I once saved the world
on a grey and gloomy day in October.

I allowed the endless rains
to drown out what had become
of the people.

I watched as their altered bodies
vanished like stones beneath the sea.

I filled my Barge with a pair of Quetzl Hummingbirds,
two shy Monkeys, a family of Wild Mustangs and two of the last Dragons on Earth.

I brought along the Mountain Poppy to help me forget.
Marigolds for the Dead, White Mountain Sage for Blessings and the strong magical Hemp plant for more than just ropes.
Pockets full of Maize kernels and Squash seeds for starting over

As many devoted Honeybees as their Queen would allow.
Tiny fruit Bats and a pair of loyal Patterdales.
Feral Cats who trusted me and plenty of stow away Rodents who would spend their time aboard in hiding.
Cattle and Geese, Spiders and talking Parrots all made their way aboard.

I talked a Native Girl whose blood ran the same shade as my own into joining me.

I left behind the destructive ones and convinced myself it was all for the better of our future.

We waited out the second cleansing of the Earth, we passed the time forgetting what it was we had become.
We witnessed the New Sun circle above the New Earth and followed the Albatross to what was to be our home.
Our bare brown feet sunk into the pristine white sands as she took my hand leading me forward to a place no man has ever been.

We took in what was left for us to live with.
We for the first time felt what it was we had forgot.

I watched as a Quetzal Hummingbird flit before a strange Orange flower then onto the next.
The Monkeys gorged themselves in the fruit trees ,dropping seed pits to the forest floor.
The feral cats chased the rodents and the honey bees flew in a tight swarm while protecting their Queen.

Our goal was to forget it all and begin anew.
All we thought we knew was to be forgotten.

All was as it should be.
All moved about as one.

You got to look
hard for the good,
for the enlightenment.
Its there,
its always been there,
like that pitch fork
shaped birth mark
on the back of your
knee.
Its there,
though you rarely
take the time
or the effort it
takes  to
see it.

Sometimes its in
plain sight,
like the rock fish in
the coral.
Stare into the
pillars of your
memory.
Seek out the
happy times
like bees do
to pollen rich
Marigolds.

You can find it
in Low Bars
and trash laden
streets.
Cheap made up
Women and
in cold locked
down  jail cells.
It may be the
words you find
as you read passed
missing pages of
a book left behind
by the prisoner
before you.

Laugh in their grin
strained faces
then smile to yourself.
Smile for the memories
and know that I
and the Gods
are smiling with
you.

This is What I Do.

What I do brings
immortality.

The Words will
always outlast
the Labor.

American Mothers
whose husbands
pray to Muloc
loyal only to
their lodge.
Raise their sons
as daughters
and their daughters
as breeders.

Wealthy American
mothers
teach their infants
Mandrian Chinese.
Quietly preparing them
for the future.

The
hardest
pill to
swallow
is the
one
you
know
you
need

I may not
have chosen
what most see as
an ideal life.
In doing so
there has been
and will be
many of things
I will never know
the joy of.

I am not
alone upon this
broken red path
littered with
missing bricks.

There are others
who weep tiredly
in the dark.
Others who spend
their every waking hour
drinking or using .
Trying everything
cheap and easy
to fill all that
you have
thrown away

In the eyes of
the Gods we
are not
forgotten.
They do still
cast their shine
upon me.

Their way of
acknowledging
the fact that unlike
most I have chosen
the Hard way.

And even
that Hard Way
gives way to
rewards.

She offered me *******.
I took the balloon from her hand instead.

Music radiating like warm shockwaves across the desert.
Found a spot next to a speaker, the bass wore over me like swells across the sea.
I took in the gas and exhaled kind of fast.

Sat back and closed my eyes and rode the waves throughout the halls of my memory.
There's a bass speaker banging against my back  and my chin has found its home against my chest.

Kids  don't do it for any other reason besides cuz its there.
There'll be a fight tonight in a narrow dirt alley with bee hives in the trees.

A slim gorgeous hand with silver rings on the thumbs pulls me from the ground and leads me toward the stairs.
Flip top cans and short dog bottles filled the empty hands of all those we passed.

I came here for a reason.
I can't remember what it was.

Too much to drink  and too many young beauties to settle for just one.

