Pride, like a ****
Swelled with dawn
I sing to the world

This World gives
To me great gifts
A fire to my breath

Sunset will break me

I want to call you, I do
But I have so little time alone
I have shreds here, an hour there
Never any unbroken by needs
I just want to sit here a little longer

A time of quarantine, a house to hold us
We are lucky, I know this, I feel it, yet
I grow smaller, I feel eaten alive
Am I even my self still?

Do I still have a name of my own?

I might find one if I can summon the energy to
Drive, walk, run away from this house so full
For a day or an afternoon, and don't
Lecture me right now because I've tried

And failed fifty times this month alone
I know how selfish I am, but it's innate
I can't abandon the qualities I don't like

This is my life, a prix fixe menu
You have to take me as I am, and so do I,

It's just life

A bad year, harsh as drought
First plague, then madness
This is the worst of it

Man turned to beast
Yet may come, but
We are better than this

Oh my beloved ones
Your birthright a wealth of love
Go tell your soul it will survive

if you knew how
if you felt how often

I am truly here with you

would it make any changes
could it give me a key

your brain, not your ***


my only map

I count the years that remain

A strange game of solitaire, ignoble
Sometimes I wonder how to end this
For longing can be delicious and yet

This world spins faster and dances away
Perhaps there is another fire to burn me

I only come back to you, fated
Or defiantly unable to

Imagine any other way

But ours

We missed our chance.

But it’s not a problem: we gave it all
All came back sighing, lovestruck:

Then mutinous alliances recalled,
We fled.

Now, cautioning and antennae’d
Weary, we crawl upon hot lava

Yet still we wave.

Nothing can change the past
But my memories are all
Who would rail against the Gods?

When given such perfect
Time as we were,
Yet still we pine above the water
Line, asking for things to unfold

In changed devotion:
Like as ask for maps to use
A new formed compass
Of my own crossing

Me too, baby, I get it.
We argued a lot last night
My kid said it wasn’t “fighting”
He prefers to call that a ‘hissy fit’

How did he grab hold of my mother’s words?

He never even met his grandma.

A sophisticated word
He claims that ******
We were attempting
‘‘T’was just an argument”

You must hold your tongue
In your hand now, walk backwards
I just can’t look at you today
You, the nuclear excused

You who believes he rises
Each day anew, beloved
Again in the face of the gods’
Own tribunal?

I don’t buy it.

I love how the bonds connect so fast
I call a number and I want to buy
a dresser for twenty bucks

but they are looking for a connection,
they want to discuss times
places

we should talk about night stands
more often with total strangers

people are so alone now
with all these ways to connect

wisdom is draining out of us so fast
perhaps it gathers in night stands

or vintage knick-knacks
wisdom lost like this
it must be gathering

into something

"To Try For The Sun" by Donovan Leitch

We stood in the windy city,
The gypsy boy and I.
We slept on the breeze in the midnight
With the rain droppin' tears in our eyes.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
We huddled in a derelict building
And when he thought I was asleep
He laid his poor coat round my shoulder,
And shivered there beside me in a heap.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
We sang and cracked the sky with laughter,
Our breath turned to mist in the cold.
Our years put together count to thirty,
But our eyes told the dawn we were old.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
Mirror, mirror, hanging in the sky,
Won't you look down what's happening here below?
I stand here singing to the flowers,
So very few people really know.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
We stood in the windy city
The gypsy boy and I.
We slept on the breeze in the midnight,
With the rain droppin' tears in our eyes.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.

"And So It Goes"

by Graham Nash
from the album Wild Tales 1973

I'm the oil upon the water,
I'm the lava in the flow.
Resting like a rock beside the seaside.
I'm the son and you're the daughter
of the stranger that we know,
who gets a little ****** beside the wayside.

Well, there's one thing to try
everybody knows
music gets you high
everybody grows
and so it goes.

You're the lips that make the laughter
you're the sunshine in the snow
shining out on everything you feel
you're the bird that dropped the berry
on the island far below
finding out that everything is real.

Well, there's one thing to try
everybody knows
music gets you high
everybody grows
and so it goes.

We are loved and we are lonely
we are many, we are few.
make it out of love and build a dream
we are hoboes, we are holy
we are me and we are you,
can't it be as easy as it seems?

Well, there's one thing to try
everybody knows
music gets you high
everybody grows
and so it goes.

