My labor of words
My words of labor
Far into the night
looking for the common denominator

Like a sculptor
and his chips of marble
Words fall from my thoughts
Off my tongue they
will tumble

Envious of those whose words can progress
Eloquent in manner
their efforts so blessed

I only dream of a maybe ,
some day
But it seems all of my efforts only change
straw into hay

Perhaps no such work
will ever exist
Still I move on
I endure , I persist

Walking hand in hand
Long wet kisses in the night
Laughing over nonsense
Reading love letters by candlelight

Breathing in the salty ocean air
Walking through the pastures
with wild flowers
everywhere

Holding the love that holds yours back
Making future plans
without a future
Sort of like the life
of the trapeze *******

Back and forth
until one day you fall

I see you wither on the rocks as a seed in your despair

The fire of depression burning away all that you had for which you cared

I squat beside flames as witness to the lack of any warmth to share

So burn away the moments as I ask was there nothing more so rare

Nothing now dear poet remaiins other than the ashes upon your lips

But this Phoenix will not rise anew to this world today

Something I will learn to accept that you chose to go , not stay

I tried to cut the wind once
But no mater how hard I slashed
It was all a futile effort
In the end I was abashed

It grew angry with me
It's patience grew so thin
Then the cold wind cut right through me
as if foolishness was my only sin

I was a busy bee in clover
I would hover above the pretty flowers
Drinking their sweet nectar in
and passing away the hours

The blossoms were so many
The fields so ever wide
I shared all of my golden pollen
From petal to petal
I flied

Some flowers tried to hold me
Their alluring scents filled the air
They dazzled in many colors
Sashayed with seductive flare

Then they tried to finger me
Tried to attach their silky strings
But when they thought they could handle me
I let them have my sting

Buzz off . . .

I come to paint rainbows
upon your heart of
depression . . .

To turn your lips into emerald coast isles

Where light bleaches away the dark
and purifies the sand between your souls

Let me caress new feathers
of flight
that provides the freedom to soar in the winds from
distant shores

Where every breath is
a possibility of dreams come true

Bright yellows and greens
Orange and teals
As you walk the edge
between red and blue
and bleed royal purple
for those to see
who always weighed
their anchors of doubt
in your sea of despair

I'm going so fast . . .
I can't get my feet off the ground
My mind cha-chinging
With no thoughts to go around
Everything on you girl
You turn and twirl
Ah-Ha ! Yah-Hey !
Blowing smoke rings
makes it all seem okay

Winter rose in the curved road
Even in the golden sunlight
Your smoky breath
belies the warmth beneath the cold
For tonight's lover
Is on your side cover
Ah-Ha ! Yah-Hey !
Going so fast
somebody has to pay

Sometimes . . .

broken bones

and

broken hearts

don't grow

back straight

The token of emotions
laid bare upon
the tongue of my
ineptitude
plague the awkward
days of youth
when all are thrown
to the lions of love
to be devoured
. . . do any survive ?

Love ?
Does she give you time for questions before pulling you under ?

It was Tuesday morning


I was thinking what have I got to lose ?


Lace , wilting roses , ***** sunshine .

Has it gotten to the point
you make it hard

What we are made of
is but our lingering past

The yellowing days of our future that was to be

Our love was not to be just another

Friday evening
What have you got to lose

I know your secret

But I lost the key

Why do you have to make it so hard ?

I will never be what I wanted to be . . .

. . . as I sit on the dunes looking at the sea . . .

I contemplate what was , what is , what is due

I watch the waves come in and crash , recede , and crash again

So were my chances that came in waves , receded and crashed again

My life's foundation resides on these impermanate dunes

I cannot stand for long on the shifting sands ,
changing with the winds of time , before I am forced to move

Motion made me . . .
The vibration of the small details
I know you know but you never told me

I will never be what I wanted to be . . .