They teach the children how to share until they're old enough to buy and sell their own shares.

She offered me ******* then corrected me and said
"No this is Speed."
Again I passed on the Go and took a  balloon from inbetween her manicured fingertips.

She watched me as I put the open end toward my dry lips.
Then she popped my balloon with
a pink painted
,pointed finger nail.

"Those were mine *******."
Then she turned and walked away.

The rail road tracks
dont divide this
city.

The heart of any
place lays not
within its rulers.

Bar keeps
do their duty
and keep the
highballs filled.

A single room
with a stained
matress and a
million dollar
view.

This is'nt their world
theirs is based on
comfort
and comfort
has its own
section in the
city.

That section
is'nt ment for
those trying only
to survive.

I gave into it ,
put down my fighting knife
and succumbed to it.

Like a fallen Palmetto
to the untamed selfish sea,
I fell into it.

Found myself weightless
and dry of tears,
relived of the rush
of the heart.

Veins thick with the
Poppies warmth.
Slack faced towards the heavens
in search of something more.

Saw her face made up of
unnamed stars and canceled out
all other constellations.

It took hold of me,
like the mouth of the wolf
it devoured me.

I was open and couldn't
deny.

That there was nothing of this blood
ruled earth to compare with the beauty
of a star dressed night .

I watered
my thoughts
with moments.

Tiny moments.
Moments forever
trapped
within the
cloudy hollows
of my
experience.

What has
bloomed forth
became
all of this.
This of which
has blossomed
from
tiny moments.

Tiny,
like the feet
of the girls
named
Jade in China.

Tiny moments.
Moments
I thought
grand enough
to share with you.

Drug along my gratitude
through the open doors
of wisdom.

Found myself stepping
into a world painted
in blackness.
With only dim city
street lights to dye the
air faded shades of
green,yellow
and red.

Far off in the land
of memory rainbow slicked
Harbor waters lap at ancient
breakwall  stones like slow
rhythmic veiled maidens.

I count the blue lights along
that familiar span across
the fuel laced waters.

Then all at once
I pull myself from
yesterday and back into
the golden light of Nimrods
dawn.

I return to what is no longer
blackness.

It comes to me that another
tomorrow has already arrived
a day worth of hours ago.

I roamed as free as
the wild green parrots
and the grandiose peacocks
all up and down
the darkest street
in San Pedro.

Our yard was without
boundaries and full of the buried
treasures of the past.
I'd spend summer days
digging in patched
kneed jeans.
Pulling from the dirt
old time cork top bottles
that once held
***** laced syrups and
other types of liquid joy.

When another ones life needed
saving the red flashing  lights
of fury lit the darkness with faint
hues of shifting reds as the
chariot of death sped past our
grand window.

The pill box shaped hospital sat
atop the hill like a morbid
kings Gothic castle.
Always overlooking
the lightless way.

Memories of our golden *****
running proudly across the canyon ,
a ***** white free roaming
hen still flapping
between her saliva,blood soaked
jaws.

Or the back street rushing
with brown garbage laden
runoff as the heavens opened
and cried rain upon the earth.

I didn't stand a chance up against
the pull of the *******
the dragon and all the
crimes and times away
it brought with it.

I laughed and fought along
side the ****** ones
and became apart of
something more than me.

I learned the true meaning
of the number 13
and earned the right to tattoo it
on my young body like the
true symbol of valor  
it is.

Life on the darkest street
in San Pedro
where the fall leaves of the
Eucalyptus
and the fruit trees burned
lasting colors of
yellow ,orange and red.

Those early years on the darkest
street in San Pedro
where my young mind took in
all the bad it could.

Coming of age on the
darkest street in San Pedro
with most of whom who are
long since dead.

My young life so long ago
on the darkest street in
San Pedro
brings about some of the
brightest memories
I have today.

To have
watched
him die
a
painful,
blood letting
death
would have
been far better
than
witnessing his
slow,sad
demise
through
that one way
entrance
and
into the
realm of
insanity.

Every moment I
spent with her
was somehow
filled with a
full hug or
a soft kiss.

Her kitten
soft touch fills
the memories I've
kept hidden
from us all.

We made Love
more than we
slept, enjoyed
eachothers
company more
than the meals we
never finished.

