If walls could talk
I wonder what secrets they'd tell
If they were so vocal
I'd be condemned to hell
I'd stand before the judge
begging for mercy on me
For the jury is sure to convict
Guilty on all charges that be
They'd be witness to all my infidelity
They'd be shocking tellers of the cruelty
I would have nothing on which to stand
My reputation would be buried in sand
If the walls of this old house
Ever told on this old louse

Don't look back living history
Look forward to making history

Happy New Year to all

Keeping my eyes on you

considering all the bliss

and . . . what I would miss

if Sunny never rose


Was it just a dream

There so still you lay

The theft stolen warmth

cheeks cold as winter clay


Death's shadow across lips

without their glaze

Forever etched and readied

for eternal grave


Just a nightmare

Troubling enough to awaken

Long rejected fears

and tears and tears and tears


But I see first significant light

I shake off the fright

Seeing your breathing ease

and all will be Sunny now

Your silence is deafening
to my commotion

Silent soft kisses turn
into suffocating hugs
that break the bones of
my desperation

And when all has been crushed
you turn head first
and swallow all my dreams in
anticipation

sunny days are for digestion

So black
So blue
You know that feeling
Don't know what to do

You sit at the desk
Looking out
Looking in
Asking , why can't I win

Black is the night
That my midnight blues
Haunt

Blue is the heart
Broken into a thousand
pieces

So are the memories
That lay black as death
While love ceases

Black are the days past
But the blues live on
they last and last

So be blessed my blues
Black be the rules

When I look out my window
It all seems so cruel

The page ,
wet in rage .

Soaked ,
in pain ,
cloaked .

Confined ,
torn ,
truth unkind

Dismal
bleak ,
so visual

The tears ,
rejection ,
fears .

line ,
after line ,

the fruition
of time ,

the thoughts
unconformed ,

nerves frazzeled
worn . . .

Goodnight love
until we
write again .

I have fire inside my bones
It burns like red hot stones
It is as wicked as glittering gold
I am ****** sober cold

I breathe the breath of fire
I take liberty with desire
I singe everything touched
Overheat your slipping clutch

My heart turns molten steel
Poured out into my will
My footsteps leave a smoking trail
As I tread back home to Hell

Dorthy sat on her swing
clutching Toto in her arms
She was in a trance staring
at imaginary mountains and seas that she dreamed someday she would conquer

The sun set sending a shiver through reality
Then she put her dreams back into her mental pocket and put Toto down and skipped back into the house

That night it rained and in the morning there were rainbow dreams for a sunrise

Meeting of the board members

Giving someone the shaft

Woman on all fours

A progress in the works

Memories in change in a pocket full of holes

.

You !

Long time ago . . .

Indigo . . . ha !

What a name


There on 22nd street south

. . . Midnight's Voice . . .


Remember ?

We were young . . .

real , mean and lean . . .

invincible !

or so it seemed


Those nighthawks in the night sky . . .

diving in the lights

And those inside the bar
looking for a light

It was "Us" and "Them"
and anyone else foolish enough to join

Money was short
but we always made do



Red Mountain . . .

Vulcan . . . before the cage

Jones Valley . . . down below

Everything was up
turn around
and come down


God I loved that Mountaim

. . . it vibrated in magic

Long live the magic . . .

that I've lost


Living within but without

. . . how I wish you were here


________

Tribute to the early 1970's
Birmingham , Alabama

Vulcan - the largest cast iron statue in the world . Made in the image of the God Vulcan sitting on top of Red Mountain . At the time open free to the public 24 hours a day with stairs going up to the top of the head where a 360° balcony overlooked Jones Valley down below . Later so called improvements imposed a hefty entrance fee , an elevator replacing the stairs , and a cage built around the balcony and only open from 8 a.m.to 5 p.m. seven days a week . All of which ruined the magic of seeing uninterrupted views , sunrises and sunsets , stars and lights of the valley below .

Midnight's Voice - a bar downtown Southside where bands played

Nighthawks - a band from Washington D.C. that played often at Midnight's Voice

Indigo - Vietnam vet . I don't know if he was crazy
before 'Nam' but he sure was after . Real name was Ray . Could play one hell of a guitar especially when he got together with Mike McEachern .

It will always be . . . (us , us , us , us , us and them , them , them , them , them . . . after all we were only ordinary men) Pink Floyd

I always wanted to go to Paris . . .

. . . listen to Spainish guitars playing love songs in smoky bars . . .

. . . watch young lovers in love and wonder how it felt . . .

. . . dream about how once upon a time a heart could open like a flower in the night . . .

. . . how it felt to have wet lips upon mine , hot breath full of ache and desire on my neck . . .

