltz
the street is a-glow
and trinkets roll down through
the drainage grates
i'm stumbling blind past taxis
and they don't even reflect
in the headlights

so the air gets kicked up
at their feet, and i'm
walking off a bottle of wine
whistling along, echoes
shaking into the future

DB Cooper
jumpin outta his plane
in the darkness
in the black beneath
in 1971
in the wind
closing his eyes
and clutching his chest

bandits may rob me
but I snatch their eyes

and keep the dust
outta my face,
peek out over
my eyes stinging

DB Cooper
in and above
the skyward forests
or Oregon
says "get away with it"
in the darkness
in the wind

speech leech

I have 4ooo feelings
welling inside me
expressionless
and coughing
just don't see how writing
could do justice
these emotions

words are quick
and easy
we throw them around
recklessly
in attempt to communicate
we complicate

but what of a smile?
simply
solitary
where no arrangement of consonants
and vowels
parts it's lips
obscuring it's honesty
and innocence

I've lost them
those linguistic little instruments
lost the will to manipulate
my spirit
into grammatical framework
to justify my smiles
with reasons why they exist

may have been obvious
in the growing silence
I've been feeling anyway
that it's not how or what we say
it's what is never said
that leaves the deepest impression