What am I to do with the time I am giving
The clock is the hand that chooses my path
My past behind to the future I'm driven
But my feet have been stayed by society's wrath

Four years have I sat in the seat you sit there
Watching the arm go 'round without a care
With the sun on the horizon, and me unprepared
The hope of success seems hopelessly rare

The ink has dried, the script is writ
No matter how hard, no matter the grit

What will the wills of another force me to do
Predestined to be forgotten I'm filled with sorrow
Opportunity lost and for the once the blame is not on you
Alas the sun is down, I must await the morrow

Whatever toil I must endure, whatever weight I must bare
Whatever demon I must conqour whatever dark I must stare
I will do what I will do to recieve my fair share
The prospect of failure seems hopfully rare

The ink has dried the script is writ
And I know not where my part will fit
I will not be denied
No matter how hard, no matter the grit

A man of fair stature was born on the wind
Brought from the harbour on the vessials of whim
Was not his choice that he must depart
But with a slash of a sword he had his start

Sleepless illusions plague my mind
I probe and peak to see what I can find
Colored apparitions dance while a jester claps keeping time
As a black fingered hand coils around my neck from behind

Sleep my sleepless one sink to slumbering serenity
Rest without dreaming is divinity

I awoke at noon
The children where still a bed
No sound of the rooster croon
My wife long dead
I worked the fields all afternoon
T'get the children fed
Winter has come far too soon
How long before we are dead

From riches and gold
We extract a feeling held old
A preference for the fire
Rather then the cold

For poverty is the icy wind
And wealth the warmth of kin

Watered streets and muddy skies
The last rose bud dares to defy
Sharpened thorns and distant eyes
Another feeling to disguise

Snowy hills and freezing cold
The thorny rose could not keep hold
It will wilt and grow old
Desperation: a festering mold

Deserted streets and blackend sky's
Agony and pain regestared in distant crys
****** thorns and pale eyes
The rose bud to dust, then dies

Burning hills and sweltering heat
The people **** one another in the streets
The apocalypse and the world shake hands and meet
This ***** planet of ours: Satan's seat

Wasted soil and barren land
Hungry mouth and empty hands
Wicked people with sinister demands
Then green. Then wealth. Then sand.

When a man loses a great deal
Or has achieved nothing
He may drink his heart healed
At least he has something

I may not do so
For fear of the festering static
Where did all the peace go
That once resided in my attic !

It's a joke
That I can not have a drink
Sometimes the connection-
Between mind and man is strong
And we must server that link
Wether with *** drugs or song.

Where has all the laughter gone
Prior to these two years we laughed so much
At jokes and quips and such
And now not a chuckle in so long
It seems so very wrong
Where has all the laughter gone

If you'd grace me with a smile upon your face
You would lift my heart to it's happiest place

But now your scowl is a shield
And all the humor is forced to yield
At the somberness reality wields

So I ask you again with affection
With verse, poem and song
Where has all the laughter gone

It was in pastures of green when first I saw her
She was the daisy at the dawn of spring
In my heart a fire stired
In my soul a symphony rings

It was in piny groves when first I loved her
She was the majestic pinus resinosa
My senses flashed then blured
Tis sweeter than mimosa

We mingled and danced in autumnal fields
We were with ancient amber grass
From our courtship love we yield
Like the soil we will forever last

My eyes
Have gone
Lacking
Sight

Blue sky-
At night
Is out of
Sight

Praying
For a poem
To give
Insight

But the words
Upon the
Page need
Light

Here is a poem
About an occurrence that happened once in a blue moon
Grab your jeroboam
We'll drink for awhile stop. and then play a tune
Why you ask why not I say why not play a tune, say
Hey
Where've you been past days
I have some wine
Why not spend some time
Do you still drink your white with lime
Such a strange thing to do
Let me pour the glasses
One and two
There
Wait the cigars mise well smoke.'em
At such a celebration such
Yes yes here and missouri we love too much
Sit sit I'll grab them
I think I left them in the tackle box
Or maybe in the top drawer with my socks
I should hope not
You should hope not
Very unpleasant
And they the only ones I got
Such a waste
Ah here I've found them
I left them on the counter top
I wish my mind would stop
Here I've been ramblin on
When you've been gone
All this time
So long
Here take it it's local ya know
Wait stop there again I go
Talk talk
Let me here your story
Of past foreign glories
Of the landscape of sand
In a wartorn land
Just you alone
With rifle in hand
Only,
Well, only if you can
I...I ..wouldn't want to impose
Quite rude of me
Don't you suppose
I'm so sorry
Sit relax
Take that camel off your back
Here I'll hang it on a rack
And you help your self to bed
Hit the sack
Yes yes
We'll talk more tomorrow
Yes in the morning I think
Then we'll drink
Then we'll smoke
Then you can tell me
Over tea
Or wine
Or whisky
What it was like
In a country so risky
So backwards
So blue
So broken
So forgotten