But that doesn't matter anymore

I weave the shroud of aches that last
With the threads of friendships past
My ocean remains so deep
In the remnants of the words I choose to keep
I collect the smiles from lips I see no more
Left to wonder where to implore
Another thread has come to edge
The end and exit
from the stage
No longer do they open doors
Nor leave a shadow upon my floor
No there no longer comes those knocks
As if the hands have stopped upon the clocks
So in my mental loom of care
I leave another row of thread with much more room to spare

They will bury me in my shroud
Someday sunny, perhaps in cloud
And I will be richer beyond the grave
In the memories of friends that I have made

Nothing like southern summer heat and red clay dust on the sweaty skin of reality .

It would **** me now and notch another nick on the barrel of time with a defiant smile of victory
Why wouldn't it , never having known defeat making all bow down in submission to their accepted fate

All those fearless words of defiance . "Go not gentle into that goodnight "

I wait on the rain due upon the last breath of night
Just like it waits on my last breath of life
Come thunder , I see not your light . Let me feel the vibrations of the voice of God . Let me walk this way alone together

I'm thinking of the edge
The words you so cut to form
The critical eye that captured every detail
I marveled at the brilliance
of the most mundane
you raised to glory
One
. . . two
. . . . . . three
I relish the dark
secure in my isolation
I am left to my own
Godly imagination
. . . my magic carpet that takes me back into my past
to those moments good and bad , sweet and sour ,
etched into history , words chiseled into stone

The most isolated city in the world
Only fitting you would plant your roots and thrive
. . . one
. . . . . . two
. . . . . . . . . three

How can I read your poetry
when even in silence
I fear the most
Life , a twisted cornucopia
of blood , hair , bone
I hear the prayer calls
and hide in the shadows
The narrow streets
have eyes hidden in cloth
always watching . . . in silence
Even in my disguise I stand out . . . a foreigner
I smell different , walk different , am different
The white hot sands are covered in ashes
The ashes of dreams and the lives that are no more

How can I read your poetry when I am living in the bowels of the words

The lines become those narrow streets of hostile intent

The paragraphs become those eyes always watching me everytime I turn around

Here on the rooftop late at night there's that **** silence as thick as the sticky heat that I can't escape

How , I ask so disconcertedly , can I even get beyond the title

Maybe the plane won't be delayed tomorrow

I pray a Christian prayer before first call

. . . . how ?

Some will walk away their cares as if they walk up or down the stairs into or out of oblivions face as their mask of poetry falls from place onto the floors with checkered squares that are covered and littered with their words like flares from phrases of I don't care punctuated with the stuffings from ripped apart stuffed bears flogged by improper English weilded stares as imperfect hands in braile will yell skin deep in demeanor not so hard to tell or keep and no doubt to all I have to say as I wave my hands goodbye good day.

We were hard wired
not easily bent
Loaded down with time
The hours were not easily spent
Full of anxious glance
Irritating sigh
Thinking all the while
How could we get high
Piled into a fast car
Laughing and grins
We were bound
Tied to sins
We paid the price
We split the dues
Watch the wheels spin
Watch the boys in blues
Oh , sweet summer air
Eliminates all our cares
Make it legal
Nay , all they say
Oh , sweet summer air
Eliminated all our cares
Oh Oh Oh Oh
Sweet summer air

Retribution - hangover

Divisive - Mack the Knife

Walls - fear

Incomprehension - failed state of mind

Reality - life

Death - retribution

I used to have hangovers
now I have retribution

I used to be divisive
it was because of fear
so I built walls around me

Reality was my failed state of mind . Life was incomprehensable

Especially death until I realized that death is retribution and one has to live after death to have retribution

Life is meatloaf
King of all leftovers
Enjoy
Make it so

.
..
...
....
Rush Limbaugh

born between two sunsets
dust and sand in shoes
mojave bottled blues

sang under deserted stars
as time eternal flew
the roadrunner blew

sidewinder breath
black-tailed jack rabbit's foot
Fingernails caked in soot

never swore on luck
used a rock for his head
as he laid on the cold sand's bed

everything he made held between thumb and nail
like the posters tell

between the hard lines
he was forced to cross
between last breath and loss

between a moonrise
chilling sunrise fate
opens a starry gate

restless hidalgo dunes
slowy covering stones
and wind swept bones

I just wanted to initialize you
Instead you made your acronym at home

Did I say
I love you . . . (no)

Not even from the
highest low ?
Nor from the
lowest high ?

