You are a grey guitar
wailing
a sandstorm
adding the grit to my teeth
a white pearl necklace
falling over a lady's bare chest
A lonely birthday
where no one calls but the deskman

I asked you
                  so I knew.

I turned you
from a cherry sweet Sunday
                                                 to this.
Look!
What have you done to my pleasant canyon dream?
I woke, and snoozed the alarm four times this morning.
Each time,
last night was still there
boring into me
a metal casket
                         creaking open and then
                                  finally
                  ­                            CRASH
                               ­                             closing shut.

I want to cry on the subway.
I want to dance in the ocean with the waves crashing on the rocks behind me.
I want to see a lemon purple sunset mirrored in my mother's eyes.
I want to eat the whole cake.
I want to read a thousand words and learn every one.
I want to sleep in the desert, in a truck bed, staring at the stars.
I want to buy the shoes.
I want to wear the shoes.
I want to break the heels of the shoes on a long walk up a hill, drunk, shouting into the early morning air.
I want to collapse in bed before the sun hits the skyline and dream I was driving up the coast and my car took off into the air, passing up the birds, the planes, looking over the houses and the people.
I want to actually mean it, whatever it is.
I want to wake up and know that I did it, glorious me, did glorious it.
I want your ****.

sometimes the sky is black as hell
and there is nowhere to go to escape from its infinite void
and sometimes the rain drips down
from its steady black gaze and all is
wet and dank and the ground is
cement keeping feet
hostage and
a deep red pain
steals from you the light that once lived in your soul
and throws the light in the sky
so it will no longer be dark
and sometimes a star is born
but sometimes
                           its not.

a man runs down the road
exercise brings comfort
but who needs comfort
when you have
beer
cigarettes
and a summer afternoon

It is late,
and the beer drips down my throat
                                                          ­   goes to my head
meets the silence
            tomorrow is too hard to think about
                                                           ­           but tonight
my youth dances with the alcohol
                                                         ­  they aren't good dancers
but no one is watching
and tomorrow is late

Roam, rambling in the rain
starved for love.
Write a letter to your pain
detailing every ache,
and shred it in the moonlight.
Wander down your lover's neck
to the small of their back
and set up camp there
toasting marshmallows in their
embrace.
Run wild, angrily screaming
scaring the bats of your past
out of their caves.
Listening to the part of you
that hasn't been loved.

I turn on the light in the kitchen, and three roaches scatter to the corners. Deb bought peppermint tea, but I can only have bitter black coffee tonight, to keep me from sleep. At 2:30am, I am the only one awake, and when I catch a glimpse of my tired moon face in the mirror above my desk, the years face me starkly. Have I done it even half right? Have I become the sun? I fear sleep because I fear death. Here it comes with it's pale grin, and am I resting? No, not until the light streams in through the curtains, and I collapse on my bed, a lone marionette without it's puppeteer.

black coffee
and
the radio
    and I'm still battling
    my demons
shooing them away
        "give me a break, I'm so young"
        I say
They argue amongst themselves
loudly
                                and  come to no decision
black coffee
and
the radio

In your best midnight voice you said, "Shall we?"
I nodded, leaving my heart
somewhere in orange county
next to his ***** dishes
and overflowed ash tray.

cold cement under my feet
contemplating a deep colorful galaxy
humming to myself the tune we love
you are not mine
as the breath within my lungs is not mine
I take you in, and then you are gone
we are worlds apart
a century between us as we embrace
the soft night air is our home
adrift on a sea of doubts
lovers and friends
and at last friends
the universe expands
and you float away from me

I smoke a cigarette
at 11:30 p.m
it is cold
even with your absence
I am alive in a world that is home to you
that is enough

It's hard to meet new people
they're so foreign
they do things like wear hats
and play baseball
they listen to bad music
they like crossword puzzles
I don't like to hear them talk
but
      at night
when I get very cold
and sometimes it hurts to breathe
I'd like one of them next to me
or I'd like to hear them talk
anything to make me warm again
I can't have it all
but sometimes
I want it.

Water running over my feet,
I knew that there was
something better
than ******* on cool mornings.
Without you,
tense in my mouth,
the sun plays
differently on soft hands
and eyes become gentle
in the rain.
Oh, that I were less storm than sea.
That I were the amber glow
of your eyes
patient in a torrential
                                     reverie.