Take a rest sleep for some time
In the morning it'll be "rise and shine on the biscuit line"

I've known a man after but a glance
I've cured my loneliness with just one word
And if the universe and all it's whims would chance
I would abandon this world

"That would be a lonely existence"
Yes quite peaceful
"What is you resistance"
I've had a stomach full

Of talk
Of small talk
Of all this trivial talk

All these intrusive people just annoy me
They stomp about with opinion in mind
And spout it upon anyone they see
Oh the deplorable people I seem to find

I see them staring, their tongue burning all the while
They want to enter with me in conversation
They breath into the air, and their breath defiles
Oh please think of conservation

I don't mean to be rude
But what you have to say bores me
Calm down, take a lude
And let it be

The widow in the window wondered
If there ever was a feeling of joy
Before her and her husband sunderd
A thought that will destroy

The widow in the window weeped
At the loss of love
Now neither shall keep
The linen white dove

The widow in the window worried
Of dark thoughts on her mind
A hope for the distress to be hurried
A chance of joy to find

The widow in the window sunderd
The husband long dead
The widow in the window wondered
With doom upon her head

Forever shall I be true
And do only what you would do
A mirror shall I be
Reflecting only thee
Your wants will wake me wherever I sleep
Over mountain, over sky shall I leap
To stand by your side waiting for command
Adhering to your every demand
I shall cast down my petty ways
And meekly crawl through clouded days
Just to please you my dear
Just to cope with my fear
Just until death draws near

A golden Apple
A promised land
A ****** thorn
A knife in hand
A man of God
Can barely stand

A lonely Shepard
A Wealthy devil
In money each
Both will revel

Have you seen the Missouri
-the way the water runs
-how the surface reflects a thousand Sun's
-a sight that truly stuns
Have you seen the water roar with fury
-have you mingled in the mist
-have tasted mornings first kiss
-oh The things my heart list
About the mightiest Missouri

Black was night
And black the heart I held in my hands-
Silence washed over the land as the last echoes
From a stifled scream faded into the trees-
A raven pecked and pierced the petrified remains
Heat dissipated in slow spiraling wisp of steam from the heart
The flesh is rugged and rotten but the heart healthy
In all but hue-
What has been done
What have I done
An ebony figured behind shifted
I whisper "who's there"
It says "I've know you from before you were born"
"Could it be"
I looked into its eyes and couldn't see to see
Black was the heart
And black the soul
Black was the night
That the devil stole

I've this guitar,
That I really never learned to play
I've all these words
But just don't know what to say

So if I sung you a song
Or played you a tune
It wouldn't be long
'tell you called me a buffoon

So I read another mans verse
Because mines not as expressive
Yes I read another mans song
Because mines not as impressive

Fall from the sky in endless torrents
Shatter the shelter that stood dormant
Clouds gather above, as does the water below
Channeling rivers with palpitating flows
When the rain has stopped and clouds dispersed
I will be the one who hopes for rain first

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leafs-
Upon the trees,
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine-
Cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled it hides in the cornerd places.
Men enclouded in smoke talk of day of old-
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image-
Of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays
And April effortlessly falls into May

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
Slowly trudging through the paces
Slowly they tighten their laces

And set out for another monotony dipped day

Planting their ears to the ground listening
And many things they'll hear and say
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening
And their lovers will whisper are you listening
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here"

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
And they'll make  many a plans and in cases
And step over cracks in fear of dark places


The clink of a glass Carey's on down the hall
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call"
And they'll retort "for what reason"
And he "none at all"
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall
And summer slips effortlessly into fall

What reasons can they make when the night is through
When it's time to wake what will they do

As the days retreat with their hairline
And each mirror more destortive than the last
They'll retreat further, further into their mind
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast
A desperate thought floating in the breeze
A candle to thaw the freeze


