Sometimes I miss Baltimore,
as it was,
in this ragged snapshot from 1999.
Smoky bars, diffuse light,
the dusky anonymity of proto-digital consciousness,
A city teeming with its own subversive imagination.

Palpable in the night air,
the questionable intentions of the still willfully living,
A dim seediness skulking in the corners and alleyways,
bearing impartial witness to the transgressions of all those nights, preordained to bleed into mornings,

A time,
A town,
that was fearless,
rogue in the absolute saturation of its moments,
Shimmering in the mists like slick cobblestone,
like points of light upon dark water,
the winking reflections of a neon harbor,
paused somewhere between future and past,
A bastion of the new prehistory.

I miss Baltimore,
covert and alive,
In its hour of renegade persuasion,
however quaint or illusory,
its voice was distinct,
in the chatter of the underground.

There was a relevance to the present then,
a sanctity in the moment.
There were questions left unanswered.
There was intimacy in a shared secret.
Misfits were permitted to revel.

I miss that Baltimore most,
the one that curated me,
called me out of myself.
With a history cemented in the arcane,
its raven-dark undercurrent
like smooth cognac softening the edges,
melancholy,
delicate as roses,
giving the rage a moment's pause,

Giving human momentum a breath,
to observe and retain the poignancy,
of  itself,
In all its uneasy coexistence,

Baltimore,
as it once was,
steeped in the tradition of the unsung,
like an archeological dig,
On the surface,
merely crumbling dirt,
and broken things.
but  deeper,
an uncanny relic of rich insights,
and richer delights.

But one had to know where to look,
and one had to know how to let it take lead.
And one could never be too scrupulous,
or scrutinous.
The Carnival of Dissonance,
was not for the uninitiated,

It was sunny the day we buried you,
and then it rained for a week,
the skies paying soggy tribute,
to your passing.
A soft, somber deluge,
pounding wet earth,
into the spaces between your bones.

The topography of your,
erstwhile romping ground,
dissolved into wetlands,
puddles deepening into a chain,
of small ponds you could sail
paper ships upon.
I'd launch a fleet in your honor,
If I thought you were still
near enough to notice,
and give them chase.

Give them chase...

They say all dogs go to heaven.
If there were ever a version
of that ideology I could reconcile,
it would be the one where you are
blissfully chasing bicycles
through the clouds.
No soul has better met those lofty criteria....

We buried you with Peanut,
headless and limbless though he was.
We buried you with one of James's bath toys,
the one that you always stole,
and hid in your bed.
We buried you in the sunshine,
where you can bask and watch the kids play,
where you can fortify the soil,
And become a garden.
A lively butterfly garden,
No squirrels allowed.

You and I have not been friends,
in a long time.
We want to be,
we try our best each day,
with fresh intentions,
desperately seeking to recapture,
a life we had,
a moment of honest bliss,
now barreling toward a pinpoint,
in the rearview of a car,
we are either driving,
or chasing,
I am no longer certain.

For a time,
we were insurmountable.
For a time,
We we had beaten the odds,
Began speaking in ever afters,
Asserting our legendhood.
We're still a talking point,
in our old stomping grounds,
I hear.

But you seem to only see,
through me now,
To be content with appearances.
Pragmatism,
Stamping out lovers' optimism,
As we settle into the business,
of middle class mediocrity.

We were better as rapids,
You and I,
than we are as still water.
Unpredictability,
is what we knew how to do,
was who we were.
This newfound lens of,
"ought to",
keeps obscuring the course,
and hampering navigation.

I do not wish to to find,
our way back,
But I long to find our way.
To create a more
sustainable universe,
for our legacy,
And for the whitewater surface,
of our worldly love.

We need but one small breakthrough,
Some eloquent solution,
that solves the elusive equation,
of our gravity,
And restores us to spinning,
in perfect orbit,
around each other.

Fate is a funny bird,
The way she breezes in,
like a tipsy traveler,
tinkering with the scenery,
bumping switches,
with a head toss and a laugh,

Then flitting off,
to the next hapless reality,
leaving not so much,
as a blueprint,
or a crudely sketched,
cocktail napkin,
in her wake.

And so began the story of us...

I had seen the inside of that bar,
but once in a decade,
it was the sort of solo-cup,
frat haven,
of the type I staunchly avoided,

But the city was a Sunday night,
ghost town,
and she snd I were diligent,
two chicks desperately ,
chasing the night,
we wandered onto Boston Street.

And you were there,
slinging drinks,
to a smattering of people,
peanuts,
A handful of bar snacks,
in semi formal wear.

