Puttering, Muttering

7:00 am-ish,
House creaking,
Motors rumbling,
In the kitchen,
Woman puttering.

In bed,
Undercovering,
Blanket clutching,
Zodiacs singing,
"Stay a little bit longer,
You're daddy won't mind,"
Me, agreeing.

Body on/off dozing,
Visions glimpses, recalling,
Mind softly muttering,

Who was that earlier,
Waking, walking in the dark,
In the corridors of art,
Fingers caressing the walls sensually?

T'was, you fool, night walking!

Eager for the Ephemeral,
The ectasy chance of embracing disaster,
Then, recording same in word wit,
In a desperate attempt,
Inspiration, to give and get!

Should our paths embrace,
In hallways, real or otherwise,
Play with me, take my hand,
Join me in my muttering,
Upon me do your puttering,
Together, we will conjure
From the mundane, from the beauty,
From knowing the unknown,
Something artistic.

But first, coffee.

In my pool of peace,
it came to me in my straw hut defense--
the shift of my ground,
the earthquake under the shack of my stability.
Behind my hair,
behind my glasses,
I scanned the room
for fellow victims of such
a natural disaster--
surely it must have faulted
somewhere else, someone else
on my tectonic plate.
But all I saw were empty souls,
touch-screen fingers & meaningless memorizations.

Please, someone else.
Someone's got to feel it, too.
Someone's got to feel the echo off
of the emptiness of life,
off the walls of the earth,
& the pointlessness of little saccharine smiles
of the pointless little social games.


Someone

has

to feel

this darkness.

I will start with a hello.

A handshake, an introduction, a beginning.
Then it will grow,
from an exchange of names
to playing mind games and discussing our fames.

You've always been the talker,
the initiator, the instigator.
And I; the listener, the adviser and friend
to give you a silent prod in the right direction
when the sidewalk comes to an end.

I take no form; no shape, no size.
I'm not the truth, nor the lies.
I am not a human, or a living creature.
I have no body parts, or any features.

But I can think, sure I can.
And I can act as any other man.
The reason why I still exist
is not meant to be a mystery
buried deep inside your inner abyss.

In fact, it lingers right in front of you
and dances before your eyes.
It isn't meant to be shocking news;
or an unforeseen surprise.

Even if you can't see me,
I'm always here as company;
the guest that never leaves.

And even if I wanted
to pick up my shoes,
get up and move,
my nonexistent feet
would stop me in my tracks
and I'd be heading back to your street
fast, fast, fast.

I'd be back before the count of two;
and if you wonder why,
let me ask this question of you:
why is it that we've never parted,
or even said goodbye?

Here is my answer to you:
We are bonded together by super glue,
joined by the brain, the heart and soul, too.
If that sounds confusing, I'll give you another clue;
you live in me, just like I live in you.

I am poetry;
metaphors and similes,
dotted i's and crossed t's.
So fill my cup with the wine of your words,
swallow me whole and be free as the birds
flying through the endless sky
as clouds and airplanes pass you by.

Stanzas and rhymes will flow down your throat
like that of a current, which carries a boat
and takes it to its destination;
the end goal, the aspiration.

They'll travel down with ballads marked in cursive,
with scribbled sonnets and haikus and verses.
Then when they finally reach the heart,
you'll know that it's no longer just words but art.
Because your poems are colours that brighten the walls
by splashing blank canvases and bathroom stalls.

I am poetry;
the pencil and the paper.
But you are the hand, the thinker, the maker.
So paint the world a picture
through your beautiful literature
because your words are your wand
so show us the magic and create the bond
between the fixed and the broken,
the sleeping and the woken,
the written and the spoken.

Pick me up and let me scrawl
down your words and then install
them into the minds of everyone
and they'll be stunned by the
brightness of your sun.

You'll shine with radiance and glory
so keep on telling your story
because your words are your life,
your victories and your strife.

You are the creator, the teacher, the reverend;
but this time, I will subside
because you are the guide,
and your words are your legend.

Spaces  all the same,dimensions but different
Ideas the very same rushing in to fill voids old
From heads stuffed of past Imitations dead
Straight walls ever rising up,closing space
Square,stiff,solid,regurgitating spirits staid
The same colors but in different places, limited
sick,drained of mind,with an empty soul I wept
Dear innovation creative where are you my angel?
Staring at space blank unchained to past I pondered
The angels  came unannounced unknowing softly,
rushing to a heart,empty of mind,surrendered to an intent pure,
Dancing,guiding unfettered,intuitively fantastic,instinctively right
The walls falling away,squares smoothing to curves sexy
walls falling away,opening to vistas of unknown hues wondrous
That very dead space now alive,conducting,guiding a design philharmonic
"I" was but a medium,absorbing,directing flashes from unknown
Driven in a flash flood of euphoria unknowing, to an ocean creative
Knowing not who unchained me,setting me free for that fine Destiny,
Of Innovation. May be love or despair,whatever, Divinity came.

