I have no identity
who am I
but this that was forced on me,
and you
the greatest of lights would have me nearer to thee
locked as I am in this chemistry
of misery

I shall gather my strength
would that lengthen my days
or would it shorten the way to the end?
Friend?
you are no friend to me
you who would harmonise upon my demise
stifling the cries of the old and the frail
find your own holy grail
you won't find it in me
I have no identity.

Whiskey to me,
is like holy water to the devil himself,
I know that now.
A hole in the cellar door,
and a shattered shot glass left on the ground.
My head is pounding,
and my thoughts are flying in all different directions.
I feel like I'm going to puke if I don't hear some real good country,
And turn all the god forsaken lights off.
Whiskey is holy water to the devil in me.
Especially when I'm hurting.
I've learned.

The morning is serene
sober shafts of light
filter through the trees
which were planted
lining the streets
to make the city seem
just a little less man made
and it isn't too hot
and there isn't too much wind
only a light breeze
and a gentle wash of
sunlight

Mornings are holy times
times of reflection
times of rekindling
the spark
of the spirit of humanity
and I'm not a morning person
so I'm graced with these moments
much too rarely
but they are my best moments
and my favorite moments
easy summer mornings
when the birds chirp their loudest
and the sky is the cool blue
of the pacific ocean
morning for the usually dreary
hydrates the brain
better than any cool
perspiring
glass of brita filter water
the morning is the birth
of a new day

to hear it sing is to hear it sting where the sun shines
how it's never so real        till it bleeds
through the sundial
like a red fog under
adorable prisons.
it Is what It isn't...  it has needs, you hear it wing through fallow stars on the edge
where there's never been Spring.
to hear it means
to be undone beside the tide pool... in the twinkling of two minds
how it's never so real       till it dreams
mute and  undefiled
like a red god under
house arrest for no reason.
it Is what It isn't... it must be lonely. you're very near it, and it's apples and sacrilege
where there's ever been Holy
such sins have beauty.

it must be lonely...

( my )                                                                 darling

and some thing after

[ It ]

surely

sit down, pen and paper scrape together,
come up with something clever.
                                    
                                                         blank mind

stare at the paper-don't doodle! holding the head in the hand
is not writing, supposed to be writing.
all these skillfully woven thoughts that should be
bursting forth, but aren't.

stop spell checking, do it later. maybe that's the answer:

                                     automatic writing

OK go into trance let the pen and hand dance.
don't think, let the ink flow from the inside to the surface,
you're thinking on purpose...stop it! OK this is obviously not working,
it's just jerking off and it doesn't even feel good, although it should.

Come up with a subject, not abstract thought...wait...thought has no
place here. where is the Muse? I'll blow a fuse if I don't get to use a
clever phrase I turned today. what about childhood walks in the woods,
first love, real love, not in-puppy-love with Jody Foster!

during the day all the stuff that's enough to fill a book gets wasted
and lambasted. I'm mad as hell and here I sit
broken hearted did my time and only started three hours ago.
could have taken a tour by now and, holy cow!, the Tao probably took
less time to write than this night of the living dead man
with two pinky and the brains.

where the hell am I going with this clap trap? this is out of hand, out
of mind-otherworldly. is this all that i am:

                                    meaningless gobbeldy-gook

I'm getting spooked. it's time to stop and drop the needle on a different track,
stop the attack sit back relax choose to lose my senses, dulled and lulled into
false pretenses, mend some fences with myself, or else.

Or else, what? Not contemplate, deliberate, speculate, ruminate, investigate,
radiate...KNOCK IT OFF! Just put the pen down, get up, walk out of the room.

                                                             good.

We have a cat named Ben who doesn’t wear a collar
so he stays indoors.
I know a saint named Ben whose picture's on a medal
that I wear outdoors.

I wear it for the safety, a bigger one we hang above the door
for superstitious reasons like a black cat crossing our path
that isn't ours, Ben is ours but Ben is brown not black and
Ben won't wear a collar so he stays indoors.