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb
Trying arduously to abandon actuality
But failing and jumping the curb

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid"
"They've gone to the races"
Each two lovers in two different places

Rest assured rest assured they'll return
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom
Rest assured rest assured they'll return
At this moment they are carpe diem

Rest assured rest assured
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture
Plenty of time
To spend with her
Plenty of time To waste
Plenty of love to give
Now's to go slow not make haste
Now's to go slow and live


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss
And where their feet stood
And what they missed
And when the leafs
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be


So before you grow old
And wilt away
And the December cold
Melts the summers day
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy

Sweet Sara sweet Sara will silken sauve
Comes and lounges in my sundry garden.
Her hair a chestnut tree her eyes set in mauve,
Many a story we utter together of battles and royal pardons.
And grow old with the fleeting summers day,
And sink satisfied to slumber certain for tomorrow,
There will be another afternoon with more to say,
And the world set fixed in its ways will never move to sorrow.
Sweet Sara sweet Sara speaks wonderful words,
And spends her time with me, another lives mystery,
Hath once again struck in me a chord,
And hath set aflame my misery.

My garden shall grow old and wilt away,
But her beauty, aged and refined shall stay.

There is a forgotten area
Where I call home
An unincorporated community
Founded to find flint stone
And like the Flintstones
We live in the past
Flashing to the water
Our lines we cast
Far back when church was the fad
And people toghther spoke
A community of lads
And decent folk

Oh the good times we had
Back in the day
The faster the water way
Is said 'round here
The less the water will be clear
Isn't that dear
An old country chestnut
One mirroring the community
All the surrounding suburbs
Love in unity

We love to be flown over
We don't mind at all
Less the people
Less the shopping malls

We love our oak lined streets
Back woods and hidden retreats
Maple, cedar, and walnut too
Oh so many a country tree for me and you

We insist to be forgotten it's true
The heartland alone with the morning dew
The people in the afternoon alone with nothing to do

A man is as only as good as his own two hands
A maple only as tall as the oak will allow
The crop the same as the planted land
A thirst still quenched by a creek bed shallow
A sole as sturdy as the cobblers touch
These facts are universal truths
The rope will give if the loads to much
A throne without man is just a booth

My head is swollen, my mind it wanders
My tongue is twisted stumbling it stutters
My thoughts are lost in the colliding clutter
My meaning is lost under soft mutters

My smile shields my solemness
My eyes reveal my weariness
My stubborn manner refuses any helplessness
I am a man of a little happiness

I saw a vision of you today;
You've grown fat,
You stood in paternal protection over a little semblance of your own:
A little girl,
With a toothy smirk.
You appeared content
With what you received, from what you expected.
The world was never large enough to contain your desire for experience.
You would never have settled in a suburb, in a small town, in an idyllic situation.
The vision of you drips and distorts to the distant fallow lands have your life,
Sewed, but never harvested,
Never asked the overwhelming question,
"Oh do not ask 'what is it', let us go and make our visit"
The vision of you abruptly bustled, then faded into indeterminate placidity.
Possible past
Launch you into
Hazy futures

The day will come, it'll come for you
Deliverance will see, will see you through
You'll feel the wind come over the mountain
And here then birds chirping for you

The evening will set, it'll set for you
The sky will fade, it'll burn through
You'll watch the sky grow dark at twilight
And the earth will grow cold for you

The Night will come, it'll come for you
Deliverance will see, will see you through
You'll drink the water from the crescent fountain
And the stars will twinkle for you.

Though I've fasted and wept,
Wept and prayed
And stayed stoic long
Through passing day
And bard men song
I can never,
Never truly say
I have achieved arête

With clunky meter
And rhythms wrong
With stumbling stanzas
And rambling on
I must confess
My souls intent.
My fear,
To be regarded as
Just decent

No I'm not the son of Xanthippus
Who instigated the apogee of Athens
The past beacons of Atticus
Dims my own ember passions

Though I've loved and lost
Loved and lusted
Won a few
Others busted
Though I've seen the world at the needle point,
With all the sordid souls suffering
I've lived like Cummings
The farthest extent of emotions
I've kept a drug induced devotion
But never could I stop from wondering
Never could cease sundering

I've seen the valleys of my life
Where the flowers are disseminated like t.v. static
And the only sound a high tinnitus pitch
I've said go, Go I don't love you anymore
Not pretty enough to be a poem
Not intelligent enough to be of any use

I've drank with old lost men, dreamers, sloths, faux intellectuals, and conniving *****.
I've seen them carefully explain their situation
And hope for their future.