The wine eases those day's distance in depth that cradle my thoughts

. . . the memories spin to the strings , bleeding away
in the shadows that remain skin deep in sin . . .

I always wanted to go to Paris . . . listen to Spainish guitars playing love songs in smoky bars . . .

Some day I will

I make my bed on cold hard ground
I raise up long before first rays of dawn
It's a life I choose
I am not bound
I feel it's my way
of being sound

When I keep
my mouth zippered down
I find that my words
not going round
Causing pain on both
ends of stick
And my wounds I
don't have to lick

When upon the woods
I rail
All alone like ship on sail
I find life full of mystery
As truths are revealed to me
Give me time that's unadorned
Oak and acorn  
pine cone woods so thick
Until God blows
out my wick

Black holes are full of light
we can't see
Just like all of us

There is agony in my ecstacy
Pain beneath the scab
I place my dreams on "holding"
as I face the winter's drab

My Earthly loss is settled
My Heavenly gains abound
I'm tempestuous in my room alone
justifying time above the ground


I gift a deadly raptor
The chains have held me blind
I whisper please Lord don't forsake me
Remember me when it comes my time

Poets become a person
no  longer bound by words of deeds
They crumple up the paper
As they cast away the weeds

The words run cold as crystals
forming outside the frozen glass
I still away the moments
like they be unto my last

The blue sky no longer enthralls me
Neither does the night
What used to be so enticing
no longer seems so right

I say , I don't know
way too often now it seems
When sparrows flutter all about
Are they living out their dreams

He was lowered in the water
as the son of man
And when he was raised up
It was as the Son of God
All man on the ouside
All Godly from within
He is the link
from one side
to the other end

I scramble my words like my eggs
Sometimes they are whole
Sometimes hardboiled

I pluck my words off the vine
Super fresh only in my mind

Sometimes it is potted meat
Some call it instant karma

More so lately all my words seemed canned
So it is with words of spam

In the silent bleakness
Stripped limbs down to bare
The harsh fingers cold as ice
where only a fool would dare

I feel the cold
gripping at my heart
I feel the chilling effects
leaving frozen parts

I yell out a hearty welcome
It's not to late I say
For inside my barren body
have your icy way

I feel your anticipation
Your frozen breath upon my face
Soon the numbing brings on
a fateful day of grace

He walks over fresh made graves
Across the grass and flower beds
Wearing a trench coat , leather black
Shuffles across the railroad track
As he approaches you
He tips his hat and how are you
In gravely words of choice
With his whiskey voice

I saw him down at the pub
Drinking Guinness eating subs
With two eyes on everyone
Never turning his back on anyone
Orders up a whiskey straight
Raises a toast ,"To all my mates!"
Left the Erie Half Crown by the plate
With a whiskey voice

The bomb went off with  such a boom
Smoke and fire over loomed
The police and firemen running everywhere
He stood in the shadows over there
Long before the screams and shouts
Had died down before the doubts
The man had long disappeared
With his whiskey voice

I walk the path of
Jeaus Christ
I often stumble
and make a mess

I find sin
again on end
I beg forgiveness
so I can mend

Then I get up
every morning
Take a deep breath
and start again

I am weak
A pathetic soul
A lost sheep
from the 100 fold

My seed falls
amongst the cracks
Raises up stems that
the sun beats back

How I long for
living waters
To cool my my soul
To discard this earthly mold

Til then
I will live in my place
Awaiting the gift
of Holy Grace

He couldn't help it about the shape he was in. He couldn't sing , he wasn't pretty , and his legs were thin . "Oh Well" . No amount of "Black Magic Women" will bring him back again .
Now the "Albatross" glides over the sea of tranquility into the sunset .

For the ice skater
It is better to have
little faith
on thick ice
Than great faith
on thin ice

I rode the waves of the sea
fell overboard and drowned
Sank to the bottom where sea creatures fed on me taking their bytes
And other creatures fed on them passing data around
And soon I was spread out oh so thin
And soon I was a string of dots
One molecule here and there
Within the have nots
And like a web I covered the world
Interconnected

I want to be your everything
but I don't want you to learn to have to cling
I love the space of your confidence
Mentally full of opulence

Someday everything will come true
Together the complications we will undo
Then nothing will block the bridge over our gaps
We will conquer all mishaps

Long have I desired to lay by you
In the darkness breathing in silence just us two
To hold you is more than holding life
for you are my sacred one , my wife

Laying still cheek to cheek
The faintest breaths that come so meek
With lip to lip and hand on hip
And curls across your face I flip

As you lay across my chest
my fingers follow spine up to the crest
The moon has risen and lights up the room
Far away comes the sound of loons

How now is my wish it would stay all night
If came true there would be no morning light
No end to this enchanted interlude
Lost in our eternal solitude

I'm finding there is no peace
Nothing more than simple grief
I'm climbing up a rocking wall
Knowing it's a certain fall
I'm scratching a brick wall with fingernails
Digging blacken tunnels down to Hell

So where do I choose to stand ?
On the blood from my evil hands ?
What do I have to say ?
While the truth quietly slips away

Hey ! Hey ! Hey ! Hey !