So the nature
the dirt of the past
is crushed under
the wave of the future
old relics of freedom
stuck in the sands of time
and an army rises
from the ashes of coffee
and newspaper stories
heroes and nightmares
metallic eyes
arms tied to strings
pulled by those
forever gluttons
in power since
the beginning
however silent
they pull
on their little
dancers
and we forget
our saviors
in this ocean
this new sea
of indifference.

Sometimes,
when the weather
is just right
I swim in the pools of your eyes,
                   those umbrellas
                              of mine
                               that wait on a
                                                  summer shower;
                               That blow
                               their breezes
                                           dropping
                                                   their leaves
                                                          ­          raising them
                                                                ­                    up up up
                                                when spring comes.

I walked along further still
out my door
and up a hill
found a rose
though a web was there

And on my brow not a sweat bead
was clear
until I saw myself again

My eyes they were
a perilous red
and hair as raven as a monsters bed

Near a willow tree I heard a tune
a song to fill my heart with gloom
started low
ended high
summer is here
but winter is nigh.

The bright green leaves picked at by tiny fingers
and your mother taking your boyfriend
red blood
it must have turned from her shirt to your eyes
the night you found them drunk.

Now, it is 30 years later,
those same eyes focused on mine,
Shouting at you in the parking lot of the hospital
to take your badge and burn it
'You aren't my social worker.'

Playing with my life as she did yours.
Me, learning.

How we crawl into the crevices of a mind, crouching in wait
to find a dent
a scratch to pick apart
and send screaming into the light.

We only want the best.
Though, is it for us, or for them?
We never know.

Or do we?

At night, I think of  how we are the same
Twenty-four years apart,
still jumping from man to man like dragonflies,
our colorful wings, torn and glistening.

I found mine, but lose his bright orange youth nightly.
And love is never further away than the next place we look,
but always at just the tip of our tongues,
if we use them right.

I remember at twelve,
practicing break-ups in the bathroom every night.

'I'm sorry, I know you love me, but I have other commitments.'

You were the one with the damage, and it crept over me
a tarp over a clear blue pool on a winter afternoon.
Dead leaves crowding the corners,
tiny bee carcasses: my insecurities piling over the top.

'I'm just not good enough, I must do something about this weight.'

All of your ways boiling over into mine.

The morning I got my first period, you laughed with my sister at my excitement, instead of leaping for joy, and I watched the two of you giggle, my cheeks growing red with anger and shame.

'Aren't I now a woman?'
'Aren't I now yours?'

You always pointed at the corners when I cleaned:
'Do You see that dust? It isn't enough...it's just not enough.'

I've had enough, mother.

The wind blows smoothly into the arms you gave me.
As I write, I am met with a penetrating silence.

This is enough.
It has to be.

I go out, a sorcerer, in the dark, damp, early morning air
flicking my eyes towards the shadow of a passing thought
shedding my skin for the coming day.

That song comes on, and I try not to let it register.

We are, all of us, whirling galaxies
asleep but awake
crashing
crashing
into one another
and then falling apart
again and again

"...nice to hold...when I'm tired..."

A breeze sends a chill down my spine
and I realize
I let myself fall sad
an oak tree struck by lightning

"...when I die...will I go..."

I go out, a sorcerer, in the dark, damp early morning air.

Clinging to an old idea
of a red lip
a torn pair of black jeans
a swing set at a memorial
Where were you in September?

your wide eyed child misses his daddy
and we all miss our friend

I sit here
jealous
of your endless sleep
I am tired too, Adam.

Supposedly you are selfish
That's what is said in a low whisper,
but they don't know
the tearing pain.

Old man Death had already taken you before you tied the noose.

Sleep well.

You are not in pain
and you are not what hung you.

The times I burn for you the most,
we burn in separate beds.
The ocean sends it's waves
crashing to the shore,
fighting with the land.
Darling, I want you.
The stars, they fix themselves
to their black nests.
The trees, rooted.
Not a cloud to send for rain.
The times I burn for you the most,
we burn in separate beds.