Though I've smiled and agreed
Agreed and died
Through all this hell
I have tried

I feel an emotion
But not one I can define
What is this commotion
That resides in my mind
Pain and pleasure each intertwined
Or two of a separate kind

My mother was worn down
By another fleeting frantic morning
My brother bounced 'round
And erupting with around
Earned himself another scorning

I lay between sleeping soundlessness
And wakeful motion
And me in my restfulness
So comfortable and not yet dressed
Was committed to my devotion

To be obstinate through disruptions
ignoring the turmoil of my mother
my brother's scheming decptions
His  boiling youthful eruptions
the sounds of smacks that fell upon my brother

And me now stiring
Smiled at the swelling scene
And now aware of what was occurring
Laughed with senses keen
And still not prepared
To intervene
Stretched and stared
At the battered fiend

Soured metal, rotted walls
Darkness hangs form hall to hall
Broken bonds burning ambitions
A feeling half until furition

Life a moment
A last choking breath
Happiness a second
Before eternal death

We exist only
In the time between
A hint of joy
Goes often unseen

Until again
The crest breaks
And life slips by
But leaves no wake

Such was the tale
Of the great eluder
A hidden knife
A dark intruder

Six O'clock
To the bars the man they seem to Flock
In search of ***** we landed on Roman rocks
In search of something more we turned to chemistry
For 10 dollars I'll show you the door
For 12 hours I'll show you so much more
With 1 gram I'll bring you back down
Then we'll head for a drink down town

I'll reveal to you the city
And we'll watch the light dance like acrobats
I'll show you the sublime, ugly, and pretty
I'll make your pupils fat

Seven past seven
To their homes crawl the heathens
A tired state they would be in
If it wasn't for the crank
If it wasn't for the decomposition slowly rotting their soul
Diamond turned to coal

They burn hot
When touched by flame
Yes man's body wriggling Upon the floor burns hot
And if not
They'll be done in by a blood clot
Or perhaps shot
Many battles to be fought
And many answers once sought
Have been lost
Everything comes with cost
And money is a loathsome thing
When it's presents is abscent
And love the price of a golden ring
When before it was abscent
Abscent
Holes left by the precise surgical hand
Holes
Left by bombs upon the land

Nine after eight
Them men in a dismal state
Unaware of their fate
Their life shatters
Like porcelain plates

How are you ?
Well I'm doing rather well-
Yes I'm heaven after hell!
Yes I'm the sun-
At the dawn of spring!
Yes I'm the pigeon-
That in the mornings sings!
Yes I'm the church bell-
That on the hour rings!
Yes rather well

Green tea, ginsing and honey
If you love me we'll need no money
Cinnamon, rosemary and thyme
We don't have much time

We are ingredients
In a delicious stew
Add a little me
Add a little you

We are the steam
Rising from the ***
Drifting up and up
To the nostrils we waft

Shall we bake awhile
And solidify as one
And we could enter in style
When the meal is done

For we are the sweet
After the first consumed
And our love lives brief
Then is doomed

I have laboured to long in lofty warehouses,
Sweating and beating my youth ere destined.
Bonded to work; married capitalist, dreaded spouses,
Stocks of little value I've invested in.
I, still young, the light of verdant fields upon my face,
As refreshing as the woolly violet,
At the eve of spring when winter fails to pace,
Radiating purple defiantly inviolate.
Bent back, broken ambition
Youth fails at maturities fruition

The woolly violet was never one for monogamy,
Ask her suitors, the honey and bumblebee.

Just as soon as one suitor is done,
Out on the air buzzing another one comes.

A symbiosis, a quid pro quo,
It is natural for lovers to come and go.

So let us live
Before we die
And when it's over
Let's gently cry.


But I lack these embracing arms
Waking up to lonely alarms.


I see it etched in nature
In seas of swaying barley,
And I all have is a constant scrimmage
That I can't escape, not hardly.


And I see it in the mower's
Swinging locomotion,
Time blinks its eye
So ending his reaping motions.


I see it in the weeds
That have reclaimed,
Growing wild
Where once was tame.


