I am the emptiness
between the page
The long nights labor
without a wage

I am the text
without a spine
Electronic beasts
line after line

I am the way
backwards : a yaw
A keychain made
from a rabbits paw

I am the wind
that makes sailors dream
The separation of milk
and all of it's cream

I am the footsteps
across the hot sand
A ringless finger
attached to your hand

I am the breath of life
given to you
The taste on tongue
The morning dew

And by now you're
asking me for a clue
Sorry about that
It's left up to you

1000 poems
Good place to be
1000 and that's
all to see

Best wishes
to all ,

Goodbye . . .

Old friends sat on their hands
Leaning forward
swinging their feet
like second grade

1313 Primrose Street
The first thing I ever memorized
Except for the hollow fear
of empty footsteps
following me from Texas

The sharks always fascinated me
Charged me with fear
and apprehension
Evil dark black eye of devotion
They were all maneaters

Her skin was sandpaper thin
She made me always bleed
She drank shark's liver oil
and made me always smile
She was a maneater

On a mountaintop
my love came alvalanching down
Even January's cold
was no match for what I was told

Drove back to Birmingham
with the thermostat stuck
But I didn't care
I couldn't be colder
frozen in my forlorn heart of despair

Forty dollars of *****
151 ***
You will find me in the alley
a drunken ***
Lights flashing in my brain
Spinning gripping my soul
Ecstacy in alcoholic rage
Writing off the page
I raise the flag
To Ira Hayes
A fallen hero
And his last days

1974
was a year
of warm summer fun
The nighthawks flew
in the lights
of darkness
And trees crashed
in warm
winter storms
And love was
a kiss
upon a breast
And touch upon
willing fingertips
And life was a joy
to possess
And a joy
to profess

There are no distractions
        at 3:10 A M

There's not even a breeze
       no stirring of wind

I sit alone in silence
        listening to nothing

No , no I'm not in any
        kind of suffering

Just letting my consciousness
        expand beyond the borders

Beyond the mountains
        and the sea's waters

Not even the space
        surrounding the stars

There are no limits
        as to just how far

My universe
        is my man made cosmos

A thought turning to whim
        Seen through like ghost  

I sit alone in silence
        but I'm not really lonely

I have all of my friends :
        mayonnaise , mustard and lots of baloney

It has begun
Off to my right . . . dancing
Thumbs snapping
Music thumping
In all intensity
We are looking  . . .
Looking into the ways

Swaying ,
Chills surging ,
Together saying . . .
Power be to my sunset's moment
Don't steal it away

24 left
No more sound ,
Dancing done
But no less aware
We are not devided in two
As we wait for our sun to rise

12 . . .
When to live
When to die
Sacrifice the truth ? ? ?
Ha !
We paid our dues

Dance now again
Dance like it was an Irish jig
To the last second
Shed not a tear
Nor give in
Wail not , nor whimper
. . . But be brave

At 4 a.m. I had a whim
why not write a line or two
It's hot outside , 78 degrees , and it appears there'll be no dew
Everything's right
there is no plight
So I'm not coming down on you
But that's the problem
that I have
and it's making me now so blue
How can I write when there is nothing to say
Damm muse has gone away

It's 11:05 p.m. and 10.556°c and getting cooler . The coolness of the night time air soothes my aching thoughts . The calm of silence allows me to breathe a sigh of relief . Only at a distance can I hear the barking of a dog as everything remains still . I am at joy and peace in the emptiness that is so full of life that goes unheard . My mind wanders thinking about people I used to know a long life time ago . I fret over trivia , where are they now , are they alive ?
I know I will never see their faces again , but I can cherish their memories one more time . I can say to the night's indifference long overdue I love yous and break a smIle for eternity . I again say I am at peace , full of contentment , surrounded by the echoes that are silently embracing me .

You were my Queen of Hearts
A top card to draw
My Queen of Diamonds
In the ruff
The best I ever saw
Turned out
You were just a lump of coal
And just as cold
The Ace of Spades
With a very blackened soul
You made a Joker out of me

Five billion years
from this day
in time

Will there be
anything
of this
world I know ?

What of oceans
or even snow ?
What of the dirt ?
I ponder so

I'm afraid
there will be
nothing there

A burnt out sun
and empty air

There will be
no longer dreams
or hopes

Just vacuous space
that's no joke

So what of man ?
Will he be long
deceased ?