She'd enjoy
the fancy salads
while I abused the
wine.

There were
more smiles
than curses,
less talking
and more
listening.

But what
made it all so
much more
than
any other
time before.

Was the fact
that there was
more laughing
than talking.
Which
left little to
no room for
foolish arguing
at all.

They made it difficult to hear
a man speak of his heart.

It was the world as it truly is that set this free.
It let me in while breaking me out.
It saved me.
It showed me.
It allowed me to be.

Those Greats before me
how I long to one day be.

I don't need a Master .
How many more out there like me.

I cry when I write .
That's when my mind allows me to see.

Drop down ,take a knee.
There's water all around us .
Its above us.
And bellow us.
Its almost all of you.
And its almost all of me.

It wasn't hard to walk away.
It was the history that made me want to stay.

I never believed in what their books had to say.
If everything is a Lie then somewhere
there must be truth.

Beneath the Firmament that's where I'll stay.
Worry more about what your heart tries to say.

They make it uncomfortable to hear what it is
a mans heart has got to say.

I'm a documented failure
according to their thick,
dog eared records.

My inability to remember their lessons
or go along with their beliefs.
All stored away in a dusty locked
file cabinet that
I"ll never be able to see.

It's easy to label the young
for the young depend on the old
for knowledge.

How can I be such a failure
when all they ever taught me
was lies.

It's blackened,
like the eyes
of the scavenging gulls.
It beats in
irregular patterns,
much like the native
upon the sacred drum.
And on slow mornings
it gives to pause.
Like the wanderer pauses
to look back across the
flames and at all that
has burned with the
Love and the
sun kissed days.
All that are now only
scares upon the
memory.
All so long ago.

From the heavens
come the
waters.

Where from
does the
waters come?

Photographs taken on glass plated negatives.
Capture moments such as the Hangman
in the town square with the crude cut eye holes
in a dusty burlap executioners hood.

Pictures tell more than just a story.

Magicians meet in secret.
They sit around with their deep hats.
Shirts worn with Mother of Pearl
square cut cuff-links on the
ends of deep sleeved, steam
pressed, thin cotton shirts.

They meet in silence and sit in a pentagon formation
awaiting a secret to be shared.
None ever are yet the meetings are still held.

Men and only Men who all consider themselves
apart from the Lower men with their Lower wives.
Whose children they see as gifts for their Gods.

Small funny hats and small strange
aprons and a long sleeve shirt with mother of pearl
square cut cuff links.
No secrets here are ever revealed.

Young Virgins with innocent white, long skirted dresses
wear Baby's Breath halos atop their combed,
braided hair for protection.
Running through fields of wild honey suckle
brushing the palms of their hands
along the opened flowers.
Spreading pollen as they move across the field.

A ****** faced stranger who wore his
guns hung low across the hips the way killers do,
watches from atop his restless stallion.
Gamebirds stood stone still with the grass
as the stranger fixed his eyes on the plains below.

With his gloved magic hand he feels
his square cut cuff-link through the
gloves worn leather hyde and
prides himself on his patience
before moving in for the ****.

Crazy, times moving too fast
not enough time to know about anything
before that anything becomes something
that's already passed.

Don't forget your coat,
don't forget to write home,
don't forget about me.

Holidays wicked holidays
filled with fire and days gone by.
Days you can't help but remember,
days you count the days until its return again .

Holidays act as a place in time
you wish you can live again.
Again like the memories that flash,
the smiles we wore and the wine.
The sweet summer wine.

Some only remember what the wine
hasn't already wiped away.

Celebrate with me this one day
that we all remember.
All the days after this are but a break in time.

Time that's taking all the good you had in you
and all the days spent chasing a little bit
of my yesterdays.
Until my yesterdays are too forgotten.

Another holiday approaches and
we prepare to do it all over again.

Do not
let any
of this
define me.

None of
this is
written with
a purpose.

These words
just are,
there is
no goal.

It's all
at the
mercy of
random
events.

Silent is the world
while high on *******.
Delicate are the choices
made at 2AM.
Forgetful is what one
becomes when all
they wish upon
is death.
Lost is the soul
of the addicted ones
who long no more
to be home.

It was the form of her
breast that rose
beneath
a paisley print shirt
that caught my attention.
Her blue jeans
hugged at
her hips as if fitted
by the
Gods themselves.

