Blue moon,
clinking in the six case.
Mexican scratch off addicts,
drinking a different flavored drink.
Spaced on my tablet,
kissed the liquid till it hits me.
Daisy barks at Tim,
and in the time machine of this bus I have learned
the value of a half hour pissed away with pleasure
In transit.
I caught that son of a bitch,
And each bottle I finish is a tribute
to kindness.
You might miss the point
if you miss the bus.
And you'll be left
huffing and cursing,
steam curling from your raised fist,
as you run behind the life you could have lived.
But on that stop you might just find yourself,
or someone else, who needs
the things you can supply,
And holds the things that rule your eye.

So you can kindly keep your car
because, I can't watch and drink and write
while I'm driving.

Pines line the lane
Beside the field
Where you and I used to trade our brains
For a bowlful of fleeting moments
In the glowing giggle zone.
Bowling on the green we called it,
Back when I still possessed my hand grenade,
And my head bore a flowing mane.
I haven't spoken to you since you found a better place
but I remember your voice, and I remember your face.
Merp and Midland,
Death,
Destruction,
Chaos,
and stuff like that.
I'm glad you found the secret.
I used to know it
I forgot it.
But I remember bowling on the green,
and the songs we sang together.

Men cannot march together in unison
for prolonged periods of time,
without the insistence of sound.
There is an individual cadence we conceal in our cells
which must be silenced
by a hypnotic pattern.

One, two three fo-wer,
Yuh, three your four
Yuh one and your two and your three your four.

It is a passionate howl in the distance.
Accompanied by living drums,
fashioned out of flesh and rubber and the earth.
The first time you hear it
it reverberates on your senses like an immaculate illusion.
The cadence being cried
in the foggy florescent light.
Over the barking and posturing of the rdc's
As they herd you in an unorganized mob.
It pierces the apprehension you brought with you
And a seed of determination is planted.

Your one two,
two,
two your three your four,
Your one and your two and three your four.

Something greater than the self speaks,
a desire to contribute to such harmony develops.
It is the chromosome of the cadence singing,
from within all but the most damaged ones.

Your one two three fo-wer
three your four,
Your one and your two your three your four.

And when you finally become part of a column of sound
bouncing waves
off of other competing columns,
On a simple morning march to the messhall
You can feel a power beyond words and symbols.
And your inner musical score skips a measure
To marvel at a music,
That is cruder, and blinder,
and purer,
than any music that one individual can create.

For an oracle
(s)he was quite the weatherman.
She saw rampant growth,
where constriction and pressure were truth revealed.
The gorgeous countenance of your inner self
is a blessing that outweighs your vile exterior,
she said to me. You are an angel.
Arousal and inferiority overload;
implode in the cerebral cortex of one who is only just learning
The purity of laughter,
the value of a mind
Unbound by the constraints of a sightless generation.
The manifestation of my hopes,
that only seems real when I am asleep,
It is always throbbing on the skin of reality,
A pulsing pleasing threat
of a better sunrise
And a distant sunset.
In the forum we once lasted one day
without choking up bile
and spiting it at each other.
Has no one ever built a house,
and not so soon after burnt it down.
Tools for every season,
I would like to merge with one every ninety days
if the seasons would only pick me,
and set aside a slice of time.
Copernicus
repented
when he discovered the
internet.
"If the positive surge I inhaled
in the dirge of the sun,
when its fusion failed,
And the gravity of its pride
impaled itself on the light,--

And instantly
a bad idea changed the world
for the better
when everyone embraced the dawn
With open arms and broken charms,
And every ounce of prof(ph)i(e) t gained,
became the joy of all,
and the mana of the many.
In every text we have torn from the unknowable
The same truths persist.
We create.
Therefore.
We exist.

If laughter isn't proof enough for you
Then God told me to tell you
You can go fuck yourself,
or any other consenting adult.
What the fuck should he care
If you believe in him or not.
Creation is an animal unto itself.
Call it what you will, but never call it impossible.

In the desert once,
I came upon a woman
Sitting against a rock,
arms clasped around her knees,
weeping.
I asked her what is the matter

And she said
"You don't understand!
If I don't get some water
I am going to die."

Come with me then, woman,
And we shall find some water.

She shook her head and stomped her feet and said
"No! You don't understand!
If I don't get some water, I will die!"

I offered her my half full skin,
"It is tepid and muddy, but it should suffice."
But she swatted it away,
Fell to her stomach
And started flailing her arms and legs,
weeping and screaming.

"You don't understand!
If I don't get some water
I will die!"

I tried to reason with her,
But it was useless.
So, I walked off towards the distant oasis,
And left her there
where presumably,
she died.

Anyone who believes that sorrow and pain are a cage
we can never escape,
has never had a smile forced upon their face
by a single rain drop,
landing on their lower lip.