     St Benedict of Nursia the patron saint of lots of things,
     of remedies for poisoning, of evil witchcraft,  suffering,
     a patron saint of lots of things, of aggies, engineers,
     spelunkers and those with fever near the gates of death.

     He is the patron saint of gall stones but not kidney stones
     if so his medal would have saved me from significant pain,
     but still I wear his medal when I go out to keep myself
     protected from whatever it is he protects us against.

     before he became a good luck charm, before he was a medal
     he lived in a cave in Italy in the year 400 a.d. where for
     three years the townsfolk brought him food to eat and finally
     talked him into coming out. No, not that kind of coming out
     he wasn’t gay, he was a priestly hermit who was celibate.

     They put him in charge of a monastery when no one else
     wanted the job, but when he made the rules that still stick today
     they didn’t want to listen so they tried to poison him twice
     both unsuccessful. This is where he gets the nod for sainthood.

     Divine intervention saved the day, a raven stole the
     poisoned bread and a spasm smashed the poisoned cup.
     if they wanted him to go away they could have asked him  
     but I guess they needed a saint, someone to martyr, so
     he went back to his cave and was promptly forgotten

     until the Connecticut witch trials of 1647 when a captured
     witch confessed that her powers were contained by a
     conspicuous medal that she’d never seen before mounted
     over doorways, and she heard the whispers of the townsfolk say
     the medal was the medal of a saint they called St. Benedict.

I can personally attest that the medal is quite unique with
Latin inscriptions on both the front and the back. On one side
of the medal he stands and holds the holy rules, at his feet
a raven and a broken cup. An inscription on the medal reads:

            “May we at our death be fortified by his presence”

Flip it over and you’ll see:

               C
          C  S   S
       N D S M D
          P  M   B
               L

“May the holy cross be my light”
          “Let not the dragon be my overlord”
                      “This is the cross of Father Benedict”
                             “yadda   yadda   yadda”

Along the outer edge it looks like this, strangely similar
to a Ouija board.

                             PAX
                    B                    V
                V                            R
               I                                 S
                L                             N
                 Q                          S  
                     M                 V  


PAX  for Peace

The rest is this:
“Begone Satan yadda yadda yadda
          for evil is what you prefer yadda yadda
              so drink your own poison yadda”

350 some years since its inception and the medals popularity
still flourishes.  I reach down and finger the medal beneath
my t-shirt and I realize what the strangeness feels like.

It feels like witchcraft.

I guess I’ll wait and see if anything happens
before I pass judgment.

I hang it near our bed at night and while
we sleep

our brown cat Ben likes to bat it around.

the soldier knelt to fix his cap,
dug deep into trenches, he stopped.
amidst the shots, he reached for the map
if not in his pocket, it’s lost.
“it seems like we’ve been here for years”
the man beside him squawked.
“an hour seems like many days,
because we’ve gotten so lost.”
unsure of quite how to respond,
the soldier raised his brow
but as he was about to speak,
the man who’d spoken went down.

the soldier raised his head to see the great alsace-lorraine.
the war had raged for far too long, and so he contrived an escape.
he planned to sneak across the flank,
advance the trench on his own
but as he stood to make his break, his heart
sank quite gut-wrenchingly low.
he thought to himself in a humble tone,
“i can’t do this alone.”
although his intentions were clearly courageous,
his weakness truly had shown.

as lady luck would have her way,
the days kept withering by
as the soldier so fervent to capture this land
tried not to keep track of the time.
they advanced to the east, but to their dismay
the french would push them right back
and until a day they’d find a way,
the men had no way to attack.
a fateful storm rolled in one day,
a blanket of snow o’er the field
and the mood of both great war machines,
had slowly came to a yield.
the soldier, so tired of the weight of the war
climbed out, with a fire in his eye.
he raised his rifle high in the air
and cried “Deutschland über alles”

the soldier then fell onto his knees,
and raised his hands to the the sky
not seconds passed before the scream
as snow and french bullets did fly.
the soldier was struck right through his lung
and grasped his chest to breathe
but all could see his head was hung
as the soldier collapsed from his knees.
there was no escape, he said to himself
as the snow slowly blurred into light
and he passed away on the holy ground
and they never did win that fight.