More than this
blank wall,
a good morning
a relationship that lasts.

Bored to the teeth
with excuses
with a cure
with a death hum

More than this,
keeping heads eye
keeping the night black
I slept for one dose

A pink pill
a blue
the end of a love
the darkness escaping for a moment
of light,
the only truth I knew
expanding and reviving
the only soul I know.

Mine.

You take an hour
to do it the way
it should be done,
and I listen in
shocked delight
to the moan
of the train,
calling me away.

I can't stand to be without you
but if you were here,
I wouldn't remember why.

It's always night, isn't it?

How hushed voices seem closer
How a light breeze sweeps over your face,
bringing back a thought you never could shake.
How a song takes you back to 17,
a boy and girl,
a light kiss,
the ocean.

It's always night, isn't it?
How you feel the moment when summer turns to fall
How alone feels tangible and cherry sweet, or so so metallic
How a bird wakes you from dreaming,
and he is no longer there.

The years have reached out

You gasp,

and lean

and rock

and tear

and

It's always night isn't it?

How you yearn for the part of you that cannot be stolen from time.

I wrote your name
in it, a cadence,
making my feet tap
and my throat hum.
If I were beside you,
I would lift my head
open my eyes
and see you in bed.
If I were beside you
I would go to sleep
with my toes touching yours
knowing that I'd see you
in the morning,
the sun lighting my face
as I sing the tune of your name
and
You would love me
If I were beside you.

I am depraved.
He doesn't love me.
I talk like an apple tree that only produces pears.
Sorry, but hopeful.

The last time I saw you,
you were a phantom
smeared gray.
I thought I'd change your color,
                 and was ruined the next day.

I live in an age where you can find a man online and delete him from your life before he becomes annoying.
I come from an age where you can dump someone via text message whilst taking a ****.
I am of an era with many pros and even more ex-cons.
I know, I've dated them.

my apartment is empty
except for me and my fat cat
he is good company
but I wish he could talk
I like to wonder what he would say
             got any whiskey?
where's the nearest pool hall?
I haven't seen my woman in
8 years
            and I'm lonely.

Me too, I would say,
lets smoke and drink all night
                            lets conquer
                            these blues.

everything is still
somehow I am alive
I go outside and see the stars
they crack
                  and spill their light
   down down down
        the light reaches lovers
          friends widows...
it reaches me
               I am alone
          I am finally alone.

They will make love tonight
and I will watch
the stucco
form shapes
my dreary art
correcting itself
over and over again.

scattered over the lawn
two cats
seven crows
a freeway
more crows
my mind is scattered
I try to focus on counting
but I lose my place
1...2...3...
the dark corners of your smile
4...5...6...
a cool gleam in your eye

and when I find myself starting over
it's useless
thousands of organisms
on the lawn
but only me here
and one
bright
you
1...2...3

I sit here again
with a beer and a cigarette
communing with a lost soul
my own?
    someone else's?
I read scripture and the
words dance around me
a thousand flights of fancy
on the page
my incense burning
this pure incense burning
this pure understanding
of the cruel nature
of humanity
of friends, heroes, lovers
I write it all down
try to solve it
it stands before me
a picture of my steps
to this point
I have reached the point
of unabashed unregulated
distorted reality
my daily life
the breathing
the eating
the sleeping
it doesn't seem any more real
than this life I live
in my head
or somewhere in my heart
and I long to touch the
part of me that is real
but I am so disconnected

flowers in the winter still grow towards the sun
and such is my soul
leaning leaning
toward the everlasting source
                                                     reality fails me
and lights go dim
and I cause the moon to glow for a light
somewhere in this dark night
                                                  and I can't stop believing in a God that doesn't exist
                      but which pushes further down this tunnel into the hell
of my eternity
and I can't
find simplicity
can't find purity
it's all convoluted
I hate the game
   shifting pulling
begging for release
and somehow I am
an ember in a fire
bent on burning out
forever
and I have a soul
I have a heart
someone acknowledge me in this newspaper grey world
I am flat lining
where will I go after
this life has sloughed off my skin
I know I am endless
and I am bound for a world
where opinion doesn't taint reason
                            and somehow
                            I will be there
                            where the sky meets space
                            I will be there
                                                   somehow.