So before the moments of sun arise
Before I put on the mask of my disguise
Before I set out on my day
I stop for a second so I may pray

Hey ! Hey ! Hey ! Hey !

And in the center of my mind
I'm still hoping I will find
Looking all around I feel
That someday I surely will

My mental ☆Astronauts☆ . . . take walks in outer space where they become buzzed by lightyears of galaxies left dangling on the edge of the event horizon to my black hole Sun's despair

Do not fear death . . .  
. . . . fear eternity .

Take the boy and girl out of the mansion
Turn off the tide
Raise dust and hordes of locust
American in demonstration
American in consternation

HALLOGEN eyes illuminate the way
Youth tastes great
Sweet on the tongue
Before turning into bitter bile of disappointments

Saw the dead branches off the Tree of Life
Fertilize the tree of Good and Evil
Rake up the leaves of fallen dreams
Once bright and green

. . . looking forward to Sunday off

Have I done Good here on Earth
Or has my life come to worse

Will God reward saying ,"Once again by birth you stood for truth ."


Within the hopes on High that can't unwind
Then the ways of Heart will pass to mind

Will the eyes lie and lead the blind as we stand with transgressions on rewind

Within our time we found our ways
For Time is more than the calendar of our days

When life within reaches the sky
When the light inside is passed on by and by

I believe God is not so far away
If we call with heart he comes to stay

You vanished all too soon
I turned around and you were gone before new moon

I can almost touch your smile
I guess I'm living in self denial

You left us in silence to our grief
Death came out like a hooded thief

It's rare to have known someone with no ill will was spoken about
Now the light inside has taken flight , Heaven bound I have no doubt

Leaving us with everything that was you
The love , joy and happiness ; the moments we all knew

As I look at the stars tonight , at God's creation
I am reminded that everything has it's place ; surely all it's fascination

And I hope I see you again when I reach my final destination
Then there will be no more goodbyes of desolation

The motion of the emotions
flowing through his veins
Screaming in his head
bleeding out the pain

The dazzled days of summer
egregious in their sins
Strip off the sunburst animus
down to blacken skin

The waves crash down upon him
Reeking winds of change
From the ashes of the heat
the phoenix rise again

The plumage new and pure
There is a sparkle in the eye
Ancient knowledge collected
to the questions why

Everyone a phoenix
Yes each and all so true
Stand up from amidst the ashes
God does want you to

Poetry should flow
like a babbling brook
with soothing repetitions
easy on the look

Poetry should thunder
like Niagra falls
Be as serene
as the far off wolfen howls

Poetry should be pure
as a maiden's heart
Full of meade and mischief
from the very start

Poetry should come from the pitch heart of man
Anything less I just can't understand

Someday I hope to be the eclectic
While I sing the body electric

You are growing
changing with the times
Your past no longer pleases you

You need to reach out
to new heights
of exceptionalism

Be not content
with who you are
but who you can be

If you are ever reaching out
you are constantly letting go

I didn't want to
Wasn't planning to
It just happened
like spontaneous combustion

or maybe like Ken used to say
It was osmosis

The thought came to me
One I used to have when I was a kid
When running through the Queen of the forest
One I long ago dismissed
That there was joy in make believe , happiness in magic

A silver sliver pricked my thoughts
Told me hey you , you are not what you're ought
Then kicked pixie dust
in my face

Strange I wasn't angry
Strangely I felt elated
I felt rejuvenated
As magic lit up my way

Everything turned new
Blues were no longer blue
Nor was I inclinded to stay in bed

I know what you're thinking
What's got into his head
Where is he going with all that's said

Exactly !

