I am from blades,
from Monster and Kodiak.
I am from the twilight skies on my rooftop.
Angled, Dangerous.
echoing low noftes bellow in the valley where I lay in pieces.
I am from the petals of the Oriental Cherries,
the eroded shoreline
that once safe sanctuary turned
to the eye of the hurricane

I'm from locking myself away from the arguements and
decorating my sister's grave with withered roses,
from Danielle and Grant.
I'm from the rip tides of grief and regret that follows my father,
and the lonesome, aged embrace of my brother,
from everything happens for a reason and
just keep fighting and maybe we'll be alright.
I'm from scorched dreams
And they've kept me afloat long enough
for me to locate and touch down in the shallows.

I'm from Irish, obvioulsy more then tipsy grandparents,
maple syrup rolls and Kool-Aid packets.
From the unfortunate instability of my brother's mountain bike
the speckled, flexed "glass" skin that holds my grandmothers spirit.

Tangled amongst the stinging nettles
Searing away all my past regrets
My background shocks my ground
Raising my cracked, frayed spirits to my spot that's atop the rooftop,
Getting lost in the city of constellations
I come from uncertain outcomes and fatally close calls.

Journey through an empty house
Emma
Your Middle name grows on the footsteps of the mice
crawling up the
neck back bone
of the chimney
a dinner table eaten by the termites
Either I or Michael the III
sits on the
window sill counting the rain drops that
tap to the syllables of your name
My typewriter sighs like your mother leaning on a wet window sill
journey through an empty house
in the middle of no where
outside rains on the fields of
tobacco stores
pastel rusted orange lipstick molded Volkswagen parts
a few
rubber tires
Opiate Indian Cadillac Van Nostalgia Highway Bandit
Opus Utopia
Moonlight Sonata Father Movement No. 1
and as my leather wool toes and toenails and heart and lungs and nostrils and Ceramic eye balls painted to match the Season of Tornadoes creak through an empty house
where music is not played
and the wallpaper
is peeling off
like fake eyelashes
on a whore
stuck in driveway
Main performance
TONIGHT!
Rain and the cheap perfume of making love as the carpet doesn't move
doesn't budge like Grandmothers Tomb
Beethoven! Beethoven!
I am dipping your piano instrument notes
into the fire
Beethoven!
Beethoven!
The moon is so quiet she stares at me
and the wooden buttons of my gasoline washed swede stolen jacket
falls off
Look in here
there is nothing but hardwood floors
a few windows
letting in the
monotone gaze of the night
swaying wheat fields
crawling up the eyesight sleeve
In my peripheral

Highway
Highway
Highway
To the Ocean
To an empty house
that bends
when the sky yawns
like a dying old old old man
as he sits in his
crooked rocking chair
that a mexican Boy
welded together
with twigs and
coffee mug pieces
the empty house
its skeleton shows
like a sick dog
as it walks the endless boundless streets of a city where the lights are kept on too keep away the thieves
but the moths
and other
unidentified insects
flutter around the Bulb
like gnats
over a man's sweaty face
its skeleton shows
copper wiring
electrical entrails
the bowels the wood keeping the roof up
the insulation
the concrete and the bricks
like decapitated teeth
An empty house
is not
so empty
There is still the left-over hum
of a family
of nights
of windows open
letting in the
Summer breath
There is still
the hardwood floor that creaks like the chipping paint of an old bench painted white
There Is still
the bathroom sink
molding like the aging face of a wrinkling man
There is still
the windows
letting in a
slight breeze
you can smell the rain
the rusted locomotive limbs of discontinued Trains

There is no such thing as
"Strong women."
There are only women who hide
And women who hide better.
Women who shelter their fears
In the attics of their minds,
And women who carry them
In their back pockets;
Women who hum little songs to themselves
While wolves wait at their feet,
And women who dance with the beasts.
Women who cry quietly
In bed next to your
Snoring mass,
And women who turn their heartbreak
Into art and music and poems
That rip at the hearts
Of those who hurt her.