And then there were three,
I'll never know,
if it was boredom,
or a  mutal wish
to be anywhere,
but our respective homes,
that kept it going,
or if  something,
in each of us,
recognized the other,
that night,

Gypsy dancing into the dawn,
sauced on your private recipe,
lemonade warlock potion,
my frienzied twirling stitching,
a spell in the darkness,
while my friend,
assured of her superiority,
tried to ****** you,
With that cocked-brow smirk,
you looked past,
and watched me.

Was I burning bright?
Or burning out?
A superstar in your midst,
or a supernova self-destructing?

I think we've yet to see it
the same way,
at the same time.
Is this our strength,
or our impending demise?
To this day I can't be sure.

And somwhere,
in a dank speakeasy,
our mistress fate,
is taking a long sip,
from a dry martini,
and throwing back her head,
with a throaty laugh.

Cruising along mudddy
mountain back roads
in my father's Bronco,
A misty rain hovering,
on the horizon,

The Eagles,
Or Fogleberg,
Or Little Feat
drifting fuzzily,
into the back seat
Dad intermittently,
singing along,
and cursing the fog.

My Grandfather's musty trailer,
Atari games beeping and blooping,
from the television,
A jubilee of pixles,
thrumming on the 32 inch set.

My cousins chasing me,
through the hay lofts,
Michael falling from the rafters,
Six feet into a cow pie,
the size of Mt. Everest,
Neck high and flies buzzing,

Jake and I making the long trek,
back to our parents,
to report that our charge,
had been accidentally,
suctioned into a vortex of ****,
They were mostly mad,
that we had left him there,

The sweet strumming,
of my father's guitar by a bonfire,
Beer cans hissing and popping,
morphing into alien shapes,
in the flames.

Stars a cacauphony,
of tiny lights overhead,
If you walked just a few steps,
away from the blaze,
you could get lost
in their cosmic spiral,

My dad had a story,
about the time he saw a ufo,
in those stars,
How one shot up into the sky,
then straight down,
like a plummeting rocket,

Only he didn't belive things like that.
Ever the pragmatist,
quick to interject that we were all,
just worm food,
but when he told that story,
his hairs stood on end.

Days spent
picking grapes off the vine,
gorging myself in the,
strawberry patch,
and in the orchard,
There were so many apples
that we left some for the deer,

I recall being jealous,
that the boys got to go hunting,
while I stayed back canning fruit,
with the women.

Weirdly wishing,
that I could amass,
rank and file,
with the men,
Douse myself in animal ****,
and sit painfully still,
for hours,
in a rickety tree stand,
Our play house was probably sturdier,
and better insulated.

Looking after those stupid beagles,
and gathering eggs from,
stupider chickens,
Feeding infant cows with,
oversized baby bottles,
cradling them,
kicking and *******,
in my skinny arms,
barely aware of the pervasive smell
of manure.

Eating Papa's tomato casserole,
and drinking buttermilk,
Thinking they were only things
in his whole kitchen,
that weren't mouldy,
or mildly terrifying.

Walking wooded trails,
on cold mornings,
catching quick glimpses,
of foxes and grouse,
before they fled,
Warned off by the snapping
of small twigs underfoot.

Such rare and beautiful moments.
I didn't appreciate them then.
Only now that those days,
are long past,
just wistful songs in the mountains,
can I recognize their worth,
and sing their twangy melody,
with warmth and love.

Whispering,
You,
From the center of my mind,
'Goodbye'
Clouds and pools,
in the depths of your eyes.

We flourished in darkness,
Yet cried for the skies,
I wept to be free,
You wept to die.

And we are mourning tonight,
The death of an American Violet,
The death of torment and passion,
A velvety bloom,
(Spirit).

A funeral,
A wake,
Would you like to be a visionary,
A drifter,
A prophet?

I keep this vigil in reverence of you,
For it rained last night,
And I remembered this.

I shall miss you,
My spring eyed comrade.
You were my tortured,
My young,
My alive.

Briefly,
In the season when,
Our minds brushed,
A memory was born.
A violet blossomed.

From racing dreamscapes,
Swirled with glitz and feathers,
Dizzying patchwork recollections,
Stitched with designer chemicals,
That deepened the hue of our smiles,
Stylishly arranged,
Like so many accents,
Around the wrought-iron geometry,
Of your home,

To perfect cappuccino mornings,
The lazy creeping brightness,
Of the city as it woke,
On a plane where time,
Was still of tangible essence.
From your rooftop we watched,
Eating scones.

There was an easy,
Any-time-of-day-ness,
To the laugh lines in your face.

