the lady has me temporarily off the bottle
and now the pecker stands up
better.
however, things change overnight--
instead of listening to Shostakovich and
Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke
the nights change, new
complexities:
we drive to Baskin-Robbins,
31 flavors:
Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry
Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint...

we park outside and look at icecream
people
a very healthy and satisfied people,
nary a potential suicide in sight
(they probably even vote)
and I tell her
"what if the boys saw me go in there? suppose they
find out I'm going in for a walnut peach sundae?"
"come on, chicken," she laughs and we go in
and stand with the icecream people.
none of them are cursing or threatening
the clerks.
there seem to be no hangovers or
grievances.
I am alarmed at the placid and calm wave
that flows about. I feel like a ***** in a
beauty contest. we finally get our sundaes and
sit in the car and eat them.

I must admit they are quite good. a curious new
world. (all my friends tell me I am looking
better. "you're looking good, man, we thought you
were going to die there for a while...")
--those 4,500 dark nights, the jails, the
hospitals...

and later that night
there is use for the pecker, use for
love, and it is glorious,
long and true,
and afterwards we speak of easy things;
our heads by the open window with the moonlight
looking through, we sleep in each other's
arms.

the icecream people make me feel good,
inside and out.

Coward people,

It's said that they are coward people,

Weak people who can't control the situation.

I don't think the same way,

For me they aren't more than just people,

People who try to do a stupid thing,

But the most courageous thing too.

It's not like from a moment to the other you can do it,

You need courage,

And a lot of it,

More than I will ever have.

Late summer a lofty pause. At work I am absent from myself; from any conviction. The vegetation has reached to its fullest and covers the vision. Memory free of concern. As in the work of nighttime to morning, so memory of other seasons is dimmed. We wish to retreat at length and recline to watch the season's sunset. Not yet the descent into the urgent. A moment sent to you so silent, it is punctuated with the song of cicadas, chyrp of crickets, so nourishing for you have only to lift your eyes to see.

I have a question: how can i not doubt? how can I expect truth after a year of silence? there was a year of silence followed by loud bursts of colour that have rendered me blind to any such truth. silence; silence breeds an illness that can only burrow far - silently - until it can dig no deeper, and where it settles is the nest of doubt you have been hiding for so long. when the eggs hatch and the baby spiders of horrible truth and revelation come skittering around those cerebral planes, you can do nothing. it is known you are in love. silence; silence breeds a want, a deep slow burn of some diseased flame on a wick that can only wither into heavy dust, and this dust too will settle and it will melt into your mind and while you doubt, you know there is a reason you doubt. you know that you doubt because you are afraid. you are afraid of the truth that the flame ignites and you are afraid of the truth that will paint the walls of your skull when the baby spiders of realisation explode from the heat of the moment. you are afraid that after this silence you are right and that you are in love and you are afraid that after this silence you are right and that he is not
and then the baby spiders do what baby spiders do best. they crawl out and they feed on your heart and you can't do a thing until it's all gone
and when it's all gone he is gone with it and you are nothing but a spider's nest of cocooned doubt and hatred, the antithesis of life