Write
I told myself

For I'm guilty and
I like the way it makes me feel
When I don't finish
When I do

Heavy -
With plenty to do

I like my incompleteness
For the way it hangs,
Like the ways
Walls are never high enough
Or borders are never strong enough
Or love
Is never
Ever

Enough.

Write,
I tell myself
I am myself
I am and always will be

For voices
However many they are

Are meant to not just be heard

But felt.

Empathy,
Is the key,
To all of this - us.

Look at music.

They try...

They just have terrible delegates

It's
A framed picture
Of
Something
You never wished
Another to
See

There she stands:
Stoic in that millimeter
Moonlight;
Vanishing from your eye
As soon as a memory
From July.

That's her.
She's me.
I am her
When

I want me
To be.

I'm a naked leaf
Upon a
Crippled tree of
Invisibility.

Thank God
For
Fiction so, so, for what?

So we can make sense
Of
All this
Non-

Sense!

It's a screen of smoke
You and I.

We wait for you and
You wait for I -

And there we sit:

Sitting, Standing, Saluting,
A desolate dawn without a name;
The only reason to be because Nature
Made it be so

And will continue

To do so.

I'm awake
As
I sleep.

I think of the glaze
As I stare
Out of myself.

I hear
The harp.
It plays for itself as I

Let it

Play through

Me.

Cater to the last breath of me
I need it
I'm sorry

Take me for granted later
I swear Ill be here for that

When is it
Where are you
I need you to look at my wicked darkness

I ened you to see
What's underneath
This cloak of gold

I don't want to see myself anymore
I just want to twokroutside of mnyself
Isn't that the way it's supposed to be

Who says though
Who says that's the way
There is a through line of this madness
A passerby quality that
Allows me to connect

Me to you

And I want to

I want to see you on the passng pedestal
The rearing bus
The skyward glance in muscular tubes
In train yard degradation

In smiles through the drive through

I want to see you through all of you

I want to scream into the night
And be met with scream back

Your absent hours are beginning to
Take a toll on me
And they are beginning

To take a toll on you

I see it in your gait - sideways and forlorn

We cannot wait for love
For love
Does not wait for we

There is no beckoning for the ******
There is no call to the sea or land
There is just us, a waiting for direction
Lo'
Guidance has no spur
Save from within

It's ok

When I tell

You it
Is

I promise you
I'm
Here

Oh' muse

Never not hear

Me

I'm hear
With
And

Without you

The cracks
On my hand
Mean Nothing
But are

Something

And I stare at your heart

Hoping

To hear from you

Never obliging

Always expecting

Loving the feel of the keys

She is mine
That forgetful
Brut.

I take you,
You;
You
With
Me.

Take
Me
Fair to you
But
Never
Smile.

Ask Never
For

Forgiveness.

To learn to
Live to find
Happiness where
There once was
Misery and to
See when once was blind

To hate to love through
The thick and thin of
It all and to breath the
Same air as thine enemy

To trample of angelic
Dirt, touching the soft
Face of a child who was
Born to die in a world
Where sadness is a by-product
Of legislative necessity

To break minds and hearts in
Spite of all the civil wars and
Civil liberties movements, songs
Played and lost in crumpled
Sheet music of time

Pressing a hand onto
Prison glass while there
Are only nightmares behind
The frozen steel bars of the imagination

Our sons and our daughters
Linger on the brink of
Insanities leash and
I am one of them

The glass shatters as
Mismatched celebrity lovers
Entertain us with their
Mundane lives and their
Soft core ***** re-enactments
Of the human condition

I pass by the lepers
Of television, swearing that
The good times were the best
Times in the past, yet I see only
The burning history books
Upon their shelves, weeping
As they comb their hair for the last time

Smelling the sulfur upon
My fingernails
Rotting to the core of it
Trickling cool blood in the
The devil's dandruff
A former president smiling
Making up for all the wrong
By doing now, all the right

We are in constant remorse
This American land
We were born on a graveyard
Of the gentle and peaceful

Our dreams will
Stir and writhe with
The ghosts of the past

Our children will forget
About the beauty of the ocean
And the serene simplicity
Of mother wind

Tossed in the grotto of anonymity
We will lose our names
We will lose our faces
We will lose our throne of thievery
Justifying all that we have done
On the basis of Darwin

The clock will turn
The loser becomes the winner

And the winner
Melts like

Wet ashes
At a

Deserted
               Campfire

She stood up against the wooden bar lit by a stale football field that shined florescent green and highlighted polyester blue like a muse of Van Gogh or Galileo. Her hair ran down the nape of her neck like a ****** waterfall and the light of the bar highlighted her sphinx like eyes as she turned and caught his eye. He stood at a small table away from the main bar with a couple of friends who were telling stories of their old college days and he, half-listening, quickly looked away, faking to scratch his eye, for he knew he had been caught looking at the back of her and she, with her women's intuition of being observed and knowing this, kept looking and he knowing the only way not to show he had been caught was to look away quickly and very obviously; like a bad actor caught dumb and silent, clueless of their next line. They blushed and shared the heat of embarrassment in their cheeks with the sounds of worn dollar bills slapping hard against the smooth wood of the bar, the bar man eyeing it angrily as cigarette smoke surrounded them and slowly drifted up like a lost soul toward the ceiling and the piano man, eyes tight shut played for everyone there when no-one cared to listen, all underneath the dim light of the bar as they strained to look away from one another, trying to find something they could put their focus upon, but, at the same time, wanting very much to look back and have their eyes meet by mistake all over again.

He focused on the design of the bathroom placards that were in the right corner of the tiny bar where you had to turn sideways and touch shoulder's with every soul inside just to get a drink. He feigned interest in the bronze design of the men's bathroom: a tiny boy looking down at his pecker as he ****** a 1/2 inch thick stream into what the man gathered to be a sunflower ***. The boy was thrusting his hips forward, both of his hands on his side, and he showed no smile, no grin of satisfaction or victory, just a stark, blank face, as if he were thinking "I am peeing in this ***. That is all." The women's bathroom sign was of a young girl with the same kind of *** the boy had been ******* in, but it was missing the sunflower and was replaced by the *** of the girl. She stared up into the sky and into the ceiling lights and was dramatically reaching for a butterfly or bird - he couldn't make out which - something with wings and made him think of a basic metaphor that this poor little girl just wants to get off the *** and be free like the birds and butterflies and clouds in the wide blue sky.

She focused on the man's shoes. She looked at the black shine and the pristine black shoe laces, all looking like everything had just been purchased that day. "There is not a single scuff on them and the way this man cuffs his pants only a single turn," she thought to herself, "Tells me he has something of a style on him". Not so run of the mill. Something special. Something of interest.* But then, she was annoyed by the cuff of the pants because she remembered that was what all the schoolboys in her prep school would do when the day was rainy or the boys rode their bikes home from school or they were nerds. The memory immediately turned her off of the man all together, but luckily, she put her gaze back on the jet-black, seemingly un-touched leather that told her success, class, and security.

The man heard a loud Cheer's!" from his table, abruptly bringing him out of his distraction. He was forced to turn and as he did, he made sure not to look up. He kept his eyes on the table and looked for the half-full beer with the worn Budweiser coaster underneath it. He could see from the his top periphery that she was still facing him but she was looking down at something toward the floor. He fumbled with his large hands for his glass and panned his eyes up slightly. The woman, seeing the movement at the table, looked up. She stared back to where she had first caught him looking at her and waited. The man felt her looking at him and in the same instant, saw the faded Budweiser coaster and reached for his beer. He picked the glass up and as the second Cheer! was yelled, he clashed his glass against all the others, all the while keeping his head not toward his friend's faces, but turned in the direction of the bar toward the girl. He smiled at her as he lowered his glass, not taking a drink. His friend slapped him on the back and told him," You gotta' drink after the cheers or its bad luck," and so he did, still staring dumbly at her as he did. She nodded at him with a self-conscious and embarrassed grin, raised her nearly gone low-ball glass of gin and tonic and tipped it toward him and turned around to face the bar.

"I"ll stand here and wait for him to come up to me," she thought, "And if he doesn't the man is a coward and a louse and not worth my time. I have looked twice now and there is some rule in some magazine that I read somewhere, that if you look twice at a man that it is sign, not a coincidence. No, it has a purpose and though I barely know what reason I want this man to look at me other then to get a drink out of him and maybe some conversation, I am certain I have looked twice, maybe even three times. Yes. I have looked at him and I have made my interest known and now I must wait for him to either come or stay with his drunken friends. They look like frat boys cheering like that. They look like drunken, silly frat boys that wouldn't know the first thing about chivalry. Hell, they probably couldn't even spell the ****** word." She laughed under her breath and smiled maliciously to herself and caught her own reflection in the mirror and, for an moment, wanted to quickly look away. Her face did not frighten her, for she was a beautiful woman, not her skin, which was milky white with the faintest and gentlest dash of rouge on each cheek, nor her chocolate colored curls that bounded like boulder's down a hillside. She turned away from a look upon her eye she had not seen or had recognized in a very long time. Her eyes were frightened.

"Frightened?" she wondered.