Blue hair spiked with glitter,
Wiggly wool socks peeking,
From your flannel pj's,
That relic of a leather coat,
As orange-brown-tan,
As my memories of the seventies.
Shades thrown over that peacock grin,
So that your mouth was as cool as I longed to be.

There was July,
That designer suit,
Myself a mess of crushed velvet,
On the couch,
Cutting lines with your passport.
Sniff and a jingling of keys,
Then off with your briefcase,
To litigate the conflicts of industry.

Not without a wry smile,
Shot over your shoulder,
Too boyish to possibly be contrived,
The reflection in your wire-rimmed specs,
A girl,
much like myself,
We're she not so starry-eyed,
And swooning drunk on your vapor.

You were the essential amalgamation,
Of youth and worldliness,
Lacking only romance.
A marvel how passion
Seemed to ebb and break all around,
Yet never touching you,
Or never touching me through you.

Versed in the ways of inurement,
And whimsy,
I have not been blind until now.

This precedent came on wings,
Neon swift but insidious,
Like the venom in your sting,
Which has leaked into the cavities off my brain,
And there like alginate congealed,
Stamping me with your impression.

Thought is now a slide show exhibit,
Of our days and nights,
Each frame individually,
Carbon printed with your seal.

This is a mockery,
Of the years that I've conquered,
Of the woman I've become ,
Still you remain,

A cover boy,
Posing as the marble etched ideal,
For the centerfold of my very soul.

It's a long,
            slow,
                languid sky.

Clouds incinerating,
in a smouldering heat,
on the horizon,

The last traces,
of afternoon light,
beseiged by sunset.

Your memory,
is a wild specter,
casting firefly trickery,
into the settling twilight.

And the city rolls,
past itself,
projected on the mirrored face,
of a glass building.

I am a lonely Alice.
Somewhere on a checkered green,
in that looking glass world,
you are having tea parties,
without me.

Coaxing dream,
with your Red Queen,
and Cheshire grin.

Sending it flailing,
weightless,
through smoke rings,
like dogs through hoops -
rabbit holes.

It's a long,
           slow,
               languid sky.

Darkness falls,
like the weight of years,
that pass as quickly,
as the peak,
of a dreaming red sunset.

Their memory,
is a great humid ghost,
condensing itself,
the way dampness and heat,
press the air.

Tomorrow promises rain.
I will ****** my face,
to the mirage sky,
and its clouds,
will weep.

Salty,
watercolor tears,
blurring the reflection,
of my absence,
in your looking glass world.

I dreamt of you last night.
I can still envision your smile,
that bright mural,
the colorful decor,

The Korean couple,
aging bohemians,
living vicariously through us,
as we toured their home.

You told me I was
the love of your life.
We kissed,
and it was electric.

As though our lips were
two filaments,
our souls conduit,

We created,
and conducted,
a shared,
essential spark,

I loved you completely,
in that moment,
knew you,
felt you,
completely.

In that small eternity,
I experienced happiness,
as I had never done
before,

As though a lens,
has focused,
I now understood,
what others felt,

When they used words,
like contentment,
and fulfillment,
and bilss.

For a brief space,
of subconscious delight,
I forgot what it was like,
to be hollow,

And existed,
for a pause of breath,
in the warm overflow,
of your embrace.

Days are splendorous,
in the royal color wash,
and frost,
of November.

Four thirty is a burning torchlight
of reminiscence.
November,
older,
wiser,

But similar,
in the way that air,
is a rustle of crisp leaves,
and emotions that,
stretch across the horizon,
like an autumn parade.

Familiar,
in the way that,
shifting parameters of light,
invigorate and disturb.

Prodigious,
whispering of enchantment,
and it's Siamese twin,
disillusionment.

November,
That lingers like a somber melody,
or a dense beat,
hanging on the evening wind,

Whose disruptive energy,
is portentous,
of wakeful nights to come.

That shimmers,
and shivers,
and sings,
sending a mating call,
to ravenous winter.

November,
is a communicable pheromone,
am aphrodisiac,
A crescendo.

The yearly succubus,
crowned,
in her raucous display,
of jewels,

Her ingenious distraction,
as she drains the world
of warmth,
and daylight.

And I am hallowed.
November's champion,
riding the dark,
like a faithful steed.

A cowgirl about town.
An outlaw,
blown in on a strident wind,

Primed to partake,
of libation and lechery,
because I am restless,
and it is too brisk to wander.

November is distilled,
and flows like hot cider,
steaming in the faces,
of days it leaves cold.

It is one thousand proof,
and permeates breath vapor,
each small fog,
that lingers like an apparition.