She laughed and
we drank,
she caressed my
arm as if it
was a massive
display of
muscle.

For the slightest
of seconds
the look in her eyes
changed
as she stroked my
skinny arm.
Her eyes said she knew
that my form
was not that of
a muscular man.

She continued
to smile and that
look of disappointment
had gone from her
eyes as she stayed
and played
out the
fantasy anyway.

It Shows you
just how sadly
powerless you truly
are  in the form
of grinding
dull aches to the
lower back and
the calves .

It cuts in line
in front of the
brushing of the
teeth,
the cleaning of the
body,the caring for
another and
the life that must
stand aside and
wait to be lived.

It's the warmth
that becomes your
lover,
the obsession with
feeling nothing but
the Poppies love.

One can't explain
the why's  and the
how's of the
Magical Poppy.
One tries to
reason with the
Dragon
and discovers that
it is the monkeys
grip that brings
the pain.

This life is a ride on
the back of a wild
untamed horse,
whose need to run
free across open
pastures
turns one into a
version of himself
he never knew
existed.

It's been 7 years today since my last release from Prison.
The longest I've been home since I was 15.

I made a lot of bad choices along the way
most of which only hurt myself and my family.

Prison is no place to grow up in,
I learned how to shave in prison,
got my first tattoo, lost my first love
and learned what things like
loyalty and sacrifice really meant.

I wasted a lot of good years in there
most of them due to someone else's weakness,
fears and inability to accept the consequences
of their own actions.

It hasn't been easy and I've missed out on a lot.
But I can go to sleep and look at myself in the mirror
knowing that I never gave anyone up.
I remain loyal
and I'm still here.
Even though there are
those who wish I wasn't.

Insight
is what
makes
my
thoughts
Unique.

Its Torture.
The cruel
painless kind.

Torture.

Like watching her
from the shadows
as she  
Loves her new Lover
while you're
still so alone.

Within my
mind I've said
a word then
spelled out
in ryhm.
It sounds so perfect
within my
mind.

My quivering lips
mouth the
word in silence.
Im afraid to try.

Listen to my struggle
and you shall see
why it is I choose
to hardly speak.

Its the stammer.

The God given
gift which has
held my
opinions hostage.
Prevented me from
approaching her
and telling her
what she secretly
longed to hear.

Forced me at times
to remain silent
when there was
so much more I
had to say.

This stammer
provides
cruel children
reason enough to be
even crueler.
I speak around certain
words and
communicate
more with the hands.

Kind souls
finish sentences
for me as I fight
for my voice.
Never  knowing that
their attempt
at being helpful
only drives this silent
knife even deeper.

This Stammer has
barricaded what
I need to say
somewhere
within that dead
and maimed space
between
my mind and
my speach.

I'm tunneling my
way out of this
self contained  
prison.

Word by
written word .

I'm slowly
finding
a way for
this silent
and crippled
voice
to finally
be heard.

A
Blackbird
chased
crickets
in the
grass.