Sorrow can cease as quickly
as it strikes us,
In the vigor gained from a current of air,
A raspberry crushed
between the palette and tongue.

Joy can emerge,
if we don't bully it back into the shadows
within ourselves.

A purpose can curse us,
Deter us from blissfulness,
In aimless roaming pleasure assaults us.
With a tremor,
With a quickness,
For an instant or several hours
Soul Sickness and misery lose their powers.
In togetherness and contact as well as solitude,
happiness never abandons us,
It is always standing by us, even when we ignore it.
There are limitless sanctuaries of satisfaction
In this never-ending gift of existence.

Sorrow ceases
The moment we allow the world and ourselves
To tear it to pieces.

Spring is a smiling sadist.
Flaunting her flawless body
before the cripples and lepers.
When the sun shines unfettered
and a chill breeze wanders,
only then do I truly feel my weakness;
like a hot blooded killer
in the land of Immortals.
Struck nauseous, by the joy of others.
For one engaged to rage
animals and sunshine are a petty comfort.
I lose a little of myself to the blueness of the sky,
however hard I try, I cannot embrace the beauty
when ugliness dominates my spirit.
I duck behind the veil of my smile,
but, much like the affection I am denied
It is a gossamer cloth.
Easily torn, and difficult to restore.
In the air is a kind perfection
That fades into a brutal heat,
A slimy Stickiness, and clinging clothes.
But, I can respect the ruthlessness of summer.
This benevolent spring
It is nothing but a mirage.
Look away for a moment,
And it fades into the haze.

Electric lights illuminate
the liquid lines that we create,
The fluid lies, the burning hate,
the outstretched hand that came too late.
The apologies deaf ears recieve
the laughing widows who never grieve
falsehoods that flow like sand through a sieve,
With words and actions we all decieve.
In each declaration of love, their lies
a sliver of weakness we all despise
a servant of pain that hides in our eyes
a primal demon that laughs at our cries.
At night its pure, in daylight its tainted
beneath every lie, real truth is painted.

The moon, she is a monster
making her rounds.
She feasts on frozen sighs,
A porcelain disaster.

Her face is made of wounds,
that she tries to fill with bodies.
No matter how they kick and scream
she always tears them down.

You can watch her every night,
Streaking through the sky
Looking for a new clown
To kiss, and kick, and disembowel.

Grown men howl at the sight
of her dried up seas, her funeral eyes.
Pale and bloated on dismay,
The shine she wears is stolen light.

In my dreams I can see
Virginia burning.
Like I once wished it would.
Nothing good can come from five years alone,
that six months together can't sever.
My ship was no Black Dolphin,
No dog ever snarled at the sight of me.
Yet, cravings far stranger than fresh flesh
came in the gently rocking night.
A cabinet filled with formaldehyde,
in which a somnambulist could hide,
In living death,
to become a legend was never my desire.
All I wanted was the burning.
I came and went,
like we moored and departed.
But, when I was there
I wished only for it all to disappear
In a flash of fire
and a puff of smoke.
Depravity weighs men down
with the gravity of a thousand frowns.
After all these years
I only wonder
What sort of monster could paint
a dolphin black?

Desolation occupies the streets,
dusty debris greets me
as I kick past a pile of rubble
where my neighbor used to live.
The mailboxes of the mostly abandoned bungalows
are overflowing with FEMA fliers,
and contractor business cards.
Hammer wielding men
make their way through the ruination.
Trying to feed their families
on the gutted remains of disaster.
Greedily grabbing the copius charity funds,
they diligently restore houses
that will more than likely never be occupied,
ever again.
They carry with them an air of determination and optimism
that covers over the film of despair that coats everything.
But, determination alone
cannot transform a shell of a house
back into a home.

In the mammoth mansions on the corner
there are signs of restored life.
The rich can afford to ignore devastation,
and rebuild, as if their neighbors haven't all fled.
Aside from an occasional pounding hammer
The streets are silent,
save for the moaning of the wind.
The burned house still stands,
a stoic reminder
that the source of pain may change,
but, beneath the smiles, it always remains.

I cross the bridge,
stopping for a second to stare
at the thin layer of ice that has formed
on the surface of the scummy stream.
A moment later I arrive at the guardrail,
and I marvel at the lack of condom wrappers,
and cigarette cellophane on the floor.
It is obvious that few people have been here lately.
I crest the berm,
now a skeletal remnant of its former stalwart self.
The gray black rocks are exposed beneath the sand,
like the bones of a corpse,
with the skin and meat washed away.