Shades of November,
fettered from dissipation,
as winter,
in search of answers,
clutches at the evidence of its becoming.

My last memory of you,
is watching you walk through a crowd,
not realizing who you were,

Having lost you momentarily,
thinking snidely,
as I watched you,
bogart your way through the herd,
"Why is this old man in such a hurry?"

Then I recognized the hat,
That shaggy hair,
once spun cornsilk,
now grayer than I'd realized.

The trousers,
baggy on your thin frame,
less than thin,
gaunt.

I couldn't shake,
The way your skin hung,
like parchment on jagged bone.

Frail...
The word ricocheted in my mind,
like a rogue pinball...

You had been under the weather.
Dimly,
I understood that.

There had been a battery,
of tests.
A barrage of them,

But for every differential diagnosis,
came a negative finding.
There was and all clear,
nothing to see here,
kind of trend.

Of course it was so.
You were indestructible,
A legend,
A mythical being,

A titanium Phoenix,
rising ever from the ash,
leaving steely slide guitar riffs,
and cold fire in your wake.

I never saw you again after that day,
my birthday.
The next week,
I forgot to call.
Father's Day.

Not because I hadn't thought of it,
The time just always gets past me.
It haunts me still.

We made plans later,
I would make it up to you.
Grilled steaks on the rooftop deck.

You were even on your way,
to reconciling with Dave,
making amends at long last.
The ship was righting itself.

I slept soundly that night.
Groggilly ignored my phone,
in the morning,
But it just kept ringing.

Reaching in the early light,
clumsily,
to check the time,
I thought,

"There had better be something wrong..."

My soul feels colicky,
wants to cry,
wants to fall in sheets like rain,
and patter against you.

Yearns to drape itself,
across your alter,
like sacrifice.

It's name on my tongue is thunder.
Wet and booming.
Counting the seconds,
between rumble and strike.

Precipitation,
and the breadth of night,
seem as chronic as thought.
Restless.
Driven by some chemical altercation.

Molecules shifting,
spinning weather vanes,
in the drowning current,
of silence.

It is deafening,
The progress of discontent,
That resounds within these walls.
Painting instant pictures,
like slideshow noir.

Gaudy and random,
divining art,
from discord.

The rhythm is slate gray,
cast against the depths of night.
The clouds loom,
in time lapse procession.

They speak of ***** films,
of the serial killer,
inside my head.

That sick,
ranting ****,
That drones on in tongues,
at 4 am!
That throws books at the wall!

But it's only the rain,
gleeful-mad on the tin roof.
Spouting hostile jargon,
intermittent,
with the sad soliloquy of flush.

Steady,
The somber hymn of my sacrament.
This offering,
layed before you like ***.

Profound,
clinging,
desperate.

In dark hours I writhe,
distended,
by the invasive girth,
of this storm inside my head.

I fathom ghosts in dark bars.
Tortured flickers in old neon,
whose tribulations,
frozen in the heyday,
of their soda pop,
jukebox glory,
are lost,
in the clutter of human extemporanea.

Figurative vestiges,
from an era of nuclear optimism,
that have been reduced,
to dime store novelty.

As cloaked and unrealized,
as the distillation,
of alcoholic dreams,
alchemical vespers,
paying wistful homage.

A tribute,
from inside this rat-**** procession,
of technologically greed,
which has wrought the shelving,
of blue collar heroism,
the extinction of the unsung.

It is in this,
that the neon finds its muse,
and labors on.
And the numbing of aspiration continues,
Prescribed on tap,
for those who seek to thwart,
the stampede of the fittest.

And at that junction,
where they are forced to yield
to imminent refugeeism,
They find one another,
misspoken and assumed,
momentarily relieved to cohabitate,

Where the beer is cold,
and the juke box is still,
A welcomed friend.

And the good times,
just roll,
and roll,
and roll.

It'll be twenty years this spring.
Twenty.
I can still remember those red lockers,
and the cadgy way you took my appraisal.

I was so innocent then,
for all my ennui and dark eyeliner.
So young and untried.

Though we were only a year apart,
you had lived entire lifetimes
in the gap between us.

You offered me a taste,
and I devoured.
A ravenous thing,
I consumed every gleaming,
disjointed moment
in that bright world.

I was an experience ******,
and you were my dealer,
my fix,
Doling out paradigms,
in neat white lines.

They called it a hole,
but it never felt like that to me.
Each hit was a journey,
And we travelled everywhere.

I was a glitter bug,
sashaying in platform heels,
you were a fresh faced candy necklace,
in a tank top and wide leg jeans.
Together we ruled the night.