The woman you knew---
The woman you loved
Once upon a time---
Hides better.
Her screaming nightmares
About the man that ruined her---
His hands revisiting her innocence;
Night after night,
Waking to underwear
Stained from the dirt on his hands---
Are transformed into drive.
Drive to create, to love,
To touch, to live.
This woman you knew
Hides better.

But strength ebbs,
Like the tide,
The sadness sweeps into the mind
With the rising moon.
But the strong woman,
She doesn't break;
Not until she is tucked away
Into her empty hope chest
Next to the dusty photos
Of lost friends and lovers
And the strings of pearls
Formed from silver tears
Of mothers and grandmothers.
Only then is she weak.
Only then does she allow
The darkness to enclose her,
Like a blanket of familiar discomfort.

What one must realize is that
Passion is not a constant.
Every woman you have ever admired,
Every woman you looked up to,
Every woman you worked beside,
Every woman you passed by,
Falls apart in private.
The body must have a rest from strength,
Let vulnerability prevail.

The moon hangs low tonight,
Heavy with melancholy romance
And hazy lusting.
My blood lists to and fro,
Dancing a tidal waltz with
That distant face.
I think of all the times
I've made love
While this same moon
Peeked in through the window,
Illuminating bright eyes
And milky skin;
How many times
I've wept in the witching hour
With the ghosts of grandmothers
While this moon watches,
Waiting for me to come out to play.
I grow sick of the moon.
It's evident moodiness,
Bright and full one night,
Dissolved to black the next.
Consistency is key here.
I desire no more.

Seeing Differently


Take a plain window have an artist with sensitivity add rain and with the vision disfigured you
See though it is only raw rain it takes on the appearance of looking through frozen icicles
Everything your vision catches is broken as just solid forms of many colors electrifying
Stimulating a quiet delight changes everything the ordinary like snow takes the everyday and
Makes it a true winter wonderland the sidewalk tree foliage and shop roofs are perfect because
They are different tones and blends of color with someone in the foreground in bright pink this
Is all for one time instead of clear vision this difficulty creates pleasure for the eye I started
In my schooling at three years old my class room was at my great grandmothers when I got
There my crippled grandmother was in her wheelchair right next to her ninety year old blind
Mother they both set in their wheelchairs great grandmother ask me to come and stand in
Front Of her while with old feeble hands she felt my face knowledge passed through her fingers
To her and love passed through me as I stood as nothing in this revered setting whatever small
Doubts I might have had about life and my place in it this one thing I knew I was somebody I felt
Loved Excepted I felt human worth because it resonated from their presence there is an ancient
One that we stand before in this case the blindness rest on and with us he sees perfectly where
We truly are in much darkness it deals with trueness at the deepest level we all know that a lot
Of our speech is real but there is the time we are tenderly raw and open without trying to guard
Ourselves we speak from deep within what special times those are He touches unlike
Grandmother but He by His spirit touches the whole fiber of our being body soul and spirit but
How much we miss because our lives have not only blindness but darkness of our actions that
Respells His presence because he is holy in fact we have the rebel nature that defies one so
Loving we are his gifted dreams that he gives to others to name just a few gifts Steve Jobs for
Technology marvelous toys and more Walt Disney movies and the most fun place to go as
As a family a family Jim Henson’s widow co-creator of the Muppets just died what an empty
World it would be for children but He provides these treasures that cover the globe we don’t
Move in those circles but we enrich our world and bless our friends with our lives with the
Limitations we draw between ourselves in him He makes sure we still can give a lot but could
You see what more and how fantastic life could really be if we took the restraints out of the
Way and let him freely move in our lives I don’t know of one person who would not appreciate
A Deeper life my schooling continues when I meet someone they don’t understand the
Intensity and depth that I place on them this will bring you at times great pain because life has
That to go Along with such joy truly “no one is an island unto himself” being a true friend on
Deep levels is Costly but it is our best way of showing His wonderful greatness to others it is
Truly taking a Slice of heaven and inserting it in this natural walk it can be endured or blessed
With lips of clay Heaven will bow as the willow and touch common ground and make it golden
The nightingale will sing and cause the sweetest affection that will be spellbinding and other
Worldly it just Takes seeing differently and the walking that path to greater perfection