The man put his beer glass on the table on top of the coaster. The foam rested at the bottom of the cup like the thin layer of ice that blows over a frozen lake, barely there at all passing with the wind. He stared at her back and liked how she leaned on her right hip and put the toe of her left high-heel to the ground, rocking the nose of the shoe back and forth like she was thinking about something playfully frivolous. Behind him, the noise of his friends became a hollow echo, drowned out by the draw of this woman. She swung her left heel back and forth like a pendulum trying to hypnotize him. Someone touched his shoulder but he shrugged the hand away as in this echo chamber he could only hear the music change tracks on the juke box. The song had changed to an old Ottis Redding song and there was nothing else in the world that he wanted to listen to in that moment. As he watched her, leaning into the bar seemingly all alone, no boyfriend or girlfriend in sight, he saw her raise her glass to the barman and knew she had something by the gentle nod of the back of her head. He then saw her point with her left finger and tap the rim of the glass. Her drink was empty. She wanted another drink. He would buy her another drink.

"There is nothing in this world that a man is more responsible for than getting a woman like this a drink," he nodded, thinking to himself and trying to pick up his courage,"One that plays with my heart like a kitten would a spool of yarn, and yet also like a vulture who would peck out the eyes of a dead man in the desert. This is nothing more then that obligation. A rule passed down from man to man, from age to age, where chivalry was not for the base reason to lay with the woman, but to honor them, praise them lightly as the rain from a heavy mist and show them to the pedestal every woman, whether they wish to admit it or not, do wish for, sincerely do at least once in there life." He readjusted his belt and realigned his shirt that had gotten crooked after the celebratory cheer and thought some more,"I'm not going to do that here, this pedestal stuff. This is more like a step toward that pedestal. Yes. A step toward the shrine she wants to trust she deserves and will one day end up on. And this shrine is all cast and painted in the blurry french film noir of dream, is it not? Aren't dreams the only thing we hope to one day come true? How often - when and if they do come true - they can sometimes disappoint and eventually turn sour like a bad orange. I hope she is drinking and that wasn't just a tonic water. If this woman doesn't drink I don't think any of this will be worth anything at all."

She stood there serene and angelic, the hand that held her drink now resting on the base of the bar. Behind the man, he heard the chatter of his friends and the drone of football scores and player updates coming from the ten or more televisions that hung from the ceiling. Someone reached out to touch his shoulder but missed him as he left the table. His name then echoed behind him but soon the sound evaporated as dew does that rests on blades of grass in a summer morning to a summer afternoon. There was only her and her smell that had drifted to his table and shrouded him with the scent of white chocolate and smoke and her delicate, porcelain hand that had held up the drink shyly but not weakly, in passing demand without that demanding quality drunk people can get like at bars sometimes. He approached her, hovered behind her, but she did not turn, and then came up to the bar to lean into. He did not turn to look at her, though he wanted to very badly, but looked down at her low-ball glass with two half-melted ice cubes and a used lime. The smell of gin came from the glass and the man smiled to himself and put his hand up to signal the bartender.

"If this man orders his drink first and walks back to that table with all of his drunken friends, I am giving up men all together," the woman thought to herself," * Tonight and forever! If he can put his hand up and not even turn to look at me, as I was doing, I thought, to be very flirtatious but gentle, then I see no reason at all to keep going with men. They are barbarians that only want to eat, drink, sleep, and fornicate with women that are easy and provide no real challenge at all in their life. If he wants it easy, he can have it as easy as he wants, but not with me. No sir. Not with me ever. Not with me for a night, an hour, a minute, or even a second."

The bartender, a stout slightly overweight man that was a little over forty with streaks of grey in his thin, short-cut hair, looking very much like he should be home reading with a nice cup of tea by his side rather than in the bar serving drinks to stranger's, approached the man and asked him what he would like.

"Two gin and tonics please," the man said, "With a slice of lime and four ice-cubes in each."

"And what kind of gin, sir?"

The man turned to the woman, "What label do you drink?" he asked.

"Pardon me?" she stuttered startled, her eyebrows raised.

"Your drinking gin, aren't you?" He nodded his head toward the woman's empty glass. The tiny lines of transparent lime skin floated on top of the water that had gathered from the melting ice-cubes.

"Yes, I am. I was just about to order."

"I'll get this round and you'll get the next one."

"Any gin is fine."

The man turned to the bartender," Tanqueray, please bartender."

He nodded and went to make the drinks.

"Your very perceptive," the woman said as she turned to face him.

"I try."

"I saw you from across the bar, but was afraid to walk up to your table for fear of getting ambushed by all of your friends. Those are your friends, right?"

"Yes," he nodded as he looked over his shoulder at them, "Old college friends all with old stories of college that, truthfully, bring me little or no joy to even hear."

"Then why come at all?" she asked, "You seem smart enough to know that if you meet up with old anything, you'll be hearing about the old times all night."

"I was forced to come."

"Someone getting divorced?"

"No," he laughed, "The opposite. Married."

"Well, I hope it's not you or this would look very bad if your fiance walked in."

"And why's that?"

She clicked her tongue and turned to look at the shelves stocked with every kind of liquor. The bottles reflected the soft orange glow of the lights that circled the bar and the colors of the television screens. The man continued to look at the woman who had turned her back on him and caught their reflection in a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He waited for a response, but she stood there silent, knowing she was playing with him. Behind him, his friends were growing louder and a tray of shots had found its way to their table. The waitress who had brought the drinks, polite and with a smile, asked them to try and keep it down. They shouted "YES'S and screamed "YEAH'S" with moronic smiles on their faces, their heads nodding up and down like a dog playing fetch. The waitress giggled a thank and walked away shaking her head with disgust when she was out of sight.

"Well," she said,"You did just order two gin and tonics and I think if your fiance walked in with you chatting with me with the same drink in both of our hands, I think she would be a little upset. I know I would be."

"Perhaps we could act like we are old grammar school friends and just happened to run into one another?"

"Well, that would be a lie."

"Yes, that would be a lie."

"Which would mean we were hiding something from said wife."

"And what would that be?"

"That you approached me after I looked at you, perhaps the look from me wasn't flirtatious, maybe I thought you looked familiar, like I had seen you somewhere, and you came up to me and ordered me a drink and started a conversation with me, much like we are doing right now."

"What's wrong with conversation?" The bartender approached them and placed the two drinks in front of the man. The man took out his wallet without losing his gaze on the woman, took out a twenty and slid it toward the bartender. The bartender took the twenty, paused for a moment to see if the man wanted any change, but left when he saw he didn't want any by not moving.

"Conversation can lead to very dangerous things," the woman said playfully and wise.

"Your here by yourself and your not stupid; someone is going to come up to talk to you."

"And your that somebody?"

"I'm sure I'm not the first one tonight."

"Your sweet."

"I try," he said as he slid the drink over to here,"Your drink."

"What should we drink too?" She asked and raised her glass, the light above them reflecting in the ice-cubes and thick glass of the high-ball.

"Conversation," he said proudly and with a smile, "And the danger that it brings."

They clinked their glasses together, their eyes never leaving one another, and they both took a long drink.

"I'm not here with anybody and I'm not expecting anybody tonight either," the woman said.

"What's your name?"

"Why?"

"I want to be able to tell my friends I met a very interesting woman, but they won't believe me if I don't give them a name."

"I'm standing right here, silly. Go and tell them you met the most interesting woman in your entire life, look over at me when they ask you what my name is, then point over to me and I'll wave."

"You'll be here?"

"I'll be here."

"Promise?"

"Go, go, go," she repeated, pushing him back toward his table, "You bought me a drink, didn't you? The least I can do is wave to your drunken college friends."

The man walked back to his table, glancing quickly over his shoulder, trying to hide it, before he reached the table. He arrived to all of them drunk, beer spilt on the table and an ashtray full of punched out cigarettes and ground up cigars. Every one of them were rocking back and forth with each other, their arms sloppily hung around their neighbor's shoulders, their eyes blood shot with their mouth half-cracked open barely breathing in the smoky, beer smelling air. The man struggled to wedge his way into the circle, and when he did, he tried to get the groups attention by screaming an

The light
Above me is on
And I'm lonely

Outside a plastic bag
Blows in a hard wind
Like an empty hand waving at me
And I'm lonely

Once there were names
That meant something more
Than their names
And I think of this
And I'm lonely

I see the hallway light flash on
As a passerby walks down the hallway stairs
Wondering where they're going
And I'm lonely

I push the button
It takes me downstairs
I lift the glass
It takes me - for a moment - away from here
And the stars burn out
And I'm lonely

Seven lights hover outside my window in squares
One goes out
Another turns on
And I'm lonely

Poorly painted golden window latches
React to the warm wind outside the same as I
A sense that all will be changing soon
And I'm lonely

Where do the lonely go, when there is truly no one?
Some go mad with work, drink, ******, and drugs
Other's with family, social circles, and religion
I outside the hyena's circle who are devouring the decayed
And I'm lonely

Funds for overseas prose panics me
I see no end for I have experienced no beginning
Allow me to view the rules
Digest them and give me time to recover
Noon strikes a silent chord prickling the hair upon my arm
And I'm lonely