I'm afraid
that will surely
be the case

After the sun
swallows whole
Turns the planet
into nuclear gold

And every molecule
and atom
whose energy
has been
spent

What will happen ?
I come to think

What if by chance
the sun goes nova ?
Casting our remains
from a supernova

Will we shoot across
the eternal bliss ?
And end up
collected
by a gravational
cyst ?

Who knows
for no one
will be there

Only the promise
of time
and distance
suspended
not even
in air

I knew I was in "purgatory"
I couldn't make up  all the grade/s
Didn't really matter much
My pocketknife had a  broken blade

The "I's" are ever on you
No one hears or cares to understand
The questions put before them
Are lost to time by sand

So fling the words before me
My pearls before the swine
The path placed as pure adjectively
While you sit and mull your time

There was my life before me
In the parking lot of life
A beat up old "63" Rambler
With the "Club" attached  to the steering wheel of strife

Woke up and had Sounds
Of Silence for breakfast

Then first rays of Free Bird fled the Smoke On The Water

Lord I tried to change
Turning greatfully dead

But Ten Years after
it was Bachman Turner Overdrive

Through the Purple Haze
we all glazed Along The Watch Tower

From the ruins of Rhiannon down to Jungle Land

We stood our ground as we made our last stand

We stood at the Stairway To Heaven at the Hotel California

Imagine the Superstition
as Layla was Born to Run

After all Happiness Is A Warm Gun

We all have our Bridge Over Troubled Water
but we learned to Let It Be

It was More Than A Feeling
when he said you can
Lean On Me

It was a Bohemian Raphsody for the Sutians Of Swing

But the Riders On The Storm rode in asking Who'll Stop The Rain

It was a Black Magic Woman all Tangled Up In Blue

She had all the Night Moves saying You Can Go Your On Way

The Long And Winding Road now has lead us to Reeling In The Years

What's Going On I'm inclined to ask Maggie May

She said I'm
Just Staying Alive because you know I Will Survive

Drawn taut
pic-ed n' plucked
Where have I
witnessed that before

Always two doors ,
front and back
Aways used the one
that lacked

All the pretty angels
come out at night
flick shake and hook
Tungsten heavy heights

I can't place the sound
All that
I can assimilate
It was by my hands
Now lost  , going down

The midnight's voice
of memory
Barred and shut
let it be , let it be

A dead phoenix
hangs from my neck
Like a curse , a ghost ,
or worse

time to let it be

Daisies don't grow on Abbey Road .

There is no such thing as London fog .

No octopus's garden in the rain .
Nor in the shade .

No yellow bus on a magical mystery tour .

She's so heavy .
She's so bad
She removes the screen before coming in through the bathroom window

Standing in my English tan
Waiting . . .
Here comes the sun .

She never gave me
any more than the twice she'd take

Now you have no where to go

One sweet dream
One tear away
Sleeps in a hole in the road
Suffers like a Tuesday on the phone to me

She could steal
But could not rob .

No there is no home to go back to
No smiles to away the cry
No more lullabies
or invitations

And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make .

The application allows adaption as

the bears bare no
bearance

The cows cringed coraled

down Durbin's Dude Delightful Deli

Every effort evaporated

forthright fast and furious was the fanale

Gone , as the greats grotesquely go

Hath Hell's halcyon held

in it's ignition of innovation

Just juxtaposition of jabberizations

Klinging like Klingons kasting kats

Longing for living listeners

of the many mangled munchkins

never to be notched near nor never

on or over the Overton Overpass

Past the principal part of Paradise

Quickly and quaint the quid goes pro quo

releasing the realization that reality rankly reeks

So service the sublime situation succintly

The truth turns to trash

Undercover the unwarranteed walk
without witness

Vaguely the vagabons vacated the vacuous vagaries

without whispering wantom wishes

as Xenophobic xenophytes xeroticize

young yanks from Yakima

Zestily zeroed in on the zagged zipper

Well I guess I knew it all along
You were singing to another's song
There was no harmony to our verse
So bad it couldn't be any worse

The words just never rhymed
Our life steps were out of time
And the way you always spared
The commitment was never there

Well like a bird without a nest
A rainbow without the rain
I see it all so clearly now
I see it through the pain

All the secrets you withheld
All those pretty little lies
Every question never answered
Another piece of me would die

Like a lake without it's water
A glacier without it's ice
You'd go dancing around the corner
To see who you could entice

So like a heart without it's lover
A sky without the blue
I'll guess I'll be moving on
Trying to forget about you

So like a bird without a nest
A rainbow without the rain
I'll be moving on
I think it's for the best

I was told a brain on poem was a terrible thing to waste . To which I retorted ,"Which one is wasted?"