The beach is absolutely deserted,
The wind itself refuses to walk along the shore.
It comes rushing from the landside,
and stops at the sea wall,
As if to say, there is nothing left for me to play with here.
Even the birds have abandoned the beach,
There are no tracks on the sand,
Aside from a set of dog's paws,
paired with the sneaker tracks of the dog's owner.
The sea is calm, with baby breakers
lazily lapping at the waterline.
The sky is a motley mix
of frothy white, and pale blue.
Both vibrant and dull,
like the eyes of a Nazi.
The winter sun is hibernating behind the cloud cover,
shedding dull light, that chills the spirit,
steals my smile, and transmogrifies it into a sigh.
I am surprised at how clean the beach is.
Pebbles and boulders are strewn all about,
but, aside from a few pieces of pale plastic
there is nearly no trash to be seen,
and I snicker internally,
for I know where the trash has gone.
Having spotted some of it in the street
on my way to the beach.
Several of the naked trees on the hillside
have tilted over,
revealing ruddy reddish roots.
More evidence of the violence of the storm.
As if there wasn't enough evidence already.
I come to the tilted flag pole,
with it's once buried base
now revealed.
A circular concrete mass,
that I never would have expected existed.
A shredded blue strip of cloth
is all that remains of the state flag of New York,
and it thrashes violently in the wind.
Down at the far end of the beach
the hunk of blacktop jutting from the sand is still visible,
but today, there is no torso laden box beside it.
There is something comforting in its presence.
Something comforting, yet deeply saddening.

I step past the flagpole, and I am instantly assaulted by the wind.
The chill air caresses me cruelly.
Biting my ears, and slapping my cheeks.
There is still standing water at the edge of the road,
and I walk down Kissam in a shivering stupor.
The quaint house where the hens once pecked and warbled
is now just an empty lot,
with the remains of the foundation as the only proof
that people once lived here.
I am shocked to see
that nearly every house at this end of the block is gone.
A lonely inground pool looks severely out of place
without the house that once stood next to it.
A green triceratops statue sitting poolside
smiles at me as I pass,
And I can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
In the middle of the block two men operate jackhammers,
while another hoists hunks of the street
from a hole with a backhoe.
I can't imagine what they are doing here,
and I slip past them without making eye contact.
On the other side of the vehicle
I see that most of the houses at the top of the block are still standing.
Boarded up bungalows, every one unoccupied.
A standup piano with its guts exposed
sits in front of the last house on the left.
A once treasured possession,
destroyed and discarded.

I come to Mill road, and turn left.
Here, things have mostly returned to normal.
Although the Syrian orthodox church
that has slid off its foundation,
And the trailers and semi's lined up along the road,
remind me that normality is a long way away.
Construction equipment is hauling what is left
of the smashed and shredded houses
that were washed from Kissam,
and deposited in the wetlands
several hundred feet away.
I wonder why they have bothered
to clean up the debris,
trampling football field sized sections of the wetlands to do so.
I pass by the VFW post,
my post,
and stop in to see what progress has been made.
The bar has been rebuilt, and the walls have been painted
a hideous shade of purple.
I leave as quickly as I came, and continue down Mill.
Past the group home on the corner.
A three wheeled police vehicle sits there,
guarding against looters.
Two cheap Chinese made American flags flap furiously
in front of the abandoned building.
No one is smoking now.
The sunflowers are long gone,
a rich brown mud is all that remains.

I pass tragedy after tragedy as I walk up the block.
Broken windows, and abandoned death sites,
of families that had lived on this block
since before my mother was born.
The people who had defined what Oakwood Beach meant to me
had all left.
Now, only a handful of families tries to live their lives in the shadow of Sandy.
I walk past the ancient willow,
And In a few moments I arrive
at the building I once called home.
I stand outside,
reluctant to enter
the moldy and bare interior.
There is nothing inside that I need,
but, there is a canteen of grain alcohol that I want.
I can see it sitting on the front windowsill.
Which is where people leave the few "valuables"
that they had salvaged during the initial cleanup,
but left behind when they moved on.
I open the door, and quickly snatch the canteen,
holding my breath to avoid inhaling spores,
and with the canteen in hand, I shut the door,
and turn my back on the world of my past.

I lost everything. I don't anticipate returning to HP any time soon. I hope everyone is well. I saved my tablet, guitar, and that's about it. I'm sure I'll have some good poems to post, when I do return.

Happy Halloween

I lost everything. I don't anticipate returning to HP any time soon. I hope everyone is well. I saved my tablet, guitar, and that's about it. I'm sure I'll have some good poems to post, when I do return.

Happy Halloween

I heard Today singing,
(An uplifting chorus of harmonized birdsong.)
as I placed the pot on the stove,
and rubbed sleep off of my face.

I heard Today laughing,
(Tinkling windchimes, fighting for the favor of the breeze.)
as I sipped my first cup, and exclaimed "Beautiful!"
while watching one man slice up
another man's face
with well placed elbows.