There are four lights on now outside my window
One with the blinds drawn
The other lit only by the grey blue glare of a television set
Meeting midnight brings me none of the old
Feelings of dusty comradery or delinquent joy
And I'm lonely

Three more lights
There is hope
They are gone after only a shutter of a tease
Back to the comfortable four
The death of a Winter spent in discontent
And I'm lonely

On a hillside I rested
Alone with thoughts of her
What I knew then
I know now
Some days are meant for rain
And I'm lonely

Parted by facts dealing with science and faith
Love became an issue immediately
There are only two rules in Love
One does or one does not
And I'm lonely

The night is neither setting nor rising
The moon hovers over me like a noose
Like a scythe
Like an ancient medieval axe
And I'm lonely

Only a single light on now
At the very top almost past my view
The wind is still blowing
The bag still waving
And all I am

Is lonely

I tell where
Voice has no
Chord and
The heart
That beats beats
For everyone

I tell in
The leaf
It falls for we
Fall

We enter into
The ground
Remembered
Unremembered
Slaves to history
To define
Who and what
We are

I push
Nothing
For there is
Nothing there
To push

And when the
Clouds break and
Smiles enter mine
Mind
I see only Love
I see only
People
I see only
The cracks and
Lines of
History and its
Means

So late we are to become young

So early we are to become death

So fast we want to slow down time

So hard we try not to fail

Quicksand that tastes like
Mother's only dish

Flashes of brilliant
Childhood coupled by
Youth's first love where
Age has no face
No name
No weight
No reason
Or any
Hate

A waterfall struck
By the dawn and the
Sunrise

All in
One

I tell nothing for
I see the dew in the eyes
Of nubile naive children
Their curly souls with their
Curly Cheerios

How pain takes us away
From living
And from simply
Breathing

Nigh the night has not yet fallen
Nor thy heart either
We people are meant to
Break each other
Fight one another
Challenge the one that has
Come before us

No star doth not shine
Nor does the flower not bloom
Secrets do lie
As the rain does
Soon

I rested
My hands in the
Palms of my dried
By the desert
Weathered and tear
Torn love worn
Hands

Imagined in youthful
Embellishments
Imaginations fortified for
The need and want
And desire in honor of form

Obsessing through
The night
Waking in day dreaming
Only of what the
Work would allow me to
Permit my voice
To say
A voice mine own
But one not yet polished

Tired
No longer

Only full of
Bounding and
Endless desires

To accept
Without fear
Or discourage or
Doubt

I am alive now

I will be dead later

I sleep with myself
And the world
Covers me in warmth
Sighing with me
As I breathe peacefully

Waiting eager to wake

So to start

Once more

Solid black lines
Framed the naked lives
Of a million loved ones
Belittled and turned lame

Another year passes
So fast one can't think
Standing on the brink
Of a thousand other free passes

Lives stop short
As another speeding boat
With faces frozen in fear
And mother's choosing invalid rear

Roaring typhoons of child-like playtime
Makes millionaires question their ethics
Nature whistles and human ears
Are forced to beckon and listen

Messages sent from a void of eternity
Plans made, destroyed all in the blink of an eye
A poet dies and another is born
To inscribe in the air the eye of a coming storm

Tall tales of Death and misfortune
Appalachian nightmares of pearly rune
When the musics over and all is out of tune
Be sure to check out of the hotel
Before the clock strikes noon

Wear your plastic earrings and your shiny silk
Be careful when you open the fridge not to spill your milk
A heart shape tattoo in a burning building rises
No lover ever likes to see the other in ****** surprises

Touch the crystal fountain, but let not your hand waver
Horse tracks are aflame and no angel gives a favor
Green jade rests under clear rushing river savor
A father loses a son to a shot transformed to fever

After the vigils we cremated the afternoon in hand held pairs
The mourners pushed their thoughts out their minds and stared
Even the mountains and the trees and the wind made no sound - they did not dare
At peace a foreign thing for a family and friends who did so care

In time we are hurtling toward the end of life
Either to cease or to once again begin
All these theories of holy faith and sin
Falls to the wayside when a brother loses his kin

I give my thanks for the life that I feel around me
In my pores, my hair, my toes, my throat and eyes
Money, fame, power - these are material prizes
A friendship of love, respect, and trust is what binds me

We walk the trail
We read the signs
The road splits
There isn't much time

Do not fear to go alone
There will be others
Along this beaten road

Do not fear to venture forth
Into the foggy unknown
For all that will be sewn
Has been sewn before

You will always be you
Whoever that may be

Turn the coin,
The sapphire,
Mysteries laughter.

You will not be alone
Hear your own hearts tone
There will be many things
You'll wish to atone
Before you put down the phone

Head South, East,
North, West

You will know what is best

And though we dance
Platonic
Neath' absent starry night,
Running between rusted play structures,
Colliding memory with reality
Making believe

Like we used to,

I still can't disprove
That I'm forever falling
In love with you.

We walked,
Tasting the dew
On our eyelids,
Us seeing etched hearts
On parking meters,
Discussing
The depths of sadness
In our last barman's
Final pour of his night.

You walked ahead,
Leaving me to catch up with
The woman you say you want to be
As I
Make up the steps
To be the man
Who's
Every planting the seeds

I see
The kids knocking at our bedroom door
Trying to let themselves in
Hear that bronze handle
Jiggling in its socket
Like left over change in the pocket

But me,
Selfish as I am,
Selfish as I want to be,
I just want one more second of solitude with you baby
One more moment
Before our responsibilities fragment
Into a flurry of Gerber's apricot recipe and
Furies of five year old ego

You deserve
A whole man

A man
With no hole
In his heart

Expectations elude you
Like the ocean
Mysterious and dark
I imagine you poised
Neath' bedsheets of linen and gold

Dreaming of pine needles
Of saffron dust
Of a kiss you've always wanted

Of an embrace
You'd gladly take

To be haunted.

We made it home
But did not put the key in the door
Feeling the need to dance
On the street

Evading sleep

Avoiding who we are
From the choices that
Fix us

Like portraits
In a dusty museum
That people only visit on the weekend
And when they have
Old friends

In town.

So this is
What it
Is

The pendulum swinging

Back and
Forth

Back
And forth

Back
And
Forth

All the wine tasted
The beer all drunk up

Every kiss
Stolen
Every kiss
Given

And all our food
Eaten by thousands
Of rat-faced
Mad men

Yes
This is the place
In between madness
And sedation

Chaos and
Order

Where the sane go to dance
With 50 cent beers
Tight in their hands

With wondering eyes
Mismatched affections

Where nirvana's clarity
Is as cheap as an old French *****

Yet feared as
Relapsing
Into a fit
Of youthful liberation

Every trench
Has their bodies

I see them
I know them
I am them

The place tastes
Of dried tongues

Dragged through the
Red embers of ash and
Charcoal and
An old girlfriends hairspray

Every echo of sound
Is from the
Future as well as
The past

Here clocks sound as if
Their snoring from a brilliance
Of an ill spoken melodramatic monologue

Where tears were so "yesterday"
And humanity

Well, humanity...

Humanity shows

To be a thing
Of the

Past

A thought is ephemeral
It's only binding
Is that of the one
Who thinks it

A thought is a weapon
It is sharp
It is fast
It is as hot and it is indifferent
To those it strikes
Or kills

A thought is you
Me
Her
Him
Your dearest loved one
Your greatest enemy
No one
At all

A thought is the thing
You tell convince yourself
Your living for
Breathing for
Fighting for
Working for
Eventually will die for

A thought
Is the abstract of an objective
You know
In your hearts of heart

Will not fullfil you

Will not complete you

Will not finish you

Human beings
By design
Are clipped of our wings

We were throttled down to earth
We were left to die in the sands of the desert
The beaches and
The death valleys
We were born abandoned

Left only with ourselves

A thought is your neighbor
Who you smile to in the morning
As you get into your car

Grinning through the sludge we are

Smiling through the destruction

Giddy in our descension

A thought is a just a thought
As a life is just a life

What births a meaning
A purpose
A reason

Binding the sinews to the bone
Stirring the blood from within
Pregnant with that of two heart beats
Hot by the sun and never cold

Is action

What action?

You tell me.

There was the first hill and
We needed to cross over it
Before we could meet the others

The sun was high
The clouds few but
They were still able to cast dark shadows
Across the field we were advancing on

The knot in my stomach
From lack of food and
Water twisted in my stomach, like
Someone had stuck me with a 8 inch blade,
Their hand spinning just to mock me

Ahead of me there were
A few men whose names
I could not remember; I trusted them,
But I could not recall their names and
Was afraid to call out
To them to ask them how much farther

My memory - always a little blotchy - was
Now sharp and pristine. I could remember
Every article of clothing, every piece of
Equipment in my pack, and knew I would
Not hesitate when the first
Bullet came soaring past my head

I looked ahead
Saw the men advancing
And took a sip from my canteen and
Continued on

When I reached the
Camp
There were the bodies of
The dead and the wounded
Scattered throughout, most of them
Underneath a white linen
Tarp,
Moans echoing from within

I veered to the left of the
Wounded
And made my
Way to the barracks of
The soldier's still alive and
Capable

A cook passed me
And
I stopped him

"Where is
The front?" I asked

"The front?"