I could make out familiar shapes in the darkened single room apartment.
A thin bar of flashing neon red came in through the minor separation in the resin stained curtains.
I secured the door with the cheap throw latch and the thin chain.
She heard the click then spoke from deep within the darkness.
"Is it locked?"she asked, even though she knew it was.
"Yea" I answered knowing that she needed to hear me say it in order to calm the  madness in her head.
I switched on a shadeless lamp as she nodded her head and mumbled something to the demons who lived inside of her.
She sat cross legged on the neatly made bed  picking bits of  lint off the folded pink comforter while humming a song I had never heard.
I looked her over before she had a chance to turn the lights back out like she always did.
Her bangs hung over her deep pocket eyes and her nails had all been bitten down to the flesh.
It looked like she had dyed the tips of her hair a greenish blue color.
She had one of my old Black Flag T-shirts on and baggy black sweat pants. Her light brown almost amber eyes were blood shot.
  Her blinks were slow almost robotic and she had a fresh light scratch across her chin.
She looked good compared to the last time I had seen her.
  I moved carefully across the room toward the tiny kitchen and switched on  the light.
The single bare bulb flickered itself to life as the cockroaches all fled and vanished like magic.  
  I heard her move from the bed to the door as she checked the lock.
Then click off the lamp before her hurried footsteps took her back toward the safety of her bed.
  I left the honey bun and the beef jerky on the counter where I knew she'd find it later on when she was hungry. I stopped and took a Tupperware bowl from the cupboard and placed it over the snacks to keep the roaches away.
  She had  stopped eating in front of me over a year ago.
Right around the time she made me move out.
  I found some ice cubes in her empty freezer and came back out carrying the ***** and a plastic cup.
I topped off the cup and took a moment to let the ice melt.
I swirled the cup in a clockwise motion and tried not to stare at her.
I took a swig  before handing it to her.
She took the cup in both hands without ever looking up.
She slurped her drink and released a tiny gasp as the fire burned down into her gut.
  I sat down  on the edge of the bed and waited for her to come around  like I always did.
I  leaned in toward the 13' black and white TV she never  watched and turned it on.
The television  played only static    I noticed there was no cable or rabbit Ears attached to it then wondered if there ever had been.
  I flipped through the static covered channels until  she said
"Leave it there". So I did.
  I leaned back on my elbows  and felt her hand rest on my shoulder.
I carefully placed my own hand on top of hers, she almost pulled away as I did so.
But something deep beneath  the madness that had taken her away from me stopped her. She gently stroked my hand with her thumb.
I couldn't help but grip hers a little tighter all in hopes of maybe in some way bringing her back from that child like state she had fallen into almost 2 years ago now.
There we sat almost  holding hands like the way we used to do.
Both of us staring at the static littered TV screen.  
All was silent all except for that sound of her humming that song I couldn't recognize and the static from the television she never watched.
The static that filled the air with that timeless white noise of confusion.

To think
I wanted only
you to read
my work.

Can you Imagine
I wanted only
you to take
in all
that I
presented.

Like blood
offerings
atop a
ancient
pyramid,
I sacrificed
great chunks
of me on
paper.

All  in
hopes of
reaching
beyond that
frown you wore
in those
final soul
******* days.

I thought
I knew you.
The way I knew
you were smiling
in the dark

The way I
knew the
answers to
those questions
only your
eyes knew how
to ask.

I hoped you
of all people
would
get something
out of
all of this

Understand
how much
of me
these words
take to be.

To think I
didn't share
any of this
with anyone
for years.

Foolish
is the only
word I hear.

I leaned in close
enough to smell
the rubber of the hoses
now keeping him alive.

For the second time in my
life I was at a loss for words.

I rested my hand ontop of his own
and said,
"God is Real, Please Remember me."

The machine was now silent
as a families worth of tears
fell to the floor.

No more Pain.

Any fool can laugh
amongst the crowd.
Any blank slated
mind can learn to
be better.
Almost all the virgins
left in our world
will one day know
lust.
Theres not too
many who can cry
comfortably in the
dark.
There aren't very
many originals
anymore.
Not just any
one can grow
fond of fear.
There hasn't
been many men
who can take it
like Bukowski
did.
And there's little to
none of the openness
,the fondness one
can only create when
the mind collides with
the soul and pours it
all out with the
hand that holds
the pen.

I found her
drunk and
shoeless,
ankle deep
in the sand
screaming
curses into the
sea.
She called the
circling Gulls her
guardians,
the bottle she
held a
sword.

I asked her
for a reason
and all she
spoke of was
the past.

She reached
to me and took
my arm,
made me
promise not
to ever leave.

I gave her
my word
which she
had already had.

These thoughts
we shared became
magic.

She opened her
arms to me
and I stepped
into her hug.
She smelled of
sweet sweat and
salt water,
a citrus scent
lingered from her
golden sun
blessed  hair.

Dismissing all
the heartache
I took in what she
had to offer.
Sandy kisses,
drunken promises
and all.
I held her tight
and quietly
begged the
Gods to never
let her go.

I placed
soft kisses along
her sand littered
deep tanned
shoulders.
She ran her
bitten down nails
along the back
of my neck.

Somewhere behind
us the world
cast judgement upon
our Love.

We sat as one
watching the children
chase the tide away.
Both of us
quietly wondering how
long this moment
would last.
Our time was now
but our time was
always ending 
as another
version of the
sun burned deep
into the sea.

