Black coffee
2 eggs looking at you
buttered Wonder bread
morning paper
horn rimmed glasses.
neatly pressed short sleeve summer shirt, with a Fruit of the Loom tank.
work trousers and oil resistant black shoes
Old Spice, and Brylcream
Howdy Doody in the background
the screen door slams
a white Ford Farlane 500 starts up and pulls away

awaiting the sound of the Ford
wash up for dinner
pork chops, sauerkraut
applesauce
green beans
evening paper
maybe the Flintstones or Dragnet, but always the Friday Night Fights
late night visits to the fridge for a sip of Malox.

My Father does not believe there is a heaven, or hell
he says when you die, you just die.
But I don't believe he ever knowingly lied to me.
He voted for George Wallace, but he also Voted for Barack Obama, twice.
He served in the Army during World War II, and still cooks hash brown potatoes every Tuesday night for his local American Legion, where he also plays poker and most of the time wins. When I asked him how to win at poker, he'd smile and say... "Luck." When I asked him how do I get some Luck, he said "count your cards."
He doesn't want a funeral, no music, no wake, no one to say anything about him. He wants to donate his body to science. And cremate the rest.
He says, "shut up and let people tell you who they are."
"Everybody is OK son , most don't know it though."
"Never count your money in public."
He has a small tin on the kitchen counter full of twist ties, hundreds of them.
There are shelves in the basement full of canned food and paper goods.
Depressionites are always ready for the next one.
When my Father and Mother go to their class reunion, they are the only ones left in their class.
I asked him what was the hardest thing about being 95, and both of them said, "all of our friends are gone, all of them."
My Father is 95 this year.

Happy Father's Day Dad

*Thank you for letting me ramble here, I feel so much better. I am ready to have my eggs and coffee now."

Dust has settled
on the cool, tile floors
where I dropped my heart
after ripping it out

It got tired of counting
unused pillows, the same ol'
memories that don't
comfort us to sleep.

Aware that it
owns enough silverware
for twenty but
is always re-using
the same spoon

Laying on the counter
in hazy morning light,
a reminder that we (My Heart and I)
have our secret, lonely routine.

Laying there on the *****
tile mosaics that have
danced in the window's pall
petrifying slowly.


Dusty; in need of
repair,
the streetlamps dance
against shadows
on the pillows that
have forgotten

*what it's like to be
cradled(?)

The news will say we're suffering from excess immigration
That a rampant hoard of foreigners has fallen on our nation
But truthfully, there hasn't been a native Briton here
Since people dressed in mammoth skin and hunted with a spear

Our language is a mixture of a dozen different tongues
We munch our way through poppadoms, fajitas and fu-yungs
When cheering at a football match, we're infamously vocal
Our teams may be the finest but the players won’t be local

Genetically, a Briton is a multi-cultured stew
With Romans, Saxons, Vikings and the Celts, to name a few
Our national drink is Indian, the Germans make our beer
The TV comes from China and the table from IKEA

Potatoes from America and onions grown in Spain
A multitude of British things arrive by boat and plane
The rain that falls upon our hills has blown from over seas
And with it come migrating birds to nest in British trees

The Royal Windsor family have Greek and German genes
So think about just what it is that being British means
We're stronger with our differences, the best of humankind
Our nation, not an island but a common state of mind

I miss you,
More than the infinite,
Timeless number,
Our hearts cannot define.

I miss you,
The waves of efficient,
Self worth you gave me.
The feeling of clarity,
You stretched out,
across the shore.

I miss you,
Now the wind has changed,
And you no longer,
See me as who I know,
I could be.

I miss you,
Being your namesake sunshine,
Now I blend,
With the greyest skies,
And you just lie,

You just lie.

Synchronicity -
It means all of the events
flying, WHIZZING!, d-r-i-f-t-ing by us
as we ourselves float through the world
are related, connected, entangled,
and emerge from some kind of
divine symphony.

The sounds of laughter, tears dripping,
hearts BREAKING, SMASHING, SHATTERING,
the scraping knees crawling through the rubble,
hands SLAPPING TOGETHER as heads turn
towards heaven in prayer-

The warm embraces, -sighs- of comfort, lips smacking,
bodies pressing together in the hopes of being
reunified for a few moments, the glances,
the poems, the letters, the rings exchanged
and matching cemetery plots-

The triumphs, WOO-HOOS, celebrations,
toasts, clinking wine glasses, bottles, mugs
bumping fists, patting hands drumming
confidence into chests-

They are all supposed to be
one godly plan.
Like high notes, tragic sonatas
and joyous fingers plucking
heavens strings into
gracious cords and
silent pauses between tracks
are all one concert that we're conducting.