"Yeah"

"You look to *******
Clean to be headed to the front," he
Said with a smile.

"That's why I'm looking for it," I
Shot back, "I'm looking to get a
Little *****. These clean scrubs
Are getting on my nerves."

"Well alright," he said, "Just keep
Heading in the way your heading
And you'll hit it. Good luck."

He nodded to me and
Sauntered off, a large
Knife hanging off a leather cord
Tied to his twine belt

Some men
Are born to fight and
Die

Some men are meant
To mend the wounded
So they can fight
Again another day

And some men are
Meant to cook the food
For both of them

I kept on where
The cook told me to go
And as I continued on
I saw more and more soldier's, fit
And able to fight again in the morning

The time was around 4pm and
I hadn't eaten a thing since morning

The knot in my stomach continued to
Turn as the echoing vibration of shells
A couple miles away stirred the
Dusty air of the camp

I needed water
I needed sleep
I needed a woman but
I knew I wouldn't
Be finding one
Out here

"You look lost," a
Voice from behind me
Said.

I turned around to
See Nelson, one
Of the men I had rode in
With at base camp

"Well *******..." I
Wheezed grinning.

"When the hell did you get in?"
He asked.

"Just hiked in with
Some new meat. Think I saw
Them head for the mess hall, but I
Wanted to set my eyes on the
Lay of the camp."

"Good for you." He shook my hand
And brought me in for a hug
To pat me on the back. "Glad
You made it this far, didn't know if
I would see you past the beach."

"Nah, and let you fight this war
All by yourself?"

"Was getting worried I was gonna'
Have to," he stepped back, "Head to
The mess hall?" He pointed in a direction
Father north through the tented barracks

"Let's go," I agreed, "I'm starving."

"I bet."

We started off
North and
He patted my back again
As we walked

I peeked into the other tents
To see some men sleeping
With their rifles next
To their bunks and some of
Them playing cards or writing
To their wives or kids or girlfriends
Over-seas. Most of these men
Had never even had the chance to hold
A pencil, let alone write a ****** letter,
But when the time came to seek comfort
From family, their minds had
Adapted and pushed their intellect to
Achieve that comfort - their courage could
Only warm their souls
So much.

Searching through thorns
With blood from the
One's who have already been
Through before

I ***** my eyelid
Feel red warmth flitter
Into the bag
That I have been carrying

This is getting harder
Or I'm just trying to hard
Where is the sound that
Bounced off the walls from before?
She was sad when she left today

At night I hear the present go
And a new present awake
I'm alone here as if dissolving
Into another life, yet with the same name
I cannot stand the sounds I make
Aching, moaning, stoning
This life and that life and all the lives
That spin and swirl around me

I'm quite sick of it

Feeling more cornered in ambiguity

Than blessed

I'm having trouble focusing doc
There might be something wrong with me
"There's something wrong with everyone," he said
Think about it or not, one day you'll be dead

At night the horses trample through my living room
Letting the moonlight stream in through the leaves
When I'm learning I feel most like myself
When I'm serving only a slave
There are so many slaves I see through the days
That it's hard to see who will be left when the flood hits
And who will be saved

Require the tongue that touches the stars fury
Everything here is about rhythm
Train on the tracks souls on the line
Everyone here on Earth's only got so much time

An ending for a diva whose only wish was
Kisses in the nighttime under moonlit fishes
And a fog horn sounding
Everything astounding
Love, at last, bringing no ounce of sorrow

I love you only
I love you truly
And if I get
A little unruly
Please recall what I said
And not let me scare you
Away from my bed

Night.
Day,
We fight
For everyone
Without
An Everyone.

Unity

Is a rare

Commodity.

Be apart of

Ours.

Fantasy died with a breathe that breathed
In a sigh that danced naked bright and angelic
In a way that said they'd never done it
And would never do it again
It danced with a twang that roared as long as a lion's mane
And rigid as an old man weary wagging his cane
Fantasy moved without a movement
They moved through the willows which whispered woefully
For they now knew how this human race would soon fall
With fantasy without home and mystery in some tomb
There now lay reality and all believeabilty
And love's beating heart
Red and ****
Lay bare in the street not looking at all neat
Seeing what we are, just skin and old bone
Worries, nuances, such as's and this and that's
Plans for this place and money for that
Miles for this road and coins for pleasures *****
Where dirt is a place that is no longer special
Where titles take every cent of entitlement
And your mother is no longer that soft lonesome person
Where people are just passerby's and strangers mean danger
Where the world is an oyster with pearls of sinister
Indeed where were headed is a single celled screen
With laughter and no joke
And green reeds with black toads
Souls that drift alone through black creeks that won't speak
To a man that has yet to feed upon his own
When a man tells himself that the road ain't worth no more
Where they see themselves in cells upon shelves because there ain't
Nobody else
And atop themselves lay illusions with contusions
That spread like wild fire, sparks and confusion
And Simone sighs at last because She knows
That freedom in humans
Can never last
How were we so hopeful
When we can't even eat a spoonful,
Of a faith that lasted a blink
And then we threw it all away?
How close we were to a truth of untruth,
When Goliath's fall and dead men weep
In stone filled graves that carry nothing but what they need to say
With clouds that weigh with rain
Yes' there's nothing else to really say
No there's nothing else I really can believe to say
But back to the face that holds love's belief
And a truth that children one day may not be able to see
Forth with in all these mountains and that cool watery sheen
With the glint of a wolves pelt
And the howl of a coyotes starry wide belt
And the way that owl, way south, does turn all about
Oh these were things that I read and listened and did dream about
For what happened to the way nature used to be?
Yes what happened to the scenes that were so natural,
So easy to be?
But now we see pictures of man, how plentiful, how serene...
Yes we see man and women and scenes and scenes and scenes...
A thousand faces and no one saying a ****** single thing...
Tell me the ways of mystery through illusory lyric
With a prose that moves the softest silent doe
Through a thicket that moves delicate
The way My Molly used to have fun
Oh she could laugh that would make any many daff
A smile they'd never felt, no never once felt
That crept upon them like an invisible golden sun
Shining upon that rotted darken soul
That once they did thought'
Had already been bought
By the highest sinister bidder
That they were the purest litter
But then that screech of the silkiest puriety
Came running through them men
Like that neighborhood mid-morning hen
Oh that woman, oh that woman, yes, oh that woman
Those memories of her
Make me never want to believe
In this world without her again

If you tell me
There's a moon tonight,
I'll wait for it.

If you tell me
There's a sunrise at dusk
I'll wait for it.

If you tell me nothing,
If you give me nothing,
If you promise nothing,

I'll wait for it,

Because I was never waiting.

I am always here

With

And

Without you.

There is the night,
There is the day.

I used
To know
The difference.

The difference
Used me,
Now I know.

Time
Tells
Me
I exist
But
Not how to exist
Within
It.

For time is it,
A linear construct
Of undeniable
A to B.

I have no exclamation
Of exhaustion or annoyance.

I am not young,
So I know,
No one is listening
Besides me.

Perchance perspective
In Missoula or perhaps
Somewhere in ancient Greece
Where the sounds still permeate
Within the rubble

(I can hear it)

Will turn the sphere
As it were.

I see the night
I see the day
I see

So I must believe

Or go

Utterly mad

In conspiracy.

Naked and near
We take blistered path
Close and
Nearing you as you drip
Farther away

Don' tell me baby
That you can't stay
My life here without you
Can't be
Any other way

I'm neath these painted stars
These plastered whites
An' I'm staring at furious horizon
Wishing I was young again
Wishing I still held the kite

Take the river instead
Retrieve Saturns move in lead
I'm begging for forgiveness my darling
I'm praying void of God
That my tune
Can catch the ear of the starling

But the breath
Is always short
When death
Hovers to close
To the napkin

I eat
I sleep
And I stare at the curtains
As they push from
An invisible hand
Coyly persuading me
To kiss the neck
Of the one I adore more
Braze the inner thigh
Of her core more
Caress her incredulousness
More

Breaking on braking
Myself
From a full stop
To snake the nape
Coliding accolades
With Starbursts and
Confucius's misfortunes

I'm your next best friend

I'm the one you forgot

I'm the after thought of your first thought

I'm the money

You were supposed to

Lend.

Up in the foreground of attic answer phone booths
She bends for the man that is never around
In time the lady lay spends
Scrubbing for money that she will never spent
This force bleeds from her
Hair and her
Nose and
Her soul which has flown from the netted empty window
Glass shines on her buttocks
Her pale white linen thighs
Thugs peer in her window to catch a glance
A heart filled woeful Romeo like stance
But she, only she, is interested in her stars and her dance
She loves for no one
She loves for her seat dressed in milk like silk
She undresses washes tosses her rose hair
Like a lion likes yawn dare
She holds no fear for she is danger
Ballet point permission she kisses the toes of her own beauty
She has fallen in and out of love
However many times she wishes
Rules forget themselves
When they are around her
I saw the size of her eyes
Meteor shot glass vacuum gaze spanning days
And the wash pan was a present
That only brought me to her descent
Slave to her magic holds true like the water from a fall
Like the pear to a tree
Like life is to death
Scrubbing for the job
The the man ordered then in theft
Promised her his heart
But left like a hand does the dart

Made no promises to the road in front of me.
Made no dates to the sky above me.
But what I can do is give my love to you
In anyway way I know.
Please baby, please, can take this pain away from me?