I dug the holes
and covered the acorns
with the disembodied
spirit of hope

Maybe in death
life would live

I hold on tight
to the frozen
dawns of winter's
demise

The days grow
in rows of  
interpretude
Collecting
pole dancing soltices
and bi-polar
equinoxes
chardonarily
intoxicated
in literary analyses
from southern France


Ah , but those acorns
so full of promise
Maybe they will oak out
and I can someday
be the earthern
reality infusing
the return of
spring again

I was left with nothing
Devoid of my resolve
Stripped of all my vanity
Beaten down
like the path
on the grass of the lawn

I wandered door to door
begging for form
All that was granted
were the curses from
the day I was born

There the rocks
of the wall between us
began to fall
Some rolled down
to the ocean
Some rolled not at all

There was little risk
involved
Just the commotion written
and the false hope
that appals

So I turned back
the grip of time
I cut tbe ropes
that bound

I imagined a place
of perfect form
in the words of
my rhyme

Adam was sitting on a rock
outside the Garden of Eden
Rubbing his sore ribcage he said ,
"What the Hell just happened ?"

Eve came over and
sat down beside him
Putting an arm around his shoulders
And laying her head on him she asked

"Peanut butter and jelly or takeout ?"

Adam was sitting on a rock outside the Garden of Eden , rubbing his sore rib cage .

"What the Hell just happened ?"

Eve came over and sat down beside him
putting an arm around his shoulder and laying her head on him said ,

"Peanut butter and jelly or takeout ."

Adam - (1) man
              (2) earth or ground
So man from dirt goes to dirt .

I opened up
Dumped out the words
Kicked them hard
For the sound I heard
Crack ! goes the breaking ribs
There is no pity that I give
Stomped then flat
Stretched then out
Made them squeal
Then I made them shout
I grabbed them by the naked throat
Squeezed so hard
I made them choke
I made pain flash in their eyes
I made them pay for all their lies
Hot fear sweated out
Red blood dripped cold
without a doubt
I made them wish
they had never said
Before I made
A morgue , of the page

I was just thinking about you
After all these many years ago
Thinking about how much I still love you
How I just let you go

Life is sometimes a fountain
Sometimes I was just a fool
There is a pool of sorrow
Full of precious jewels

I can't help think of what might have been
What would have happened
Had I accepted your open invitation
imagining what could have been

With my life nearly over
I sheded love like autumn sheds her leaves
And I have my mountains of regret
and eternity to grieve

Still I see you sitting prettily
I guess you will always be twenty three
And I will be an epic of love lost
A fire still burning within me .

Yellow sunshine sad
almost glad
almost . . . .

I can feel you touching me
after all these years
I wonder how you are feeling now
I wonder where you are

Behind which star are you hiding
are we playing hide and seek ?

25 years ago gone , goodbye
Like a knife to my heart

But I bleed not . . .
Long ago . . .
Lost the last drop ,
a long time ago

It's after midnight now
I've come to howl
the words my muse
keeps in her bag
She's a blackhearted *****
with gnarly teeth
and razor thin lips to bare
She has kerosene breath
and her fingers are as cold as death
She's long desired
to catch me in bed
But I would drown in the creek
before I would be tongue bound
and give in to such an ugly witch
She plys me with liquor
He tongue is word flickered
She dances around and around
I stand but falter , and tumble on over
And she's quicker than a cat on a moth
She's licking my neck
and I shudder from cold z' over
She lays across my chest and declares
"I'll put you to test , taking all of your best"
Then she slides her hands under my shirt
Then cackling with glee
she strips down my clothes to my "T's"
So excited she trembles ecstatically
She raises her dress and sits down upon me
She screams  in such delight like
two bobcats fighting at night
And I lay helpless as I stare
She moans , then groans
then short tempered yells
and many an "almost"  and "Oh Oh Oh's"
Then turns soft as a quail
Her fingers now all over warm
Replacing the cackles and bows
a beautiful voice that glows
She whimpers like a puppy scorned
She's now in the buff
And little concerned
In the calm after the storm
her true beauty really shows