I've become stagnant
Tired of this placement,
My desires and my vices
Stand adjacent.


In its well failure looms,
Let me clean my life,
I run to rectify my room
But it all ends in strife.


I dare not smile,
Life gets so lonely,
When it seems I've a friend
I find Im my one and only


The days grow shorter
With a gasping wind
I’m in the dead of my winter
No friend their coat to lend.


Im my heart
I have grown quiet
And my feelings
They fall silent.


I see it here
In these dusty rooms,
These people of little remorse,
Waiting for an end soon.


I've fallen so
And where does my path end
Needing  to go
But staying again.


An American ego
A living contemporary
Dying slowly
Below his luminaries.


So let us live
Before we die
And when it's over
Let's gently cry.


But I lack these embracing arms
Waking up to lonely alarms.

Hands of love caress with carring certainty.
Eyes of lust linger on languished lips
Hearts of Hearts exist infinitly
Lost, lovers joined at the hips.

Do I feel
My nights afflicted by insomnia
Is it real
amor vincit omnia


July a cold month, in loving embrace
The nights march forward
In a loving rat race
Care for me, never leave me
She says so sweet
Once in hazy humidity
And our souls are complete

No, this is not me
Lost in blonde sheaves
This is her
Fearing I'll leave

The road I yearn for
Set out before me
The out door
Sets me free

Hand me The parting glass
Hand me the the last of the whisky
Cheap one drank cold and fast
One born Larceny

Tethered together
Me and the pavement
No time for forever
No time for enslavement

No time to affectionately embrace
None for love, idyllic, and family
No time for my future to be traced
None for domestic calamity

I touched the turbulent sky on parchment paper wings,
Crashing to the morning mist engulfing me in those terrible tresses.
Oh, how a constant echo of sorrow rings
And everything is wicked that reality undresses.

And I ever long for that open abode,
Where those in flight soar peacefully
But my feelings are suppressed and the worst stowed
And I hold myself down with the weight of me.

Look upon those clouds, carelessly they drift,
Much like my thoughts they disappear
And now that radiating rift
Well, it was never so near.

I grow old but remain so young
My naivety is a razor, recurring and unrighteous.
How many sentiments has my heart sung
I know this one is over and any effort gratuitous.

I wish we could fly to the south of France
There we would laugh, love and dance,
But like everyday and overnight
There fades in and out the light.

These romantic stories fail
And all my rights reveal my wrongs
We find it dying like the last ringing chord
Of two lovers sharing a sad song.

Myself i held with surety, and tighter still my intuitions
And every action or conscious idea I perceived right
But after the shadow of your burden shaded my mind,
I took my gleeful optimism into your crimson night.

Where kettles and pipes and burning cigarettes,
Filled my nose with scents of foreign avenues,
And jangley buskers crooned into sweltering evenings,
With anodyne preachers sermonizing ‘round the fescues.

And midnight walkers- shades to the dark,
Beats of the beaten left out in the world,
Would pass our meager partition
Above which hung the nation unfurled.

In early morning six by six shackles
Walls stained from years of fire and tar
The end always seemed so near
And the world too far

Well it seems like the fourth time around

And I'm at it again

With the jangle of Dylan

Growling in my head

And all my Cathy's

Now call themselves Kate's

And my little paradise withers

As shadows bloom at the gates

I speak with Kerouac and Cassady

We've all missed our departure

In a hairy spot at the seminary

Surrounded by devout tonsures

I look for the soul with certainty

Not in those bricks placed level

I seek in the grass for my angels

And to my friends for the devil's

They meander somewhere off into a sumit

And fade into the metallic racket

I know the air will thin and degrees plummet

We pray that they've both brought a jacket

I catch a ride with a pal of mine

I think he knows me well

We laugh, we remember, all crazy smiles

But even now I can never tell

I lay me down on an unkempt bed

To sleep just to dream of you

I thought I understood just one

I thought I thought I knew

Little gnat that buzzes 'round,
Persistently posed in front of my pondering,
Never caring if I smile or frown,
Just glad (I think) to intrude my wondering.

Do you know I work nightly ?
Morning dove with song so sweet,
The song so sweet would cease shortly
If you had not taken to wing, but to feet.

In my soul nature still holds true,
But what would Wordsworth understand
Reclining in glistening dew,
What nature has made of this man.