I was sitting in my basement thinking about my attic as I awaited the first bombs to drop in the next world war

I guess I'm pretty lucky to understand that metaphysically nothing really is unless we perceive it is so even death by chemical nerve agents can be a pleasurable experience that we come back for again and again

And that time I died before when the only metaphor would have to be trying to guide a wooden canoe across an active volcano

I can't wait to try that again

Every year another person fades in and out of my life
And I can't help but think of them as tiny candles on a birthday cake
adding up over the years
Lights of hope blown out
And wishes that never came true

I've run out of things to say
My thoughts are as empty as my actions
At this point I'm just getting by
Disguising scars
Stretching a smile that cracks chapped lips
Dancing to the sounds of my own inconsistent heartbeats rapid growing pace
Skipping every third or seventh or sixth step
Flailing arms in manic motions that reflect my moods
Who am I?
Who did I used to be?
It doesn't matter
I've run out of things to say
Maybe I'll retire this life tomorrow
Maybe I'll wait till it takes me

There's a dog outside of the mortuary
Leashed to a crying woman
He is excited
He innocently craves the bones
That composed his former companion
He salivates
He does not know

Days in America spent with poems and jazz
Switching from deep dark black coffee to Jasmine Tea
This typewriter called to me
Jack has been talking at me through recordings I play while I shower because the quiet is becoming too much
And when I leave for work the quiet is all I'm going to want
But for now I burn some incense hoping that the old typewriter case
Would smell musty no longer and instead have that heavenly smell
Of Orange cinnamon

Days in America when I go to work
Shelving library books and the similar media for four hours
While I sit and watch all the people
The regulars include the old lady who can't seem to catch her breath as if she just sprinted the news of victory from Marathon to Athens
And then the bearded Buddhist wise man
Or at least I consider him so from the stacks of words of the Dalai Lama he returns weekly and proceeds to saunter to the 290s, home of the Zen speaking and Buddhist discourse
I don't think I could ever be Buddhist because the world feels too real and I feel too real
Especially when my back aches from the lift and lower to shelve each to its own
And in comes the couple who only call each other babe
In they come with voices I can only describe as whiny
I hate to portray them in such a way but yet those voices make it seem they were born in love and in the end will die with the tone of love on their lips and the word babe in their heads

American nights where I drive home to eat or drive to Nick's to pick him up so the whole gang can eat and play cards and rant and yell like we do each Monday
Or this past Sunday when the destination was Waffle House and I was reminded that young love is a sorrowful dog-eat-dog affair
You want to truly know the American night?
Turn to new old friend Thomas Wolfe
Let him tell you of nights in Asheville and New York and the nights of even Europe and how they are all the same and endless
Just as time is endless
Can you already tell I love time?
I love the contextual seasons and when I try and talk plainly about the American night I lose all words because we've all been there and we all know and there's nothing more I need to say
American days and American nights can all feel the same
And we all eat sleep live breathe bleed
This cycle

In one of the darker moments of his life
Jack Kerouac wrote
"Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word."
And now we turn to a man
Who sits on the edge of a bed
That for almost twenty years he has rested on
He too waits for the golden and eternal things
The time for mourning is over he whispers to a solemn heart
It has been two years since he walked across a stage and was handed a piece of paper that told him "as your childhood ends your life can begin"
And everyday he works and sweats and toils to keep feeling as alive as he did at age 17 when he walked along Rocky Mountain Rivers
At 15 when he was entirely convinced that he was in love
At 13 when he believed jokingly that he was an alien not meant for this place and deep down honestly believed that he truly wasn't meant for this place
And now nearly 20 he sits and his eyes are filled with tears for a man who died 58 years before he was born
But our heroes heartbreak is now
And again the night time freight train pounds less than a mile away and a whistle like a voice calls out
"Sleep is the rest you ask for
Why must you sit so late in the evening and worry yourself to a death which won't come tonight?"
The man knows too well that the best time to mourn the loss of a person is when you first meet them
Too many nights of his youth he spent bargaining with someone near to his heart so they would quit their talk of dying
But when a day came where he thought they had finally done it he froze and did not dare speak
But they lived and he refuses to ever forgive himself for his silence
Life and time are immortal concepts but one must accept that loss is true  
And what of the golden and eternal things?
In those dark moments Kerouac says he saw the image of the cross in a nervous breakdown and take that to mean whatever you want but this man know what it means to him
So on this night he cries because a man in flesh is not eternal
But the sound of the freight train is enough to comfort him with that fact
That the golden and eternal are out there and coming.
And there will be no need for words

you know where
I currently reside
it's the same place as always
I never move my perch is safe
so my abode need never move
you may be like the wind
always on the move
just for movements sake
but I am stone
as eternal as anything can be.

don't just
toss away
what you earn
it may be all
honey and wine today
but those days never last
keep something saved
for when it rains.

darkness signals the
retreat into
the shell
of sea-side
sounds.
they whisper
innermost thoughts
of blindness and
profound seconds
of suspended
fallen flowers.

the recluse
can see more
in the deepest night
than the lightest
day.

thoughts circle with
the stars, as the
atrophy of apathy
begins
and the menagerie of
faltering frowns
follows.