The rock star became a comet
When all the stardust
had been blown away
He wore his age in a bottle
But the bottle
never aged as fast

I perceive this age of dust
That of rain's rage upon
the red red rust

I've captured the binds
that held me fast
as I turned blue I
choked and gasped

So life will rise up to the tast
Or topple over like a stone
from a pyramid's past

So shovel the grave with spades called days
Don't go giggling at time's
inconsistent maze

For you are to remember
in this age of dust
your red red blood
is soon tucked
beneath the crust

In an age of emptiness
in the ways of nonsense
the meaning of life
has become meaningless

If we stand
do we each alone ?
Single thoughts under
single days and nights

"The fertile fallow furrow
fleeting under flurries of
freshly fallen snow "

. . . . . . for sure . . . . . . .

And we are the huskless stalks
shivering in the wind
row upon row
thousands upon thousands
going no where
and no where to go

A gray hippo lived in the zoo
It was so stressful it turned him blue
The Giraffes laughed at his skin so blue
That only made him bluer times two

Now the Lion was wise but a little slow
That's why he wound up as the star of the show
He and Hippo were playing a game of solitaire
While the Lion played fleas were biting him everywhere
Hippo ate chocolate cake
That the tourist threw over the gate
Wise old Lion said ,
"You better watch your weight
Your getting a little thick in the hip ."

"Humph !" , said Hippo ,
"Why do you think they call us
Hip-po-***-a-mus ."

AH ! Choo ! My haiku !
I just blew the words away
Keep them , they're yours now .

I was born on the river Alabamy
The catfish come big and plenty
The land was flat all over
Covered in white and red clover
Yes I lay my claim asunder
Under stars I long and wonder

Yes!
I lay my claim on the waters muddy
Skippng stones with my only buddy
So the years they fell into the water
Took away my only brother

Yeah I was raised on the sands of the Alabamy
Me along with all my family
Cain't you hear the echoes calling
Old and bent and my eyesight falling

I'm affixed by my rigid age
Living in an old rusty cage
Cain't you hear their voices calling
The nightime comes and the sun is falling

Goodbye to the land on the river
Time to pay the dues to my receiver

For I am a man and believer
Yay ! I was born on the Alabamy river
I'll cross over the muddy waters
To be with all my brothers

We all stumble , falter and fall
No more than the dust after all

We rant , pretend or rave
But there are no words coming from the grave

Our time is spent whether we pay
Our lives granted a fixed number of days

How many full moons caught your eye
Now you are asking me "Why?"

Don't you see all of it is in vain
Brings us back to the quesion of dust again

The answer my friend ?
It's blowing in the wind



Last stanza by Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan .

It's almost two am
in the morning
I hear the silence
of the forgotten
and forlorn
I see the endless
empty feelings
of being here
forgotten and
all alone

The evening
was so full
of promise
The laughter was
so natural
and carefree
I felt like I
had finally found
the place that
I was meant to be

But the people
soon paired into
their couples
The loud noise
had become
subdued
And by midnight
the room was
mostly empty
Empty as the feeling
it had left inside of me

So I left
and nobody noticed
No goodbyes
or see you again
real soon
I walked into the darkness
of the warm evening air
Realizing that I was
one of those
who had no one who cared

So put me on the highway
I've got no where
I have to be
More empty miles
of lonesome
on the road
called eternity

And I will now fake it
And I will somehow
learn to take it
Take it all back home
with me

So put me on the highway
I've got no where
I have to be
More empty miles
of lonesome
on the road
called eternity

Worried about all those gays getting married
Playing football , everywhere on the TV
Yeah , and all those dammed dessert rats
Chopping off heads for all of us to see
Shooting those Muslim creeps
Everyone of them had it coming
Now , that's just the way it's going to be

And all those porch monkeys
Cut off all that gimme
They need to get a job
And quit dressing like they were slobs

Kick all those wet backs back to Mexico
There stealing all our jobs
They just come over to breed like rabbits
So they can stuff the liberal ballots

And Damm the chinks , ***** , and redman
There no better than all the Jews
Ther're thieves that steal us blind
We need to get rid of every X , Y , and U
Now that would ease my mind

And all that hogwash crap in the Constitution
That doesn't apply to me
This is the home of the White man
All red , blue , and white you see
That's the home of all that's me ,