There are no more made memories
without you babe
No more tasting sweet afterthoughs that you leave between the sheets
without your love babe
There are no fusion fast hugs
that last a half-life long
without all of you babe
No globe of enduring form
to my flat earth existence
No soul to my soil where once the fuse of love exploded . . .
without you babe
There is only the whole Earth embrace of the emptiness of my universe
without any stars . . .
without you babe

It's all there on the front page
Our vain glory has all been staged
We never lost a war
just snuck out the back door
How was it white man's destiny became a red man's leprosy
How this nation was built upon the backs
Of those whip slinging ******* jacks
And where all men are created equal except for women and blacks and latino children
After all God bless America
as long as your white
a good republican , rich or not too bright
There are cracks in its mighty walls
The rebar so corrupted there has to be a great fall
So this drive by history
is an aged metal band
Deep in their seventies
their heads in the sand

The potion was in the lotion
that they put on the back
I heard the train's whistle
on down the side track
Harold flew in from Canada
with a Honda on his back
We called him Ole Weird Hendry
because he was way out of whack
Sharon was unsure that I finally figured out
Harold went on to become a doctor
Along the way I chose to dropout
Now the wheels have spun
and the future is past
My ways were never half empty or full
Cause I tipped over the glass
Now I'm dreaming of streaming memories
while I am looking past back
There's the rub in the lotion
the emotions on back
And I hear the train whistling
coming down track

We lay our passions at our feet
Then step over them in defeat

Sometimes I go way out of my way to decipher , uncover , research what a poet has to say . Sometimes I hit the croquet ball through the hoop . Sometimes I miss and fall flat on my face . But I attempt to return the effort the author went to to write the poem . But I seem to have made too many unhappy and will from now on limit my spill . This will be my last post for the immediate future . Thanks to all my Hello Poetry friends . Peace .

Silence : likened to an ocean
In the deep abyss of sea
For in the coal of darkness
it whispers eternally

Through lips that never smile
Blue from the cold below
In the kingdom of invisibility
Dwell the thoughts that I do know

Like a novel so well written
With pages soaked in sweat
The print is fast fading
The unbinding stays all bet

Scattered by the currents
Distributed out by  line
The pages scream in silence
as if ripping out a spine

Demise is predicated
So is the likelihood they stand
The last words will be spoken
But not from the lips of man

There in the tears of joy
Sings a round moon assuming
Calling to me come home
and be free
Never so astounding
the love flows unfounded
My dear one
won't you come home
Time is fleeting
for those that lingered
now hear they
are weeping
Oh , my dear one
be strong , have faith
let your soul come on home

There was dirt and dried blood
on the face of the child
Round innocent eyes
looking back
I wiped away what I could
The child too frightened to cry
left holding the remnants
of her knickknacks
Now alone on her own
most likely at the
solemn age of four
I wanted to take her home
but the war rages on

The refugees along with the girl
are loaded on the back of the truck
Joe said there's no way in Hell
they'd make it to where they had to go.
"**** ." I muttered under my breath
"How I hate this ******* war ."
"Come on and eat ," said Joe "it may be the last time you know ."

If I close my eyes
so tightly
If I let my grasp
of reality flow
then I can step on the
stepping stones
of yesterday
Back in time I go

I can relive
all the good moments
grieve for what
was then evil
Hug all the thoughts
and all of it's people

It is in the end
that it finds us
Face to face
with Heaven or Hell
I stand on this side
of deliverance
wishing you ever so well

I wish you well


"If your cup is full may it be so again"

Let them wear
the fear
upon their backs
Like over mountain laid
railroad tracks
Catch cans
crashing through
the public gate
A whipping post
upon the backs
of the people's fate
I beg you not
to flee your shame
Instead you must
face the pain

The pain !
That's all's remains
As you swallow hard
all their flames
Your soul as scorched
as Hell beneath
To whom do you
your soul bequeath
I marvel at the cracks
called life
Hogs will wallow in their strife
Watch your steps
and mother's back
Something about you
is just not tight

I look at the words
lying on the paper
And my heart begins to ache
I tried with much effort
But I see that
they're all fake
Somewhere deep inside
the torment does reside
Sometimes one has to accept
that the truth has arrived
Maybe the time has come
The one you ignored but feared
Every writer faces that day
The end to their
writing careers
I take a deep breath
as I look across field
still dreaming of that masterpiece
that to the masses would appeal
It's still all but willing to escape
But what more can I do
to alleviate the pain
when the words stop
flowing through

.
Fifty years ago
to the month
that they laid
you in the ground

.
Only now
have I found
the words
to make a sound

.
You came home
closed coffin bound
Not suitable
to be viewed

.
Only now do I frown
Thinking about
the name in stone
that's hewed

.
That day you died
I was left to cry
I didn't know
what to do

.
Two teenage lives
both said goodbye
never
to be again

.
One under
21 gun salute
The other
under pain

.
They are
still burying you
in my mind
my time has been unkind

.
I've lived through
a thousand deaths
looking for reasons
to find

.
Resigned
I am bound
by the truth
of October '69



Dedicated to :
Marine PFC
William Le Grand Dawes
Born 6/24/50
Died 10/19/69
Quang Ngai Province
Vietnam

School is the sieve through which mediocrity passes .

It takes all manner of forms of personality and forces them through the same sized holes
indiscriminately

The end results are ground meat for brains