My love is running up the hill
A wolf sleeping in the grass
A silver stream running fast in dreams
A piano in pain

I hear the hounds of love
The clicks of red shoes
The exhalation of locomotive breath
In the winter's gale

Only one way out
can't walk out the door
Eleanor Rigby
Elizabeth Reed
They don't exist anymore

Time passed me by like the skipping stones of my youth on the waters of life

blue jeans are made of these
  1. Belt loops
  2. Rivets
  3. Perhaps patches on the
     knees
  4. Zippers
  5. Button fly instead
  6. Frayed ends from
     countless days on end
  7. Indigo dye
  8. Dried blood that never
     came out
  9. White paint speckled
     about
10. All the memories made
11. Treasures that were
      blue jean made

He walks into the room
Looks side to side
Wants every one to notice
He's got David Bowie eye

He steps onto the stage
He's not into raves
He's got one blue eye
He's the latest rage
He's got David Bowie eye

Starts out with a howl
Comes down to a low growl
He throttles your attention
You feel hypnotized
He's got David Bowie eye

Like a thumderstorm
Comes the light before the boom
Explodes on stage
But he never never moves
Unless he captures you
In his David Bowie Eye

I was eighteen
a twisted vine and green
I went to California
I had dreams

I rode trollys
I was full of folly
I crossed the Golden Gate
Broke off sacred holly

I wanted to find myself
In and of itself
I found out who I wasn't
An inconvience of oneself

As hard as I tried the
tears for nothing I cried
My blood wasn't home
Yes you are ! I lied and lied and lied

I'm nothing special
I'm not spatial
A fish gulping air
A lost looking ******

So go back home
Feel it in the bone
So I rode the bus
California ! I moan


(Eureka ! I have found it !)
California State Motto

I would love to love you
(your quick and wicked mind)
Oh , but turns the page of time
I lay you down in rhyme

I lay the shackles of time
at my feet
Every day/link a witness
to the futility
and the uncertainty
of the doom we are
determined to meet

It's my moment
to whorsip the silence
When the nothingness
rages deep within my
darkest soul

People speaking without
the vibrations of truth

Whose mental motions
are bound to the rusted loops of determination

The digital hacksaw bytes
the grooves of litany
sending shivers of silver through the cloud of crystal clarity

I lay the shackles that
denoted my existance
at my feet and step over
the finality forever

For silence will be my final refuge . Let me lay down in ground and pull the gray clouds over me and go to sleep forever

Once upon a time
these many years ago

I never dreamed
I would be the one

The face in broken
mirrors with the ****

A lone voice whispering
A call out in artic ice

The nighthawk's spirit
Dive and flash

Over and over
again and again

In darkness sure
swift and enveloping

I guess you never know
No , remains the mystery

Hush ! I'm listening
Waiting on the voice

Can you hear it ?
The Midnight's Voice ?

(Sigh)

It's been so long
so very long .

I dug the holes
and covered the acorns
with the disembodied
spirit of hope

Maybe in death
life would live

I hold on tight
to the frozen
dawns of winter's
demise

The days grow
in rows of  
interpretude
Collecting
pole dancing soltices
and bi-polar
equinoxes
chardonarily
intoxicated
in literary analyses
from southern France


Ah , but those acorns
so full of promise
Maybe they will oak out
and I can someday
be the earthern
reality infusing
the return of
spring again

I am the emptiness
between the page
The long nights labor
without a wage

I am the text
without a spine
Electronic beasts
line after line

I am the way
backwards : a yaw
A keychain made
from a rabbits paw

I am the wind
that makes sailors dream
The separation of milk
and all of it's cream

I am the footsteps
across the hot sand
A ringless finger
attached to your hand

I am the breath of life
given to you
The taste on tongue
The morning dew

And by now you're
asking me for a clue
Sorry about that
It's left up to you

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