Take a plain window have an artist with sensitivity add rain and with the vision disfigured you
See though it is only raw rain it takes on the appearance of looking through frozen icicles
Everything your vision catches is broken as just solid forms of many colors electrifying
Stimulating a quiet delight changes everything the ordinary like snow takes the everyday and
Makes it a true winter wonderland the sidewalk tree foliage and shop roofs are perfect because
They are different tones and blends of color with someone in the foreground in bright pink this
Is all for one time instead of clear vision this difficulty creates pleasure for the eye I started
In my schooling at three years old my class room was at my great grandmothers when I got
There my crippled grandmother was in her wheelchair right next to her ninety year old blind
Mother they both set in their wheelchairs great grandmother ask me to come and stand in
Front Of her while with old feeble hands she felt my face knowledge passed through her fingers
To her and love passed through me as I stood as nothing in this revered setting whatever small
Doubts I might have had about life and my place in it this one thing I knew I was somebody I felt
Loved Excepted I felt human worth because it resonated from their presence there is an ancient
One that we stand before in this case the blindness rest on and with us he sees perfectly where
We truly are in much darkness it deals with trueness at the deepest level we all know that a lot
Of our speech is real but there is the time we are tenderly raw and open without trying to guard
Ourselves we speak from deep within what special times those are He touches unlike
Grandmother but He by His spirit touches the whole fiber of our being body soul and spirit but
How much we miss because our lives have not only blindness but darkness of our actions that
Respells His presence because he is holy in fact we have the rebel nature that defies one so
Loving we are his gifted dreams that he gives to others to name just a few gifts Steve Jobs for
Technology marvelous toys and more Walt Disney movies and the most fun place to go as
As a family a family Jim Henson’s widow co-creator of the Muppets just died what an empty
World it would be for children but He provides these treasures that cover the globe we don’t
Move in those circles but we enrich our world and bless our friends with our lives with the
Limitations we draw between ourselves in him He makes sure we still can give a lot but could
You see what more and how fantastic life could really be if we took the restraints out of the
Way and let him freely move in our lives I don’t know of one person who would not appreciate
A Deeper life my schooling continues when I meet someone they don’t understand the
Intensity and depth that I place on them this will bring you at times great pain because life has
That to go Along with such joy truly “no one is an island unto himself” being a true friend on
Deep levels is Costly but it is our best way of showing His wonderful greatness to others it is
Truly taking a Slice of heaven and inserting it in this natural walk it can be endured or blessed
With lips of clay Heaven will bow as the willow and touch common ground and make it golden
The nightingale will sing and cause the sweetest affection that will be spellbinding and other
Worldly it just Takes seeing differently and the walking that path to greater perfection

As the sky cries gentle tears that drown the echo of
the present. With the constant poise of a mother's hum.
Not the pure and the untouched sight. Not the taste of
a thirst quenched. Not the whisper sound of a melody,
or the embrace of a long forgotten friend. It is
something else of that nature that calls me back, that pulls
my uprooted body miles away in place and time.
The smell only, the tingle from your throat to your nose.
The scent before rain. A smell of still as if we all
take a deep breath before we all can submerge our heads.
The smell after, as if we all exhaled together.
That fresh, clean token that draws the worms from their tunnels.
They bask on the pavement in a warm summer evening
allowing that smell to enter their small earth bodies.
A smell of cobblestones, sea cliffs, and the crashing surf.
That smell takes me home. To the home I have never known.
Although I have never graced her lush coast, it never
ceases to remind me of my grandmothers wool coat.
The smell of my family, of funerals and weddings.
Always there behind the laughter, the drops of whiskey,
and pain of the storm. Followed by at least one rainbow.
Of music, of dancing in a dust Irish pub.
The sight of green pastures behind my eyelids stretching
all the way to the horizon. That is what I smell.