Roses rock in the wind as I wring out my socks.
They're wet from the rain, baby, wet from the rain.
I got this pain, baby, oh' I got this pain.
Oh please baby, please, can you take this pain away?

Here I lay with no house to sleep in, no rent to pay.
Where smokey clouds drift proud over the landscape of my eye.
To live ain't no present, baby, and it ain't no prize.
Oh won't you take my pain away baby,
Won't you try me on for size?

Rock my cradle baby, take me to your *****.
If we hit the road now, we'll soon be cruising.
We'll end up in New Orleans, New York, the Ritz!
So please take my pain away baby,
And we'll be there in a jump and skip.

Here's my hand baby, oh' I'm looking for yours.
I can taste your sweetness darling,
Seeping like honey into my pores.
If you got any other lovers baby, cut those ties,
Cause' I love only one way baby and that's the right kind.
So please baby, please, can you take my pain away?

At night the trees
Move of their own accord.
Control for me is not
A real thing, but something
Of a fantasy.

A fallacy.
A lie.
White in its innocent,
But poisonous by its touch.
One can never be loved
Too much.

I wake with the morning.
Sun over my scarlet covered eyes.
Her breathing like that of
The wind; effortless and a mystery.
She says she is nothing but happy,
But I can sense her misery.

Calluses line my hands and as
The dawn turns to morning. I put
The coffee and tea on for boiling.
Creatures of habit spinning with the Earth
For all eternity until death do us part.

In my reflection, I see glimpses of my younger self.
Tools rusted neon orange and dark brown.
He hands me the hatchet that rests heavy in my hands.
He says something as he puts down his Budweiser can.
I bring the metal head down.

Are we not split like two pieces of wood?
Do we not have two opposites within us?
One wants what the other does not?
I inch out of bed and put on my socks.
There is a new day outside and just like the rest.

The thick pine branches adjust themselves to the sun.
I hold my hatchet and tea.
She stays sleeping, gentle like a bullet less gun.
I put my tea down and listen to the lack of sound.
A riddle so complex, yet so simple.

Opposites.

Blue drops of the sky fall on my face and I blink.
Sometimes the minds too busy to even think.
I bring the hatchet down again and again,
Wondering what time my lady will wake today.
I turn to look at our home, our shrine, our castle.
The logs are cherry brown, pound for pound.

The river trickles near me.
It sounds like diamonds rattling in someone's pockets.
A crow calls from above me.
I look up and see nothing there.
Must have scared it off.

Dead pine needles snap and crack under my boot.
My throat feels like a chimney clogged with soot.
We used to use a broom to clean everything back then:
The roof, the kitchen floor, even the oven.
When we had no money is when we were the happiest.

Time stands still for no one, except for people in love.
Father was left alone because mama said she had to go.
A pistol and a weak heart took him away a year later.
No one but my two sisters and I left behind.
I take out an orange, peel it, and throw away the rinds.

Misology hovers near my ears, inviting despair
A cradle cracks in the back of my mind.
Hours pass and I've got a block four feet wide and four feet high.
She - my lady - is up now and I turn to wave at her on the porch.
A wave to me and a smile too.
She promises a back rub later as well as rabbit stew.

I plant my axe into the soft, cool ground and go inside.
Two eggs, a piece of toast, and a class of water greets me.
A full heart has no need for appeasement.
Only a worried mind needs to give itself a reason.
Breakfast is finished and the sun is perched at high noon,
So I take my gun from its shelf and walk outside.

Rabbits don't just jump
Into pots of boiling water

All by themselves.

Before its too late
Tie the bow on the Christmas
Present
And see about the back gate.

We're getting old
As we're getting young
And we know
Every song today
Will not be
A song sung.

Before its too late
Tell grandma
She convinced you
Love wasn't real.
Wasn't her fault son. It was theirs and
Their far off war with no guarantee
For sovereignty.

Before its too late
Whisper nothings at nothing
And play tricks on the dark
For once.
Make believe with belief
Because they're always telling us
What to hope for
As if they know the future.

Before its too late
Make the bed and fluff the pillow;
Do the dishes twice as the time tells mice
Whiskers and forever tweakers;
Sweep the floors forever
So we as one and neither
Can skip marry lou to a lost forest
For two plus two.

Before its too late
Learn guitar and how to howl.
It's midnight yesterday
And you should know how to do
How to do by two day from today.
We are our own trials and failures, and yet
We are still so beautiful.

Before its too late,
Strive to writhe with the struggle of the poem.
Dragonflies dance between
The consonants of madmen and madwoman
Whose muses know no patience
Or constructs of etiquette.
They come barefoot and naked or robed
And cast in the moonlight when they want
As they want for whatever they want; pirates
Of lore and violence.

Before its too late,
Do not fear.

Before its too late,
Adventure.

Before its too late,
Drink from the fountain and
Smile at strangers and
Shake your fists and their cousin moon and sky.
Break loose for thy noose
Is held by no other hand

But thine own.

The Devil has sold
His soul
Letting all the sins
Of what it used to
And still means
For man to sin
I know not where we go
When our time ends
I simply know that our time
Is met with another
Moving from one space
To another

Milk becoming cream
Dark becoming light
Cries becoming laughter
Love turning to
Hate

He rests atop the banished
Banister his arms crossed and
His lips pursed from the heat

He has been banished
For an eternity and
Now calls his prison home

Like we all do
In some way
Or another

An idea turns to reality
Reality turns to dreams
Dreams turn to nightmares
Burning back into the Earth
Ideas crystallized to be found
By the newcomer all over again

In search of waves of
Angel hair grass
The rest of childhood behind me
Where I now turn old
Holding no age in my face or body

I turn towards the sun
It heats my face my eyes my cheeks
The wet of the waves moistens my pores
The crashing are symbols produced from
The invisible hands of sirens

We are meant to see the world
As it once was
Is
And will soon be

We are meant to see the world
In entirety
And
Its fragility

We are meant to see the world

We are meant to see the world

We are meant to see our home

Before

It is all over

And

Done with

I turned over a stone
And found inevitable wet dirt.
There were the mark of worms
And their bodies,
Presenting themselves to
Eyes, as of late,
Having a hard time to see.

I turned to face the river
And the river snaked down
The trail toward the houses
Filled with people, families,
Hopefully love. My finger
Rose on its own. I did not
Deny it's autonomy. The tip
Traced the path of the river
As if my finger were creating it
Out of thin air.

I turned ahead
And saw the path
I had walked
Many times. It reminded me
Of yesterday and the many days
Before: the constants; the abnormalities;
The changes in my life; the lack of
Change in nature.

I dropped my hand
Or my hand dropped me
Or neither.

I turned my body
And began back up the hill.
The sun had dried the dirt.
The birds sang to one another.
I felt lucky
To overhear their joy,
Their sorrow, their hope
In the present and tomorrow.

At the road, the hard surface of the asphalt
Told me I was back in my world.
I was back home, yet, it did not
Feel right.

I was far from welcome
And I didn't know
How to return
Or if

I even wanted to.

Some days
Time stands still
And you with it.

No task, no accomplishment, no satisfaction
Can propel you forward,
Though forward,
Is where you will go unless,

Well, you know.

Fulfillment, oh' another word for a shot of dopamine,
Another quarter conquered, another dollar earned, saved,
And spent.

Satisfaction is a dead-end dead man's game.

Revelry is in discovery.

That is where the spring is.
That is where the sun

Is always rising,

Only ever setting

When you do.

There was nothing within the mind of man
That didn't know what to do
With this great land
The hour is getting dark
With the chirping birds in stark
Longingly, she prays for rain
To abstain from love's fruitful venture
Is to deny the joys and
Miseries
Of life
Year one has been the hardest imaginable
There are no scapegoats
Only
Horror
Minutes tick through me like knives do through
Butter and
Bread
At last
I am free but shackled by insanities laugh
Is there something wrong?
Or am I just
Being?

Words
On an empty page
The last refuge
For the crooked mind
Of a vagabond
Saint.

Lights
Cluster
On the stained railing,
Leading to a
Heaven that was
Never
There.

Praise
Be to the wind
Of furious righteousness
And inflated
Ego of a thousand
Still
Seas.

Can
It be
That we are all
Brothers twisting the
Knife,
Cajoling one another
To
Death?

I
Can't
Stand
It
Any
More.

Be
Lost in
Thought,
In life,
Till life
Leaves
You.

Be it

That,

Or this -

We're nothing

But our words.

If true (it is),

Let them be

Beyond anyone's imagination,
Beyond a before

Where no spring
Or even love,
Could hack at it.

An expression is an act
Of the stars:

For everyone to see
Without care

Of who is seeing it.