We were fast and irreverent,
Trademarked by our frenetic maneuvering.
Free as the changing wind.

We were raging toward the dawn,
We were getting lit up like Christmas,
We were being kicked out of clubs,
And having dinner with the literature.

We were building blanket forts,
and breaking hearts.
We were breathing sound.

We were discovering the Multiverse,
and burning it
the
****
down!

We were two rarefied souls,
barreling toward oblivion,
laying it bare,
laying waste.

Discovering infinity,
Discovering ourselves.

Those were heady days,
and if I think about them long enough,
I can still get high on the flashback,

The swirl of fog through laser beams,
warm camphorous kisses
from loveable strangers,
Those deep beats...

If I close my eyes long enough,
I am transported
to a dark room somewhere...
A crumpled mess of girl,
you and I sloppily intertwined,
venturing ever elsewhere....

Two desperately seeking souls,
paired adventurers,
finding beauty in chaos,
in the unknown,
in heartache,
in everything.

Knowing that whatever we learned,
we learned in kind,
and that knowledge was ripe for the picking.

That everything is an offer,
an opportunity,
a lesson...

If one can just open herself,
to interpret the vibrations.

Sometimes,
the sound of your snoring,
makes me want to run you through,
with a knife.

That atonal rasping and gagging,
penetrates every board,
every beam,
until this old house vibrates with it.

My rage is palpable,
a living,
pulsating thing,
It thrums alongside your ragged breath,

Dueling frequencies of dischord,
Your tortured sleep,
and my tortured nerves,
inexorably linked,

You choke yourself awake long enough,
to look through me,
Emit a vaporous moan,
and turn over.

I like it better when you're working,
and I'm more perfectly alone.

Give a person a platform,
and he will speak,
as if he has been called upon,
to reimagine the Gettysburg Address,
Plato's Symposiym,
The Sermon on the Mount,

As if his voice,
and more importantly his VOICE,
were the first,
last,
and only.

Give a person information,
and she will use it learn,
precisely all that she intended to learn,
according to precisely the correct agenda,
Choosing facts like accesories,
artfully selected reinforce the image.

Give opinion power,
and it will bulldog its way around reason,
and usurp logic with its echo.

The telephone game.

The telephone game.

Give emotion a foothold,
on the mountain of knowledge,
and it will erode etched stone,
into dust,
drifting motes of once-facts.

Give humanity a sense of importance,
and it will pontificate itself
into righteous extinction.

Give society freedom,
And it will see it abolished,
in the name of good cause...

In the name of justice...

Whatever that is.

Who am I?
Crack of dawn,
fresh spill,
Fifteen demands before coffee?

Who am I?
Sport utility,
Front facing,
Five point harness?

Who am I?
grey roots,
saddlebags
tattered unmentionables?

What is this?
Ground hog week,
triple speak,
automatic deduction?

Whence comes this paper trail?
Condensing us into forms,
Sorting us into audits,
assesing penalties?

What happened to 5am?
Frozen in time?
Slow dawn creeping,
into a still-frame prescience?

What happened to days in bed?
Long hours in my head?
To ideas unfiltered,
and consecrated ground?

What happend to glitter clouds,
And living out loud?
To boundaries shattered,
and reality questioning itself?

Where do I find my heartfire?
Art and desire?
The uncharted,
now the lost...

Where is my life lust?
That signature passion,
for this domestic pursuit?
My sense of adventue?

Why is youth so visceral in its wake?
Am I a hollogram to the present,
that I exist in this backdraft,
of moments passed?

How am I consistent to the deadline,
but find myself so unready?
How is progress such a burden?
Why is nostalgia so heavy?

All things must come to an end,
they say.
This place already feels hollow
without you.
A hall of echoes.
I miss you,
even as you linger.
I am capsised,
by this primal urge,
Once abandoned,
nearly forgotten,
reborn in your irreverent grace.
I discover myself marooned.
Cast out.
A Castaway,
on this island you sacnctioned,.
It is only what I am owed,
The inevitability,
of my own privateering.
Machinations of unreliable pursuit...
My imagination,
as ever,
running away with itself.
You were a landfall,
of sorts.
Painting yourself an unlikely comrade,
silently synching oars,
navigating parallel waters.
Finding purchase (purpose?)
on the cruel waters
of this devious digital sea.
Would haves,
cresting as could haves,
breaking into should haves,
spilling,
anticlimactically,
onto indifferent shores.
A filmy release,
A ghost froth,
delivering its spent intention,
unto shifting sands,
etching itself but briefly,
before its memory is consumed,
and ferried off,
by the relentless gravitation of the tides,
by the eternal gravity of time.