But doesn't it all feel so fragile?
One broken instrument, one
distracted player, one missing page in
your play book, a hand swished too hard,
eyes-too-penetrating or overly
aggressive dismissal of your
prized pianist
and the whole orchestra
falls into chaos.

What's it mean? What was that lyric?
What key is it in? What is the right tempo?
Do I emphasize the earthy drums that provide stability?
Do I drag you along on a magical carpet ride of echoing
falsettos, throats tugged like the handle-strings
drawing across my violin eyes on an exciting journey?

Or do I sink into the minor keys of my pain-
Songs that I don't share, playing on headphones
now I want to blast them, sob them out, sing them in whispers
at first, let them grow in me like my apathy, swell into tumors of
fear, and hurt and eat me from the inside out!

I want to shout songs of suffering. Have my piano keys
spin you into my anxiety, guitars raising the key like water rising
one floor at a time in the Titanic that is my beating heart.

I want to watch the drummers sweat as they beat out the rage
of having my most precious friends, objects and opportunities
snatched away - over and over - despite the progressive movements.

I want to draw you back into my finale with my fear. It will have to be so disturbing that each note raises hairs on your neck. When I drop my baton, leaves you with my night terrors - so foreign from the concert I'm playing that I'll need

electric guitars, wild wind instruments, theramin and a chorus of sirens and banshees to scare you back into your seat. Songs inspired by fear, pain and sadness, anxiety and misery are all you'll find at this concert. Songs that make bowing an act of submission and never respect or adoration. My forums lack fan clubs. Covers of my songs don't exist.

Please - leave your hearts at the door. Chances are that fate,
the ultimate conductor, will rip me out of this black-and-white
universe that traps me like a suit made from
straightjacket fibers, anyhow. Because life, no matter how unified they tell you it is, LIFE doesn't get remastered. There is no deluxe version, b-side, or re-recording.

No one can auto-tune my words. The dangerous, raging guitar solos of insults and fury that have wrecked
all of the men who really cared at one point.
The friends who survived the mounting anxiety of watching me
skip like a CD in the broken walkmen we had as kids. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I meant to! Mean-! Mea! Meant, Meant, Meant, Meant <silence>, SLAM "Meant to call you,"

Or maybe ([SARCASM] IF YOU'RE LUCKY!) you'll hear track 4. I'll sing, "I need your help!", "Wow, *****, just come over!", "This *****!", "I didn't mean it", "Don't get like this again!". Against the anxious, building, manic tones, my panick blares while "I'm not good enough", "Can't do that", "my disease makes that hard", "Do you like me?", "**** this!!!" blares like an infernal choir pressing you to madness.

See, human symphonies aren't coherent - music theory isn't a predictive corpus. Experience shows that you can't make it come together. Too often, we don't get any rehearsal time. The death dirges that have stolen away my family, one at a time, creeping up from a silent, whispering stocatto'd-doom drown out any of the romantic, epic harpsichord solos that I still only dream of.

The angry, head-banging, 'where's that mosh-pit for grown-up children with kneepads?' beats don't motivate me anymore. They break down the walls to the studios where I was writing expert concertos. The earthquake-like blasts of my self-loathing fear have already torn down too much sound-proofing and the record studio collapsed because noone had the credentials to get in. My only dance consists of turning off the lights and yanking up the covers. Being a one-hint wonder isn't happening. Then again, can you blame me for not stopping? I don't pass this after I hit it.

In the end, the musicians don't always show up. It's like, - We've all been to that concert. Ya know, where everyone feels the awkward energy of a 4th grade Christmas Carol musical? Where, the costumes weren't convincing. Of course neither were the conductor's falsehoods, lies, omissions, or the promise that you'd enjoy this show. Cover art, like my critic's ratings, just don't do me justice . "Smart, engaging, relatable" the new listener's proclamation that "I'm falling in love! I can't get enough!" are marketing gimicks that just don't last.

Synchronicity, like destiny, has revealed itself to me as a fantasy. Reality's crumpling threads don't always find their way into skilled weaver's hands.  These strings have all snapped. In the end, I'm left smashing drums with trombones, crying over the rusted saxophones that can't croon for other hearts anymore. Just wait, my closing number is a Celine-Dion covered effort to stay afloat in the monsoon that I've been summoning for over a decade. When everyone leaves my audience, the program is either left behind or taken only by the weirdos who resonate with this kind of tortuous tune

I end each night walking the aisles of my darkened auditorium-soul now. I like to follow the echo and chase "coulda!" "woulda!" shadows across walls. I find your ticket stubs and nostalgia pulls me away from the dimming lights. In the end though, I can't counter the reviews that my show has no point. The tragedy isn't teaching any lesson and the cacophonies I birth don't generate fans. Plus, requests for autographs have become suicide invitations for an artist who can't release a polished track.