"Dark Star”  by Stephen Stills

Forgive me if my fantasies might seem a little shopworn
I'm sure you've heard it all before I wonder what's the right form
Love songs written for you it's been going down for years
But to sing what's in my heart seems more honest than the tears

I am curious
Don't want to hurry us
I'm intrigued with us
Ain't this song a bust
I don't care dark star

I met you several years ago
The times they were so strange but I had a feeling
You looked into my eyes just once
An instant flashing by that we were stealing

Another time you felt so bad
And I wasn't any help at all as I recall
We didn't know quite what to do so we left the wanting be
Still there for me and you

Dark star I see you in the morning
Dark star a' sleeping next to me
Dark star let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

It's easy to be with you
Even with the storms that rage beneath your search for peace
We must make some time together
Take the kids and find a world that's ours to keep

Now you've got me dreaming girl
It's been so long that I thought that I'd forgotten how
My heart is once again my soul
We touched we did you know we did no more teasing now

Dark star I see you in the morning
Dark star a' sleeping next to me
Dark star let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

Dark star I see you in the morning
Dark star a' sleeping next to me
Dark star let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

Let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

"Southern Cross"  
by Crosby, Stills & Nash 1977


Got out of town on a boat goin' to Southern islands
Sailing a reach before a followin' sea
She was makin' for the trades on the outside
And the downhill run to Papeete

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas
We got eighty feet of the waterline nicely making way
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

(Around the world) I have been around the world
(Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl
(Who knows she knows) Who knows love can endure
And you know it will

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day

So I'm sailing for tomorrow my dreams are a dyin'
And my love is an anchor tied to you tied with a silver chain
I have my ship and all her flags are a' flyin'
She is all that I have left and music is her name

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

(I've been around the world) I have been around the world
(Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl
Who knows love can endure
And you know it will, and you know it will yes

Oooh ...

So we cheated and we lied and we tested
And we never failed to fail it was the easiest thing to do
You will survive being bested
Somebody fine will come along make me forget about loving you
At the southern cross

condemned to begin again
we start it over new
every time

never ending
so here we go
a new

you returned as you left
sure-foot fleet & elegant

black eyes see all and one
you always saw everything

perspectively right or wrong
we two were dangling

precipice arighted you
found us to be true

we won the day

When last we laughed
I was flush to your bluff
By necessity and nature

Joyful unto sky of gray

Comprehension is pain
Outran it far as possible
Truth is a rock, but they
Mapped it for me; ephemeral
Delicate as a piece of ancient
Poesy. No rosy-fingered dawn,
Nothing to write home about.

             * d *

You can’t get far on a sick nag
Fresh water, strong mind
On a narrow road, endless
Desert ahead

Where is your Masala?
Your final stand?
Don’t be some dead girl

            * a *

Let them win, there lies strength
If you can shut down need
You can win a life

            * d *

Just how far I went I’m not
Sure. Still finding castoffs
Pieces of salvage I can use now
Flush with hope, I can eat again

I can truly laugh
You were the one who
once laughed best
Silly as loons we were, so
maybe we could be
still

Possibility runs rampant
Through me
Shivering wet and wild


"Birds can't unchain from skyway"
You said that, remember,
But what if weighted regret
Claims us in this journey

Suddenly, so privately
A moment of recognition
Pure, behind our eyes

Right where I keep you
Where it's always you, Pop
Fully recognized, armored up
Tenderly on display to

Such hungry world

one of my daughters sat me down
yesterday and so patiently explained

Luna Girl is the Villain, mom
ok, look, the one you like
With the glittery hair?

mom stop talking.

there are Villains in here.

the one with all the moths around her?

she is a Villain.
she is Luna Girl.

so, humbled, a bit afraid for the three
of us now that Villains had been invoked

I became silent

I feel scared out of my
drafts file

if I could escape the river, crawl under
hide myself away until I heal enough
for travel

would you come to me
by silver shadow of tree

if your face is open like leaves
as I wander after your sadness
eating every bite of tears a roux
so deserved as to be dissolved

why do we still dance like demons
my shame, where has it gone?
shame came from other places
never from you, only joy

****** mysteries lie on the floor
unapologetically left to the tides
we died quietly, on a weekday

no one saw the corpses, we
forgot to obey, no more photos
now pointless the perps moan

staggering along dragging
limp notebook resentments
relentless as ever

time, the very best trickster
eventually won the game
smile to see with no surprise

love’s flag is still alive

Here we sit
Awake on a breathing wave
Of electricity running between us
Powering this sad country
Onwards and up
Time for another adventure

Nobody would blame us if
We just ducked out for a  few
Years in some safer idea

I see us wandering about
Inside our heads
Afraid to return home

Everybody knows who
& why, but it's getting
Dark out here

"******. Will I never be rid of that infernal woman?"  ****** snarled.

"Now, now, Mister ******. Mistress Medusa is only lookin' out for you. After all, you're only flesh and blood."

"And she's a primordial cosmic force. I get it."

Another sun sets on our lovers as the gods laugh. Y'all know how they love a good laugh.


"Ridiculum" copyright Johnny Noir and A. Wild 2018

maybe you, only you, why not you
when you broke me open it worked
too well all the runes spilled out like
thirst onto wet blossoms nothing
could make me take it back

given in is a given when there is no body
here there is always a touch hinting at more it is your hands
it is your eyebrow it is just a passing river dream
of years now in a rock cleft where fingers can
explain one hand, one hand will become a life

still stuck clinging for no reason other than the love of
that perfection inside the frilled ridge
oyster to my lips a shell within my moist
center where nothing must be cast out
until ultimate description unites

darkness visible to my ***** imagination
there will I lie to call back possibilities
no longer tame, not ours perhaps yet
nothing stops my train on fire bursting
through all your darks at once

immediate remote altitude
love full of goat head stickers without
brakes until someone will explode into stars
before bewildered eyes who refuse to see
remember, or explain because they have gone

mute

3 batZ got out of my attic
2nite & it hurt my head to admit:

I have loved only one man
well, it took years to see it
& he knows it, & we gotta
escape the parents & others

because we are worth more than gold

By mere threads do we meet and not lose sight
Of the ones we might have been fated to
Know in this Golden Age.