Made no comment
On the river front
She said she wanted love
And I gave her another name
Told her to sit a while n' stay  
Make no mistake
For there's too much at stake
The world is spinning
And she's still winning
But we don't know
What we're fighting for anymore

Got not road to walk on
Only the one in front of me
She said she'd never believe
What's under my left sleeve
But once she saw
Her heart thawed
And rested her weary paws

Absent eyes melodical mishaps
Everyone's got their hats
So...where's yours at?
Different faces other names
Someone can be one way one day
But switch like a light
And change again all the same
Lion tamers and fire breathers
The day of the true believer
Is dead, gone, and thrown to the sea

God sent a telegram from Costa Rica
He had a picture of him
Flexing his arms, rubbing his belly,
Really showing his STUFF.
I pitched it in the fire.
Didn't even read the text.
I knew he was gone from the get go.
I came out wondering
What was gonna' come next.

Took her hand by the candle light
She held mine a little tight
"Nothing ever changes, " She whispered,
"The snow never melts."
I lit her cigarette and smiled,
"What you've got to realize, my bird,
Is the only thing to live by
Is for nothing and everything by actions
And words."

I miss the moonlight
How it streaked
Through my summer window pane.
This pain gets boresome.
This pain gets lonesome.
I sit and I wonder
Where oh' where did she
Go off to?

No, I never question
What I'll do,
But I wonder
Gazing out my foggy window pane
Where oh' where did she
Get up and run off to?
The sky remains blue
The arrow shoots on through
But I wonder
Where oh' where did she
Run off to?

Minus the drama
I ran out of steam
Nothing is a dream
The waking life
Shakes like an August
Leaf over a
Running stream

When you're looking
You'll never find what you need
The speed to the distance
Is the remedy of
Kings and queens

Lessen your grip
Take that sip
Watch the sun set
Take that

Final bet.

Negative funds on rock bed foundations
The faucet has grown leaky
And my soul has grown tarnished in the rain
The mental connections thin - well spoken when drunken

Life is the low down
***** work here or
Go South for the dirtier
The roads are all monitored
By electric lights & satellites

Freedom's taken
A vacation down in Florida
Where the water is warm, the
Women don't mind if you buy them drinks, and
The men are always willing to fight

I took the wrong turn somewhere
I've lost my map
My head's night right
The street lamps flicker dead
I am walled up naked in this night

Animal that we are
The greedy vermin for material and survival
A truth so terrifying and blissful
Confrontation is on the forefront of our tongues
Mankind has been in a permanent state of repression

The world makes us into Beasts
Yet we make the world what it is
We are to blame and we are not
A priest whispers to me in the confession booth
The only way to win in this world is to sin

A son lost in search of the man
Who - by conscious choice or not - brought
Him into this God forsaken mess
A message sought but lost in the wind

To be set free by a physical truth
Where in the end
We are bitter tasting worm feed
Dust that settles on the boots of workmen
Stories told for the illusion of love & greatness

But, also, we revolve into
The sunlight whose rays
Flutters the eyelashes
Of children at play in the garden

Holy harmony enflamed in liquid
Intoxication - A refuge for the knowing
****** and outcasts sworn to a physical
Upheaval of new-age enlightenment whose
Holy hipsters of old meets the new of today

The blood is what matters
Regret is thick like it
A moan in the dark to call out
In repose where only silence is given,
Not as a consolation, but a warning of
Love and the delicate fall to Hate

I have sworn myself to this place
My finger prints my guilty proof
A touch of blood my deposit
My life on the road impurities aloof

Big old jade earring hung from that haunted necklace, swinging from this and that and the other way where and if that sky upstairs let go of the thing I wanted you to be but a break in the system, no a malfunction in that suction of a love that you tried to forget about but feel those typing keys on the fingers that break knees and the heels up and up with the ***** a lingerin' and thats sounding like a new pounding, the one upstairs with the translucent roof ghostly and guess i got a new boot thats fixing itself to elate another prisoner upstate where the worries are always about the women.

Yeah, that women with the diamond ring with her children by her side thinking about the monastery she never visited a big time act act act in a dress that helped her enough and forgot about the rest. But we all move on quick to detest times test with the burritos that she never ate because of the figure she imposed that she got from her transistor radio and the yearly subscriptions of the ghostly ghost that haunted her in the moat around the castle of stairs up ripunzel with dragons a aflame listening to the same wishy washer story of old uncle Maury and the twenty ten twelve salute to the mastery of the fiction of listening, another riddle in the twiddle beneath the sheets that were once painted gold but her husband done left her and she's moving to seattle to start up some new cattle spreading the seed of 1910 where time stands still with his drink in his hand because the guy has got to get around to something with all that talent, with all that anger with all that impulse that proves itself time and time again it will never be enough for a salvation sanitation with the twisty fro's of yearly ye and ye bouts of fights she twisted in that shout that she knew, she knew she swears, what it was all about.

Walking through the trees
Dead Poets grip their "fate" filled unknown names
Wincing at the thought of the bright starlight
In a world where words lay unrecognized
Terror strikes by black bats biting
Near heels they still wish were there's
Bayonets strike ****** through their pages of white
As outside the quick rats race
Tightening a grip on the neck of the scratching poor
Could it be?
Could we see?
That this ain't the way to be?
Streets lined with hobo's holding tokens in their eyes,
Mourning mother's mock themselves in the mirror
Of their distasteful & unattractive agony
Tightening skin, burnt with pink, kills itself
While holding to the thought of love,
Holding it's own bullet & gun
Snow that once would melt
Stays hard & true
Just to see us slip, it's now having the fun
Babies cry but not a soul runs to help
As monsters squeaky clean, meekly weeping, whelp, picking at their spleen
Lean on me but know I'll let you fall
Just like my great-father's would have done
Farewell to the world, farewell to the States
Our time is eternally & regretfully done

Kindling
Sputters flower essence
On the face
Of the one you love but
Not the one you needed

She said her name
Was rosy but you
Could have sworn
She said she was just feeling a
Wee' bit woozy

Now I don't think
We should all be so smart
And I swear we got rules
But it don't mean we've
Got to act so ****

Just the way you breathe
And the way you seem to me
Makes me think deep down
With some kind of make believe that
We just set ourselves up to be framed

Friends are coming in
Due at the early start of March
I bought the tickets and they
Didn't cost too much but I hope
They remembered to bring the starch

I got names for me and I got
Names for all the likes of you
Some names don't fit so I
Scratch them out and
Start again unless I got things to do'

Push the box off the bridge it
Holds trinkets and things made of tin
Watch it roll down the river to an
Ocean that swears its really say but
You trusted it once but never again

She aches for the troubles she
Put herself in for reasons of worry
And I see her with her hair in a
Mess but this test was inflicted by
A bliss she knows she cannot hurry

Oh' world where would you want me
To go for' I know nothing but the run
Dust covers my face as my soul hovers
Over my shoulder as I smolder with
A heat that lives in the deadliest of guns

Not in the way I
Look through these eyes
which water but instead
Of sadness entranced upset
Near to death love
making where though and
Design laugh at their own
Gluttony and ill usage and
away from me i say no not here and
away from itself i hear nothing for you
are here within me but away
Comet and the see to hear blues with
Everything to give but nothing to lose
And the far off sights are much too bright
And inside you hear yourself crying
Not to mtters or mold your soul
With what your parents said to you
Ordered you to be bold and
The aftermath of your own tightened slack
Makes you wonder if growing up was an actual
Choice in the matter of the batter which is
The family foundation were games are played
For keeps and children weep as they keep
Toiling on as adults just for bigger and better things
Come into the waves of a brain malfunctioning
No face for ye' faith meand nodding to the higher
Ones whose noses are broken and the lips cracked
The spinning brain of hurts doughnuts and Americana
Rip offs selling the flag by the millions to turn a profit
For the moronic billionaires who think no one is watching.
Watching with their hats turned sideways and trying to
Escape old age and grey hair and sagging ball sacks and
Poor english and worser bread, stale with their mother's
Ghost hovering on the shoulder of their pouting diamond
Drenched wife as if madness grew a larger pair **** within the
Hilarity of connection of concoction of happiness and
Satisfaction and a longing to burn the entire ******* down
Just to rebuild it the way you see and you do see it and the way
You feel it used to be and perhaps, maybe, could be and where
Experimentation is now a center fold for the dock workers and the
Laborers of the world to spit and ******* and cry over in their
Twisted and rusty beds for inside their pea brains and melted
Mouths filled with colgate and beer, they slobber over the excess
And humiliation and celluoid dreams of **** and *** and spreads
That would make any grandmother of 37 weep and Mozart meander
On the veranda, contemplating smooth jazz and the way he would like
Not to be buried with the hat trick hockey nick who swore he saw
You fall in love before and that sobriety was the touch of the Christian
Way of life and ye' far out and tormented young ones meant nothing
By what they said at the rally and they do believe in the good of the
White government and we are headed toward a technological maelstrom
Of the golden age of the HUMAN RACE but alas I hope I decipher I pray to
No God but whoever has the ears and eyes and arm fat to listen with their
Splintered consciousness and their painted red toenails and girlfriends who
Whisper they have always loved another and how TRUE UNTRUTH IS and
How vindictive we rant on and read on and hope and believe that the end
Is the end but it is only the end for you and their will be new blood and new eyes
And new minds and we will grow old but the rivers water will be recycled, as we
Will be recycled into the dust and the mud and the rubble to further build the streets
As the street makers and the bread winners will smile as they think they are the
First ones to think up such a crafty, inventive invention but hierarchies are on the horizon
And I remember I was born with a name that I never grew to know or fall in love with
Or defend or keep close to my heart for the heart is weary hunter and it ventures on
With or without the body.
Note to self.
Recall the last rite before you begin on to the next one.
History has spilt its blood and its fair share of orange juice, try not to remember the numbers but remember the amount of burned chairs.
Note to self, returned.
The heaters on and the soul is not dancing but jiving like icing on a three year olds birthday cake.
Submission time to the chief, submission time
To those other guys, whose faces I've never smelt, but who are there waiting and whining that the times are no longer a changing.
Keep up the smiles, keep out the frowns.
Negativity is the attribute of the terrorist. Don't be a terrorist.
All fine men and women have once in their life been truly scared.
One ten till the train leaves.