I heard Today grumbling,
(An old man, admonished by his wife, in public.)
as I squandered an hour, staring out into space,
while thoughts of Duress in March,
occupied the fortress of my memories.

I heard Today pleading,
(A mother at the hospital; a sick child in her arms, and no money in her purse.)
as the cloud obscured sun slipped under the horizon,
while I stared at a blank page,
lying on the writing desk
hidden inside my head.

I heard Today weeping,
(A frightened child, alone in the cold.)
as Night arrived, to drive him away,
towards his open grave.

Tommorow, I think, I will put in earplugs.
To save me from the guilt
of hearing another day lament,
the way in which I threw him away.

When my spirit still blushed,
when it was still elevated and intoxicated
with life and loves elation,
the leaves were all fleshy emeralds,
and the hawthorn petals cascading down,
caught on our eyebrows and in our hair.
Ten billion creatures were being birthed all around us.

I whispered, surely this spring will never end.
Less than one year later I sit here,
and sing of those bediamonded days.
Now the sun groggily grumbles alive at dawn.
But, the azure of the cloudless skies
still speaks of things blooming,
and secrets shared by intimate eyes.

Now, the air is chill, the wetlands sere,
windows rumble and quake.
Funneled air moans in the alley.
This same wind slices through
the ghoul haunted woods of my psyche.
Where it once was white light,
there now creeps, ever longer shadows.

Yet, there is warmth within us all
that even now calls out your name.
In the months to come, as the cold claims the world
outside these walls, it is this warmth that sustains us.
Every memory of every caress, each kiss collected
is an ever-flaming log, blazing. When I blanket myself
in memories of spring with you, winter does not exist.

It is a lazy maliciousness,
that they coddle and nurse.
A fat- limbed sadist baby, that doesn't care
who has to clean up
the violently swatted cereal bowl,
all the wet ceramic splinters
and little yellow O's.
It laughs as you cut your palm on a scalpel shard,
and claps chubby paws,
as the drips of blood swirl in the shallow white
puddle of spilt milk.
As you press the dishrag of distractions against your wound,
it is aiming for your eye. Hand poised like a dagger thrower.
As soon as the bleeding stops,
that's when they let the spoon fly.

Cinnamon sprinkled,
syrupy sweet and tangy,
nutmeg and lemon,
simmering ripples.

Rough diced apples,
swept from the board to the pan
with a flick of the knife.
They bounce and settle
in the bubbling brown bath.

The fragrant forces infuse each piece,
as the sugar and spices mingle
with the carmalized spirit of the apple.
Each piece is coated in an aura of autumn.
Flavorful morsels, tender yet crisp,
the esscence of the season on my lips.

I am a butcher,
not of dead animal flesh,
but of living organisms.
Today I brought out the tools of my trade,
ravenous saws, and chopping blades.
I massacred hundreds,
as I smashed through their homes
with my diabolic engine of devastation.
I cut, and sliced,
until my shirt was stained red
from the spattered gore,
I ripped, and sawed, and snapped limbs,
cracking and tearing with abandon.
The ones I didn't kill I left maimed,
and butchered.
Their limbs hacked off with random ruthlessness.
I piled the remains unceremoniously in a heap,
and chopped them up even further
so I could dispose of them in the woods.
After the deed was done, I cleaned up the small bits
and hosed the whole area down,
so that no telltale stains would remain.
My ghastly labor done,
I rinsed off, scrubbing the red residue from my hands and forearms,
took off my bespattered clothes,
sat down at my kitchen table,
and enjoyed my lunch with a self satisfied grin on my face.
The annual slaughterfest is over.
I can put up the saws, shears,
and lawnmower, until next year.
I hate end of season landscaping, but somebody has to do it.

Nothing would have worked; whatever they had tried.
No wall of stone and sand could quell such ruthless rage.
No berm could stem the rushing torrent of the crushing tide.

Why didn’t they do something; I’ve heard it often cried.
But the Sea she was set free, like a beast from out her cage.
Nothing would have worked; whatever they had tried.

She cared not for the many that lost their homes, nor those who died.
Once she gained momentum she could not disengage.
No berm could stem the rushing torrent of the crushing tide.

The sea she came so quickly, those who didn’t run, couldn’t hide.
The water rose four feet before the end of the first stage.
Nothing would have worked; whatever they had tried.

As a servant of the sea I watched it all with pride.
The Moon she lent her aid, she did not ask a wage.
No berm could stem the rushing torrent of the crushing tide.

We all fumed and raged; we thought that they had lied.
But the truth it is written, upon this very page.
Nothing would have worked; whatever they had tried.
No berm could stem the rushing torrent of the crushing tide.

I want to go where Chill lives,
crawl through arboreal density.
I want to die like a beam of light at the end of the day,
paralyzed until dawn.
I want the roof of my subconscious to suddenly cave in
unexpectedly,
just once.