Synchronicity:A word invented and popularized by psychologist Dr. Carl Jung in the 1950s.  We all no better now that this is not a word that exists. Yet, the potential leads us all to chase after seasont tickets.

Synchronicity, defined as the false hope that it all means something. Synchronicity, the hope that you'll get to be the big strand in something special. Synchronicity - the promise of a heavenly choir, or divine symphony; of course we've already fallen from grace too often to question our unfulfillment. Sync-ro-nic-it-eeeee, like an old worn-out cassette tape, rarely comes with the equipment and support needed to hear it. Synchronicity - The jagged, little red pill that I can't take. Synronicity: the seemingly fate-driven world that we all stop believing in when the silence sets in.

Synchronicity: a series of seemingly random events that promise you a long night of unsurpassed concert sound. At least it's not alcohol I'm left lacking

Synchronicity, the artists that't leaves us entangled in distractions. Like scratched soundtracks. Synchronicity: the band I quit that has since left me wishing for buttons:

Pause. Stop. Repeat. Shuffle. Fast-Forward? Rewind!.....
..... Skip.

...................Eject.

Words drop
like leaves,
reflecting
the beautiful hues of autumn
& soon,
soon all you will hear
is the icy winds of winter,
blowing through the bare trees.

Usually I like
the color azure,
but her hue was different,
she had eyes that looked
like dripping ice,
a frozen stare
that put chills
up your back,
made your hair
stand on end.
That's cold blue
baby.

I come
From the puddles of tears, mosaics of scars,
these glaring cracks in between
your perfect life,
mocking shadows cast by the street lights of
your corporate world.

I breathe
Fire, transforming rage,
lusting lips that
touch and dance
sing and bridge
cauterizing gaps in the heart and soul
melting between us.

I live
in the downtrodden, in the shame
of the man who made 2nd place again...
in your heart of hearts where
you weren't the one,
aren't desired, and
felt forlon

I dance
Where your fear consists only of
loving me not beating me,
kissing me, not calling me ***
listening, instead of hushing my
lips, excitement, heart -
most of all my spirit,
telling me who to be.

I am
A resuscitated catastrophe
trapped in this
prison of privilege and assumption
where affect is a key that opens doors
but can't get me out of this cell
without compromising
my identity.

I am.
I come.
I breathe.
I live.
I dance.

I am.

and the sun weilds mercy
but like a jet torch carried to high,
and the jets whip across its sight
and rockets leap like toads,
and the boys get out the maps
and pin-cuishon the moon,
old green cheese,
no life there but too much on earth:
our unwashed India boys
crosssing their legs,playing pipes,
starving with ****** in bellies,
watching the snakes volute
like beautiful women in the hungry air;
the rockets leap,
the rockets leap like hares,
clearing clump and dog
replacing out-dated bullets;
the Chineses still carve
in jade,quietly stuffing rice
into their hunger, a hunger
a thousand years old,
their muddy rivers moving with fire
and song, barges, houseboats
pushed by drifting poles
of waiting without wanting;
in Turkey they face the East
on their carpets
praying to a purple god
who smokes and laughs
and sticks fingers in their eyes
blinding them, as gods will do;
but the rockets are ready: peace is no longer,
for some reason,precious;
madness drifts like lily pads
on a pond circling senselessly;
the painters paint dipping
their reds and greens and yellows,
poets rhyme their lonliness,
musicians starve as always
and the novelists miss the mark,
but not the pelican , the gull;
pelicans dip and dive, rise,
shaking shocked half-dead
radioactive fish from their beaks;
indeed, indeed, the waters wash
the rocks with slime; and on wall st.
the market staggers like a lost drunk
looking for his key; ah,
this will be a good one,by God:
it will take us back to the
sabre-teeth, the winged monkey
scrabbling in pits over bits
of helmet, instrument and glass;
a lightning crashes across
the window and in a million rooms
lovers lie entwined and lost
and sick as peace;
the sky still breaks red and orange for the
painters-and for the lovers,
flowers open as they always have
opened but covered with thin dust
of rocket fuel and mushrooms,
poison mushrooms; it's a bad time,
a dog-sick time-curtain
act 3, standing room only,
SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT again,
by god,by somebody and something,
by rockets and generals and
leaders, by poets , doctors, comedians,
by manufacturers of soup
and biscuits, Janus-faced hucksters
of their own indexerity;
I can now see now the coal-slick
contanminated fields, a snail or 2,
bile, obsidian, a fish or 3
in the shallows, an obloquy of our
source and our sight.....
has this happend before? is history
a circle that catches itself by the tail,
a dream, a nightmare,
a general's dream, a presidents dream,
a dictators dream...
can't we awaken?
or are the forces of life greater than we are?
can't we awaken? must we foever,
dear freinds, die in our sleep?