Good night major split hairs.

On the second of the fort
Nights beckoned a call dim
Lit by ill fated mechanisms that
Were men and women and
Children and the forgotten dream of
What was meant long ago and was is
Meant now but not followed through.

With heaven comes hell and hell fire and
Clouds of white with shelling from
Wars not of this world or the next or
The one's thereafter and lingering history,
With its bells and trinkets and tombstones,
That have been weathered but are still not gone.

Memory not mourning, pictures in a frame lit
From the inside out and drinks were there
When we were not meant to be there like a
Kiss on a flower you picked at an age where
Life was not known and death was even
Farther away for it existed not in the eyes of yours
But in everyone else around you, except for the
Other children of course but oh' of course.

If your trying to get the part of the stuff
That makes you recall the upstairs of the
Idiocies of the room romance that restricts but
Contains life and halters life and stifles life with
That one must recall a past life where tears
Mean nothing when you produce them too often.

Can of the hypocritical malice of mis-informed family
Foundations and we break into the minds of the way
It should be and the way it shouldn't be and yet here
When we gaze out across the wide spread of the world
And its many ways it spells out with a God's own language
The morning of the ear who listens and speaks when not spoken
To breaking every single rule of the word and smiling
Throughout the whole ****** thing.

Canons of repetition where life winces and the wife begins to wheeze
And fall, her dress is now clear and her eyes just don't seem to be
Where we are now I believe that money is the root of this soon to be dead
Tree and streets are now empty as the moon casts its silver glaze and
The breeze is now naked with her bra on the floor cast in straw while
The wizards write their spells and comb their hair and draw out plans
For the next great fall but watch the fireworks and the way they hail and
Crawl throughout the entire bawl and Ol' Ezra P. mass amounts of rage
To bring to the stage but here ye' O great one this place is for us all.

Here in the house of the not that is shared but all is seen here
Where the wind blows to no east and no west and no south and
No other way that you believe to get headed to the world of
The no names and experience makes you wise and yet old
And remembered for the drinks you paid for but especially for
The ones you forgot to pay for but that is what friends are for.

Omnivores in latitudes that matter not to the public eye but
To the ear of the Lord that is not everyone's savior but
Chosen just for the right eye so within that decree of mastery
We entrance the light and shovel up the leaves leaving the last
Way of things to be the first way of things when the lights
Are quickly turned off and on and off and on again and again;
Stars are naked until the sun rises in your hometown and the radio
Turns on.

And the background music chimes with a willingness of a cockroach but
Holds the beauty of a **** statue found in the under toe of a lost
Beach in a lost land forgotten in time but embraced by eternity and
Though does not dwindle its numerous names or its many ways
Of being for the hour does shackle us all but here in high array of
None other then eight times the way through the cobbled up in the
Attic of the fiercest neanderthal dictator with ideas holding truths upon
Truths that in the end mean nothing  for advancement is not determined
But continued upon as long as we forget the past and look to the future hymn
Of the childless winged' beasts that were once forgotten but now embraced
Angels.

Not of this world but of the entirety of the reality of banality
Breathing back and forth inhaling and exhaling releasing the
Mind of the mares of the wandering rewinds of infinite space
And inside the eyes of the highest levee which has broken but
Has not yet spilt holding back its power for the remainder of the
Year and catacombs upon catacombs of forgotten text of never
Forgotten men recalling their former lives and their former passions
And the hastiness of their possession of the word and the avoidance
Of the death touch the death mark the black spot upon us all.

Dog on a hill cloud high in the sky nut on the ground no not a sound
Frost on your fingertips toe of the boot covered a steel dull mud
Suds from a water rushing miles away nodding branches of a dead tree
Wind through the high grass birds in the sky that fly but not chirp
Sun in the sky rice fields burn brown crickets rub their thighs together
Not here but in the corn stocks and pig stocks brown in the reverse order
Platters of pinch salt and pepper underneath the floor boards creek for
Creak and dollar for dollar we make the rounds and we do not frown.

And the meet of the neat make their rapid conversations in dual order
Where they tell themselves this but I hear that and you make what you want
Unless you ain't got the stuff but if your lucky and if your smart you'll
Grab the oven and bake that **** but in case you don't see the sunset and
Your buried without your toes look for your voice because that's the only
Way you'll get to know the stars in the sky or the dirt on the ground for
The fun is growing but the lurkers are smirking for they got the pennies and
They got the nickels and these streets are breaking so you gotta' start thinking
Of a way to get outta' this place and FAST or else you'll be staring down the
Barrel of a 33 to ONE typing and writing and peeping around the corner of
Your dear old ***** that hasn't found in a home in years but don't look too
Down because one day that ONE will come around either by taxi or by train
Or by some kind of war and if you've got the gut and the money and the honey to
Keep her tight and alright and flying that lovers kite then your bound to keep
Yourself from the giggles and nearer to the harmony of the way things ought to
Be but may not really be but perhaps can be if you will it around and swill it with
Your will making sure your lies and that white or ain't that black or ain't that real
Or you ain't lying at all but stay truer to the truth with the water resolution of the
Insipid insecurity of the first love you thought you knew but now see that it was
The one three or four later and how right I am in knowing nothing and knowing
Everything and letting the mind skip and play and register new friends in the new
Cities and the new alleys and the smiles that break across the ice like a crack of of a
Whip and counting the days ones gone blowing through the high valley and the low
Trenches of war I do not wish to go to but may be forced too because this man believes
Just what he says.

Recoiled night
Our idea
Of dear humanity
Has spoiled
Take the trash out

All of it.

Dreams fray
In a frayed leather seam

And I tell myself
I really know myself
I really know my land
I really know
What the self is

And
I'm left with no answer
Lord
Knows no response
For a question

That cannot
Be followed

By thee

How blessed' am I
Are we

God is nothing
But something to chase
To strive for

To make believe

Fainted dented specter neath the lamp post
Dancing like a candles flame in the wind.
She makes her hand movements as if in smoke
On the horizon, rocks in the waves a splintered boat.

At least the Spring is here or coming or perhaps both
Time reveals herself at either opportune or inopportune...times
Though I repeat myself, does not mean I lie to myself
The truth is as elusive as a hummingbird in the mornings light

She presses her hands into the dough.
Out from underneath the soft beige flesh,
Spotted with dark brown dots of yeast and pepper,
Puffs of white flour **** outward onto her hand

How long has she been kneading away?
Where are the hours that she has spent this way?
Can it be that she is alone,
Or is there someone else perhaps at home?

I take my spoon and dip the silver cup in.
She takes my eyes and puts them in her rucksack.
I've lost my slack, there's no turning back.
I can't remember the last time I felt like that.

Birds buzz overhead like a million fireflies.
She gives me my eyes back and says, "You're welcome."
I try to say something back, but my voice snaps
Like a thin rubber band in the drawer in the back.

Two faced angel dressed all in lace.
A name tag says something, but I don't believe
That anything so beautiful
Would have a name and some keys.

Day becomes night and still here I sit.
The shop is closing down, yet I don't need a lift.
Oceans breathe as I feel a slight rip
Of a heart I thought to be another, as I see the other.

She takes his hand and smiles in a way
That shows me her teeth, her soul, oh 'matrimony's toll!
In front of me sits the bill with a long list of words.
I pay and walk onto a side street absurd.

No turn that I take can erase my mind of her face.
In the bar the barman asks me what I want and I tell him,
"Something that can make a seeing man forget."
He nods, shakes his head, and laughs, "I'll see what I can get."

The stool I sit in doesn't fit me.
I feel the message within me.

There is a lapse of thought and I see the mirror:
He sees me and I touch both ears to both shoulders.
I smile. He smiles.
I wink. He winks.
I lick my lips. He licks his lips.
I reach out to shake his hand,
But no hand is there to shake mine.

I am he and he is I.

We are here together
And she
Is elsewhere with another.

The scene is set for loneliness:
A bare stage with misspelled words;
A single light with a dying lightbulb;
A blue pen rests on a clean notepad;
A pile of dust gathers near an electrical outlet;
A refrigerator buzzes with no food inside;
A couch faces the television with the TV off;
A man faces the television, looking at his reflection;
A man hesitates to turn the television on;

He hesitates for a very long time.