In this era people go without.
This is a time where magic is
Sunk under the Net of Social
Disease.

Blame Tesla and his perfect radio.

Everything went in waves before
Waves after. But the ocean got left out.
The waves inside us were drowned out.

Too much static. Almost dogs, now, & deaf to ourselves.
We lose more ground by the day. Instead we tune in
Some non-station that not even radios can hear.

Hoping for tribal wisdom, we pray to media gods
Whose evil celebrity is more soulless than acid rain
Leaving us without real faces, totems hidden inside

Titanic mistakes where we hide it all
We've taught everything to hate, a closet
of goathead stickers and rotting VCR tapes

Don't unlock that door, that's the secret
Where I store my bad ideas, so leave it
Alone.

I warned you twice.

under tundric ice he lay
i suddenly discovered him

as my raisin sharp
runners pulled sled
by the way

dead man?

no.

alive, Miss Alice!

we walked ‘neath a true moon
you talking and talking, fast, faster
we walked up hill, and around again

you are my favorite walking partner
everything so clear on your perfect face
under this moon with me

someday you will remember our
walks, from distant planet of age
but thank you, kid, for tonight

it meant the world to me

Vining fear comes creeping
In so late at night.
Hissing that I’m Not enough
That all the friends will leave us

I have enough love
to face this night
Out with doubt

All will be well once more.

Once in love the World a mirror
Sensual and alive, no turning back
Each breeze caresses tender places

This planet reaches out to take me
Because you, my love, have gone
So all is well tonight, again

My every nerve is on fire
As if you were astride me
Yet only me and my mind

Dwell in these woods
Tonight, and this fire
Burns to coals

As I dream

Here come the woman
With the look in her eye
Raised on leather
With flesh on her mind

Words as weapons
Sharper than knives
Makes you wonder how the other half die
How the other half die
Makes you wonder, wonder, wonder

Here come the man with the look in his eye
Fed on nothing but full of pride
Look at them go, look at them kick
Makes you wonder how the other half live

Devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Here come the world
With the look in its eye
Future uncertain but certainly slight
Look at the faces listen to the bells
It's hard to believe we need a place called hell
A place called hell

The devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us

Here comes the woman
With the look in her eye
She's raised on leather
With flesh on her mind
Words are weapons sharper than knives
Makes you wonder how the other half die

Devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

The devil inside
Yeah, yeah, yeah
The devil inside
Yeah, yeah, yeah


Songwriters: Michael Hutchence / Andrew Farriss
Devil Inside lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group

<devil inside>

It was quite a surprise. I wasn't expecting much, it's just a website for sharing stuff. So I shared. And I read some things and looked around awhile. And before I knew it there was this jesus guy asking me if I wanted to talk.

Of course I can't tell you what we talked about, don't be silly.

Later on he and I were getting to know each other better. Over many months, maybe a year. I liked jesus a lot. He seemed to be the only person I could really talk to and I'm Jewish, but he didn't care about that stuff at all. In fact, I didn't even know what jesus looked like.

We spent hours, like, I mean many nights we talk for hours on the phone, and I don't really have much use for the telephone.
This jesus guy, man, he's a lot of fun. He knows his stuff, I'm telling you. He can keep you entertained with his tales and his facts on any subject you mention. Maybe there’s some strange ideas running ‘round inside his head, but that’s what makes people worth listening to as far as I’m concerned. You wouldn’t wanna hear some of the crazy things I been through with my good friends way back when and that was just grade school.

So Jesus asked if I wanted to write a book with him. This was back in the early days of our acquaintance and I liked that idea right off.

So me an J started writing together and that was really great. We seemed to mesh pretty well. I started to, maybe, kinda get the religion thing then. I dunno. I began to understand it better. It’s hard to say where faith and love and friendship meet.

The crossroads is where I'm hanging out right now.

I'm waiting to get a chance to shove everyone out of my house and call up my man, Jesus, on the phone. He and I haven't talked for almost two weeks and it's like going to church, I miss it.

My faith is strong. My friendship is unyielding. My love is steadfast. Jesus and me, we got a good thing going.

We got very different ideas about things, but then again, we don’t need to argue either, get me?

Think I'll give Jesus a call right now.
Wonder what that scoundrel has been up to today?
Hey, Jesus? (He has so many nicknames, you prob call him something else, he likes "****** Bradley" and he always answers to "S.O.B.")  

Yeah, I always figured that Jesus probably had a great sense of humor, what with that hell of a Dad and all that. . . .

Yeah, me and my man, J, surprised the hell outta me, but we make a really great team.