Alleviate my heavy heart
Release the demons
that I wish would soon depart

Turn the air pure in thought
What I've found was not that what I sought

What I gathered were the weeds and thorns
and the lightning from thunderstorms

Now my bones ache of sin
These guilty feelings run deep within

Once I reached the mountain's top
I realized there was no place to go but to drop

The devouring grave with headstone made
has me questioning if I am saved

So I raise my fist in a defiant stance
Such foolish arrogance
yeilds an ungodly glance

I am a rich man in beggars clothes
To be stripped naked so my sins will be exposed

Fot what little I have gained . . . will be taken and given to the righteous to claim

Only the answers why
As I gaze at an evening crescent

Only between the sighs
As blood flows , porous , effervescent

So it was this time due
Ripped the scars vertically

For all these feelings . . . you're
Taken into nothing totally

Yes in my heart I bleed
Day , tomorrow , in eternity

Falling the crescent seed
By night dark without paternity

One hundred and one stitch
Reside to mend this remake fantasy

So flies the weathered witch
Across a crescent moon above me

Second hand moonlight ray
Second guessing all that which I gave

Will I live to see day
Silence knows but there is nothing to say

Promise me !
(A thousands times at least)

Love you forever !
(How fast and short forever falls next to eternity)

All these things I said to you

Trust me with your life !
I would never hurt you !
I wouldn't lie to you !
Promise me ?

Why it was only yesterday
I think I said it all to you
Like a hand on a rusty blade
Like breathing when it's all you can do

Forever was not long enough for me and you

After the abandonment
Long nights with no sleep
One is the loneliest number
Never is a very long time
Entrapped

Spelled backwards :

Entrapped
Never is a long time
One is the loneliest number
Long nights with no sleep
After the abandonment

Spelled sideways from the left :

A
L
O
N
E

spelled sideways from the right :

E
N
O
L
A

Any way you spell it , it ***** .

Always treasured my moments alone
In the eerie silence , God made my home

The moon's racing clouds
Hidden by black burbon sky
In the coolness that enshrouds
in silence a bat flies by

Where the words of man fail
Where their thoughts no longer prevail

Where love resides in the heart
For the past a tear is shed
For all those that depart
So fresh as if they just bled

Running from the ghosts
Back to my envelope of dreams
Where nothing is as it seems

Memories in change in a pocket full of holes

A Major's contribution
A personal Private's affair
The Colonel that blossomed
Into a General's sense of scandal
Catching all Lieutenants unaware
Then came a Corporal punishment
And Mastered the Sargent
With such care
Limiting the whole base
To all and much despair

My mother never said ,
"I love you" to me
That's OK .
I think it's better than being told ,
"I don't love you anymore."

Someone far off , I can't see ,
lives in a graveyard
in hopes of reviving
dead dreams .

You can't lie like you used to
Your eyes do give you away
So your going out for something
On this bright and beautiful day
But I have known for a long time
Another heart has stolen you away
It grieves me so but what can I say or do
When you're making me feel so blue
And it hurts to see you lie to me
When once we were so close
So go . . . go on. . . now be on your way
Your heart sheds not a ray for me
The Sun burns the face of the moon
And leaves wasted traces of love
I'll be on the darkest side in grief
Where I wish the stars above

Answered are not found by searching for them

They come from living them

Answers are not found
by searching for them

They come from living them

Time stands still for no man

Stop the train ! I want to get off !
If I can't be anything more
Then let me scold and let me scoff
Please now just open up the door

Your pretentious pretensions
Pause and place me inbetween
Take your dreams and nightmares too
I see the truth there in your gleam

Let me off at the next stop , please !
Just let me debark from this strife
I have no need of solicitations
From the perpetrators in my life

Just back away from your misgivings
Keep them all for yourself
I have no use for the falsehoods
So put your book back on the shelf

A poem's a poem and nothing else
As they stand they will never be a tree

Even by God's decree

A poem's nothing more than the mangled thoughts
Spilling out of our heads
It's not the future that I see

Nor was it meant to be

Though I do admit
at times they tend to make me cry
And sometimes on the inside
they want to make me die

And again they give me hope
Even make me want to dance
And I come close to love and God
And they give me sense of balance

The world could do
without the poems
that funnel through our pens
But what a sorry lot we would be
without the freedom that it brings

So let the words flow like water
over Niagara Falls
Give our hearts the magic words
that make our spirits sing
Let us gain the unattained
Poems , and poetry is the name