I grieve you
the way I grieve my last cigarette
knowing I'll have another
and another
and another
but I grieve him
the way I grieve the very last
knowing I'll spend eternity
searching for
just
one
drag

in the psych clinic's waiting room
a microcosm of
organisms react to their environment
eyes check a watch
a security guard yawns
a woman in black taps her feet
a man in a hat grumbles to himself
all searching for an answer to the thing
that seeps, silent, from their eyes at night

when my name is finally called  
I explain symptoms
to a man that doesn't look me in the eye
who asks,
can you laugh at the things that used to make you happy?

I think how those things have changed
and how I could turn to stone
immovable
sitting, unaffected, for a millennia

the last two days
the sunlight interrupted winter in California
bringing with it a brief pause
from a hectic electric winter
and leaving me waiting, impatiently, for spring

I'm going to tell you
how you were so bright
we didn't need the moon.
Throw it out
start over.
With you, me
and a light song
playing low.
Starting over
isn't so hard is it?
I am sitting here
with my coffee
the lamp's light,
playing shadows over my face.
Me,
playing with your cool smile.
We are not far from space
let's go there
put the stars
back in the sky.
The lightning hits
some lake,
and a wind
shakes my heart.
I am alone
with you.

When I dusted off the counter today
I found something that was lost before

Jesus was there by the sink,
sitting down right next to the toaster
he looked at me and asked for a coaster
he and the cherubs were drinking diet soda,
and watching the ants eat my sugar

I asked him three questions
and hear what they are
why are you sitting by the toaster?
why in the hell would you want my coaster?
and
didn't I ask you to leave last summer?

Jesus said he wanted to live in my heart
first the counter
then my heart
what's next Jehova, my first born child?

yes actually he said, before he snorted and growled
I really do want your first born child
would you like a brochure for heaven?
its pretty wild there, and the bread's all unleavened

No thanks
No thanks

in the desert
a spider traps a mouse
a woman cries
I feel her hot tears
on my head
they drip drip drip
I look out over my balcony
wondering, why?
what is the point?
a man lives alone with his goldfish
he hasn't seen a woman naked in years
he reads a novel and laughs to himself
I hear his laughter
It crowds my mind
I feel its hands and elbows poke my sides
I walk into work
I walk out
somewhere downtown,
a teenager is trying marijuana for the first time
I feel the warmth
the guilt
I feel endless

solitude marks the height of my contentment
no agreements to make
I don't have to see faces
nods smiles masked aggression
I don't have to act
I don't have to trade facade for facade
with my peers
do I even have peers?

at night, I feel a stillness
so deep, so harsh, so honest
I don't have to live this lie
explain why I'm fine
why everything is fine
because, it's not
nothing's fine

I am a million clashing universes
filled with endless dying stars
and I reach out
to the other universes
and shrink back
  back
          and at night
I fill the stillness
  the stars collapsing
every synapse bending
toward destruction

no want
               no need
                             no crying out for more

at night there is no other
no one to say my name falsely
and when I sleep
the ocean of my subconscious
carries me to sleeping cures
takes me away for years
to great expanses of colorful
living worlds
where I feel
where my emotions are tangible
solid
and
       they keep me company for
a millennia
         I wake to this doll world
where a friend asks
how are you doing
and she's doing it out of obligation
                                                and there's no color
and I have no emotion
and I feel nothing

Life is the waiting room for the exploration of that dream world

and every night
I taste it
I touch it
I breathe in its vibrance
and the only want
is to never wake
to this grey world
to never have to answer

"fine"

again

I went to the end of the hall, your voice echoing
a cool breeze in a hot, dense mind
                         "we are going through the same thing, aren't we?"
you were up early that morning, and I had been up all night,
counting the wood panels in the cabin walls

we sat looking out over the lake in silence that morning in 2004,
not knowing that it would be our last trip.

                            I was up late that night in 2016
                              thinking of you
                                      in my mind
                                                  no hair on your head was missing

everything comes down to this
the way the night falls around
my cold hands
and fast feet
on the pavement
thump thump thump

and your heart beating
thump thump thump
until it didn't
and how they didn't really try to keep you alive
because you were old
but how they kept me in the hospital for weeks
in and out of coherence
my body heaving for air
my mind just asking
            for a break
and
        when I think of you now
clean air over the lake
           a smile on your face
as you died
I didn't know what you meant then
              but now, Ron
                                       I do.