It's been a long day,all I want to do is to run into your arms and hug you. I need to hold you and let go of the day's weight on my brittle shoulders. I am hoping you missed me and can't wait to be with me too. As soon as I walk into the door your questions start. They cut through my walls and leave me trembling on unsteady legs, my hands protecting my plummeting heart.Who was he? why did he drive me home?
I try to explain but you hear what you want to. You push me further and further away with your hurtful words. I tremble and cower, your harsh blows break the yoke of the world on me. I whimper and beg, It feels so cold out here where you left me when you walked away. I hold the pieces together with my bundle of nerves, frayed at the edges. I am lost.

Rob had an oak tree face, eyes a meld
of gray and sky-before-a-rain-storm
sort of blue, burlap sack jowls
shook when he hacked up his lungs
and sagged
like Betty's droopy mouth--the 16 year-old hound
who never left my neighbor's front porch

"Bernie, Bernie, my, my Bernie," Ack Ack Ahem
"Phew 'scuse me!"
"That's alright," I said
"Bernie, when I first came here I tell ya people
ask me the color of the walls, I'd tell 'em cancer, the
floors tiled with cancer, ceiling lamps glowing
fluorescent cancer, the mural you see when you first
come in--in it I saw the dad, the mom with cancer, the
little boy in his sailor suit had cancer, there was cancer
down his fishing line, in the water, and inside the fish
he'd catch and eat, the young girl had cancer and she
blew cancerous tunes out her cancer flute, the cafe
food tasted like cancer, the spinach, the mashed
potatoes, the steak, those tiny  apple juice cups they
give you...but it all comes back, you'll see..."

Carl was wheeled in, asleep, with wires and tubes
up and down his arms
"Why Carl looks like a 73 year-old bionic man!
He's gonna interfere with the radio frequency,
we won't be able to hear the ball game anymore!"

I laughed
Carl swatted at Rob, still half asleep

"Now what was I sayin'?"
"How's your dinner tonight, Rob?" I asked
"Oh! Five-star Bernie, Linda dropped off a whole
pot roast, sweet potato fries, and peas under cooked
just the way I like 'em."
"That was very nice of her."

I took a bite of mine--

cancer, with a hint of romesco

the spiders came,
and the blue and gold walls painted over.

I lost some weight,
I was asked about it at your wake,
but I felt like
I was
sleeping.

Cold he was,
and quickly he left
So I turned to cold cans of soup in the pantry.

Cold cans of soup
and
patting my dog

That was about it.

And sometimes the central heating would disturb the silence
and sometimes it would make me feel sick to my stomach

But I know one thing,
and that's
that
Happiness in suburban houses never lasts.

Sunshine, summer, parents, first loves

They are fantasies thought up in the grass.


I love you, he murmured
Why did she die? I pleaded.
The air was warm
like summer
but we lay in the dark.

Even now, as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write songs in my head for you. And though my voice will never sing them, they are the soundtrack of your kiss. Each record scratch on my heart like a pressed vinyl love letter. Shaping my sinking chest into drum skins that my pulse beats against.

If I were covered in magic dust, you would be my happy thought. And all my childish notions of what it means to be romantic would be written down the sides of Chianti bottles in melted wax, like an oak. And in that bottle we would keep our hungry mouths.

And still I find my heart adrift. Ripped sails and ropes leading skyward like veins. Split and tattered and stitched haphazardly together, waiting for the lightning to strike twice and bring it to life. My throat a bricked flue, leading to an open mouth, spitting smoke from the torches my heart fears but always seems to carry.

And I stretch my spine skyward. Trying to wedge my head back into the clouds but manage only to cast the shadow of an orchid that has begun to lose its color and wilt at the edges of its wingspan. Coming to terms with the idea that it may never be picked. Not even its petals, even numbered like a deck stacked against it that it might lose in a game of being loved and loved not.

We want for a little more time. Arm wrestling clock hands into submission with god like fury. Ticking tongues to dampen the prophecy of false mediums. We practice fighting so we may fight for each other. Fight for the greener grass on the other side of the pavement walls we draw our chalk hearts on.

The clock tower is a lighthouse. The lighthouse is a windmill. The windmill is a giant. The stories never end.

Even now as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write bed time stories in my head for you.

Now or never
whether we want to or not
they've got us by the balls
and though we built walls
to defend against these invaders of free will
we will need to be stronger
build our walls bigger and better than ever before
and let them kick out the windows and doors
we'll just brick them up and no one gets in
and no one gets out
and no one but no one knows what this is all about.
but the walls stay because they want us to rot
they've got us by the balls and all we can do is build more and more walls
and who wins in the end?
when we're all sent to Coventry with bags of cement so we can lend some authority to the people up there
and they don't give a damn
they jam us into categories with the same krappy old stories
that it's good for our health while they're spending the wealth that they stole from the miners and while they're dining on beef
we're starving
good grief
and they've got us by the balls
in glass coloured test tubes lubricated,dedicated to the rise of the monarchs
and it can't be for real
we'd never allow that
but laying flat on our back and winking eyes at the sun
is where this begun.
In the minds of the merchants and in the pockets of wise men
in the back alleys of bigots and bigshots
and what have we got?
you know it,
A box full of sawdust and a whole heap of shit
so the walls get a little longer
a little stronger
but they'll break us one day
and take us away to a recycle plant
and they'll plant us as seeds to service their needs
and their needs will get greater the later they leave it
there's a whole load of shit
a coming our way.