Half way through the day I discovered it was a holiday.
I checked the calendar in the kitchen just to be sure.
I stood by the sink and looked out at the day
and I still didn’t feel like celebrating.

The guy next door gets drunk on
Sundays.
I watched his wife get ******* while he was at work.

I started a story the first line was this:
“A brown bagged bottle of Strawberry Hill with cherry lip-gloss around the end sat in an empty locker as the Cheerleaders cheer some cheesy ryming song”

When the Light was accepted the drunks
in the bars blocked the windows and the doors.

The dancing girl remained that pale beautiful
I watched her stumble with a broken heel dangling
off her pink manicured finger tips.

It didn’t get hard.
It didn’t become such a challenge
until I knew I was approaching the end.

These journeys
to my days
ago,  in the dark
death of night
or the blinding
shine of a life
giving cloudless
day.

All are but
cheap attempts
to **** the moment
of this day away.

And postpone the
problems that
always come
along with
the next.

I  waited out the
night,
I sat cross legged
and high
and watched
as the sun rose
in the east
and created
shapes
out of
total
darkness.

I'm taking my
time with this one.
I'm going far below
it all,bare with me.

The fear and
the anger level
off the risk,
the pistol and
the black cat
provide  me
with composure.

I can still see
it all,
the blood on the
floor,blood
on the memories.
Still feel the tears
as they tumble
in the darkness
of the void.

Have you ever
confronted what it
is that hurts you
in the dark.
Laughed at the
magnitude of your
needs as you fulfilled
the hard times
with all the
wrong things.

I'm venturing
deeper,
there's no turning back
now.

The last words
she said to me
still echo behind the
high.
Failures pass me by
as I remain loyal
to the hunger.

They celebrate in order
to escape.
I burrow deeper into
the tar, chase it all
down with the
cheapest bottle
of the highest proof.

The ringing
of the rush
and the calming of
the fix
taunts my soul.

I continue to
jot it all down,
I allow it to
act as a mediator
between my mind
and this hostile
world.

It pacifies these
terrors,
these desires
and allows me to feel.

I'm pulling back now
the purpose has
been served.
And still I
refuse their
pill formed
cures.

The memories
are still alive
and for this
brief moment
the pain has
ceased.

Its always in those last hectic
days leading up to the
next celebration.
Either on the Eve of that day
or a few days before that.

At the neighborhood bar
or parked along the coast at sunset.
At their mothers same old house
or one of the liquor stores
still open at two.

You'll see that face or faces of those who
were smarter than you,
those who were braver than you.

Those who took that first chance
they had and moved as far away
from this place as they could.

Those with the same city name tattooed
in the same spot as you on
that same drunken night so long ago.

Their eyes have less anger and '
their conversation is less about
the past and more about what's
beyond this place.

Something about their faces,
their wives, their twin children or
the true concern they have in
their questions.

The grief they express at finding out
another has passed with the year.
The questions they ask that you
purposely avoid answering .

That feeling you get at still being here
like a cigar store Indian or a
'Welcome Home' sign from the
last time they were here.

There's something in them
that died in you so long ago.
Something that grew in them
that'll  never grow in you
as long as you're here.

Something they found somewhere else.
Something you've been looking for ,
something you'll never find here.

The pencil lead snapped with a sharp cracking sound.


He continued with a new sense of urgency as he scratched his message across the page.



The black cat bumped its black head against his ankles then brushed its black body across his saggy socks.


He instinctively reached down and scratched the cat behind her black ears without looking.


With his grey stubbled chin he pointed toward the page,


"What about yogurt the frozen kind????".


My smile hid the fact that I wanted to cry, I wanted to hear his voice again, I wanted him to look healthy again, I wanted him to get better.


I said "Of course whatever you need."

He blinked his dark circled, shallow eyes and held them closed for a second to long before nodding his now bald head.


He grabbed another pencil, his hand flew across the page as he wrote.


" Don't worry about me You're gonna be fine."

There are plenty
of emotionally
damaged
souls who'd
love to
dance upon
my grave.

May even be a few
brave enough to
do me in
themselves.

I could call most
of them
off by name.

But by
doing that
I'd be granting
them Glory.

And Glory ,
in all
of its forms
must always
be earned.