In context,
"You're a ghost to me now."
doesn't seem so bad.
it only continues my legacy
with imagination.

If I'm a ghost,
you're a priest.
Just don't be surprised
by the haunted belltower.

Now I know,
how I can see the sun.
It is not my eyes
that take in the rays,
it is you
buying us Mike and Ike candies in the morning
on the way to school
you saying,
"Now, don't tell your mom!"
all four of us banging our heads
to classic rock.

Now I know,
how I can feel
It is not my skin
that senses the sand on the beach,
it is you
taking me to my first scuba dive
so proud of your daughter
Me, a fish!
The only one who didn't ***** on the boat.

Now I know,
It is not my heart
that feels the morning
after a dark night.

It is you, Dad, it is you.

Oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all things
they cease to shine,
and looking up at frail moon's fade
she lost her way
she lost her way
ever toward an inner light
ever toward  a mundane night
you cannot ask for want of asking
ever toward the soils crashing

oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all your dreams
will lose their rhyme

and so on past
the child at play
and past the girl
on bridal day
an further past
the humming hag
until she reached the grave at last

oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all things, they cease to shine
and looking up a frail moon's fade
she lost her way
she lost her way

I carved out a smile for you
it was blue
but it's line curved up
toward my eyes
wrinkling my brow
a snake's tongue curled behind my teeth
waiting to dart at a moment's notice
and tell you how you turned
a butterfly
to a worm

I have seen blue
the green blue of waves
an ocean of hope
I have seen blue

I have seen blue
in the eyes of a man
who woke up one morning
hopeful to start
I have seen blue

I have seen blue
the tear drops  from my own blind eye
wading toward an ocean of peace
I have seen blue

I have seen blue
a baby born cold
love only for his family
I have seen blue

I have seen blue
the man who saw
a flashing light
a weary spirit gone homeward
I have seen blue

I have seen Blue

I have seen blue.

So much more excited about life than he was.
So much more finesse free *******.
So many more smiles.
So little love.
I still hope for you
          when it gets cold.

And I will stop,
take in a long breath
now I am full
tomorrow's sky is young
every single thing
from this one moment
where I see
a small flower
grow
from the sidewalk
it is so hardy
and so am I
the years
with their machines of pain
can bowl me over
large waves
sweeping me under
but I will grow
a flower through concrete
yellow
bright
tall and strong like my mother

and I will be satisfied
with the whisper after the rain

would you look at that?

not even a petal missing

The 18th century
is here
30 million antichrists
and only one who
is not embarrassed

I am.

My cigarettes are surrogate lovers.
Each with their own demands.
Lung cancer,
Birth defects,
Emphysema,
It's our imperfections that make us special.

In the summer
a great blue sky
no ants
a warm blanket
but no fleas

the house i live in

40 acres of nothing
to the left or right

no one in my head that is not me

happy
with a man I love

and loving myself completely
as well

not old
not grey

wearing whatever I like

muscular
healthy

and going where I like to go

When I last saw you,
your eyes were golden.
Puzzles I couldn't piece together,
a lake that shot back my own reflection,
not letting me see the deepness of you.

When I last saw you,
your hands were oak trees
hiding roots that dropped to the pit of the earth,
holding your meditations delicately close to you,
careful not to show
your great glimmering ships
carrying blue and low songs,
weeping dirges for a winter Sunday,
a red Grief that wakes you in your sleep,
adding the slight storm I see in your smile.

When I last saw you,
your eyes were golden.

Some things I don't know:
I don't know the curve of your lips
the arch of your brow is strange to me
I don't know where the tip of your head ends,
and the night sky begins
The color of your hair could be dark blonde or light brown
Day is slowly turning to night and there are some things I don't know.
Some things I know:
I know you sing like a folk singer I forgot the name of
with a soft low vibrato
I know you love the Beatles
and you remind me of Norwegian Wood
I know your *** is number five and climbing
Day is slowly turning to night and there are some things I know.

--for daniel