I go back the next day and after I order, I tell her my name.
I ask, "What's yours?"
She tells me something, but I don't listen, because
I'm watching the way her lips move when she speaks her words.
She hands me my receipt, smiles a different smile,
And walks away to get me my coffee.

I sit down thinking,

"That's better than yesterday."

She said
She couldn't
Live without
Love

And I asked her about
Chick Web
And she said
Chickens and spiders never mingled
And I asked,

Coffee?

The waitress spoke French so
We got the wrong order
So instead of pancakes and bananas
We watched wasps stab each other
Stab each other until I felt
Something - something I felt I thought they felt -
That was cathartic, yet I was not purged for I - naive -
Knew not the extinct of my ancient illness of existence.

She said she heard Nina Simone.
I suggested to her Montreux.
She told me, stop mansplaining.
I said it was only a suggestion.

She said, I know. Exactly. Do you see the light up there?

No, I said.

Exactly, she said.

Cool crater cascading down
This waterfall of hopeful infamy.
I wait for the red light to turn green,
Thinking of routine in a seven day order.

First thought. Best thought.
Love from her couldn't be bought.
A train. A lie.
The sun burns and yet was never taught.

An apple in her eye behind light blue spectacles.
She wishes for mediocre praise.
A laugh. A sigh. A sip of wine. Forgotten.
Brooklyn based never granted grace.

And though I tell myself the grass is brighter,
Green, lusher, plusher, holier on the other side,
I know that it is not.
The lies we tell ourselves to keep on living.

Everything eventually stinks.
Everything can burn.
Everything must age.
Everything has its

Beginning
Middle
And

End.

Sun lit yellow moon hot to touch oh to soon
Soft in Her ways but hard in Her love
She moves around like it ain't that much
Lips are smooth I long for her tainted touch

Streets are winding down people are telling me what to do
Money is the man as long it rests heavy in your hand
I remembered a time when I used to play with red sand
Twas' the day I was young and everything was just grand

Now with the hours ticking conscience hazy and I'm lazy
Round uptown at night with Her I try to make no sound
She laughs at this but not at the hat she's wearing
Slaving on sculptures of rapture mixed with ancient scriptures

Bon voyage to the usage of twiddlers with broken thumbs
Memories of you will fade but the stench will not decay
Your smiles clear your eyes black your minds numb
I had to get goin' I could feel myself gettin' a little dumb

Neither of us shake hands when we are old and grey
Tonight today tomorrow we both didn't have much to say
Wine will spill on white carpets intertwined with Indian gold
My love for you has been bought and soon to be sold

Make my way to you
Just like you told me to do
Couple eggs near a morn lit pack
Of crinkled Reds cigarettes
Smells like rose perfume
Tastes of ash and I'm unabashed

With how much I'm letting myself

Love you

We go out into
That afternoon
Like we knew we would
Like we were born

To

See that fellow long hair wide chest
Faux pride of a king who has lost their castle.

"You two look like love but, do you feel it?"

I look at your tanned shoulder,
That twinkle of mischief that permeates
River ways and seagull calls.

"I feel as she feels so, I guess you'd have to ask her."

The fellow turns to you, imitating shyness; inside
I know you are a comet hurtling
Towards whatever direction - void of gravity or the universe's wishes - you please.

Oh, you please, you please.

"Aye," you say squinting your cue ball eye shut like a pirate. "Love be tangible ar' is not. Love invisible like the ghosts that light the stars yet, we let them guide us. Love is love until it isn't so."

The fellow and I lost breath from shock epiphany
Feel your body, I swear I heard my body say,
Feel that beating heart of yours that is not yours but,
Hers Hers Hers.

To give yourself away to such a being
Is but of the same duality.

"I..." the fellow stammered, "I must be going."

The fellow stumbled off, struck by the lightning of your words.

"To where?" You called out playfully.

After another stumble, the fellow stopped and said over his shoulder,

"To see about a grave I haven't visited in a long time."

A firework, magenta mad with streaks of panicked periwinkle, streaked across the Mississippi river. The void of gray smoke that trailed behind this sudden rainbow cornucopia twirled in a phantom wind. I was about to say to you it felt like somebody was waving to us from above but, you were watching the fellow. A tear rolled down your cheek and I did not catch it or try to take it away because it was yours like everything else was and is in this world. Including me.

So I see when
And how the wind bends
At last I'm alone
The stars have shown
To be as vulnerable as I
At last are we
Breathing toward the sea

We are endless lies
Tied to the tied
Memories of friends
To hard to tell when
Drifting through the leaves
My fingers like glass
Gasoline is leaking
Through her hair
She is peaking

I have so much love here
Yet I can't help but hesitate
See the star on the horizon
Death has no certain date

To the waters of open shores
To the souls always wanting more
The umbrella opens for the falling rain
Life is to hard to live
When all seems to show the same

Cannot you tell me apart from myself
A shattered mirror atop of the sun
We are the lords of passed time and men
The letters are writ', so send man, send!

And at last I press my hands upon the table
Awakening the soul beyond the ego
Forging what sword I can within myself
Knowing that life outside myself will always be left

We men
We women
We humans upon the page

Never give up hope
Never forget

We were born to be

However unfinished and untuned
The strings show to be
Do not believe what you see
And no' don't you dare cry
What you think you can't be
Is the difference between you and I

The top hat is spinning upon my head
And these pearl clouds are shining
All I want is your sweet self inside my bed
With my old arms around you tight

Now I'm not too old
And I'm not too young
But I know that all my heart can give
Will never be enough

Sometimes I
Don't know which is which
I see a face
That doesn't match it

I see a sun that is glowing
But it might as well be snowing
I never said
I was confused
But maybe, I'm caught
In the middle
Of a lie of being used

A slave once asked in thought,
"What's it feel to be free?"
And a free man said to him
"Living without chains,
But the chains then come -
Without notice or warning -
Deep within thee."
He nodded,
The cool of the metal
Comforting again comforting him.

Each innocence lost
Is like each tomorrow forgot
The river's pass through us
The wind blows past
And what we wish will last
Will soon be let go and cast

Our mother's and our father's
Are as lost as you are I
Peak a smile, show your teeth
Your skin cannot hide
The light that shows underneath

Wilting winter with no name
Who has showed its wrath to men all the same
Take no pity on me, I deserve no cane
For I once was gripped with pity and quill
But the pill made me lucid
Body soon to fluid
Forcing me to flight without wings or arrow
Lost in a winless war
Like a loveless Cupid

I'm walking toward a rusted gate
No dreams of recollection in my mind
What I had left of love
Is now only filled with empty time

The weeds are all brown
Each barber shop sign seems to cry
Our friendship is dying, don't you see?
I'm here to see you and say goodbye

There on the blood mountains
Those grey rabbits digging away
What else is there to say?
I got no more feeling in me that I can pay

It all turned into one rotten show
When light was there, the dark is what you obeyed
Everything is rotten, all's o.k.
You got your choice,
And I got mine

Each time piece we hold
Twists like a poetic rhyme
But we aren't living
We aren't seeing
The silence that roars like thunder

Yet Im walking
And I breathe next to you
Laying still right near you
And I laugh, and I sigh
Struggling to get untied

And the mystery of passing
Hits me as transient yet everlasting
Into the eyes and to the sky
Two hearts soon to forget the prize

Too young to understand
Scared into a fool proof plan
Outgrow the precious hours
Let go of future powers

Here are the whistling pines
Hear how they whine
There are the reflecting rivers
See how they shiver

Brown shotgun blast with the old disgruntled uncle
His hair wet from the unforgiving rain
God laughed as Jesus wept into a microphone
And what was lost then can never be found

Make me love you, make me see you the way you want
I will not beat you and I swear I will not wave my hands in taunt
No money in my pocket, no more change in the shed
All you wanted from me was food and a clean looking bed

Let me tell you a secret, let me tell you a little riddle
Each man in this life is born to die and born to be little
Put the books in their baskets, put the books upon their shelves
Haven't eaten food in months, give me a second to tie my belt

Now when the thunder rolls in don't you squint your eyes
The blues you were born with is God's only prize
Down the line the reaper waits upon the train line
The children laughing struggling to be kind

Ants within the hole of revenge against the enemy
Broken pedestals showing unholy God's defaced
No one deserving the hate they think they need
What's put in song presents life of an angular creed

The million mirror faces

Of the specialized class

Where do you sleep at night?
Who ships whispers to your ear?
Is there a soul even in there?
Does not knowing allow for all this
All of this
To go on

Born atop a mass grave
Of scrap book photo albums
With faces human
But not an empathetic note
Of humanity
Left inside me

The task is too great
The rules were written in blood
Which has dried and turned
Black as the present ink

Where are we headed?

Where would we even go?

How do so many go on living like this?

How do I go on when I know I know so little?

Life is choice
And choice is a life
God gave us both
One and the same

Hallowed out like a
Grandfather
Red wood tree
Who watches his children
Be chopped to bits and
Pieces
For the enjoyment of our young's
Smokes and
Policies looked at
(By eyes of grey and marble)
And deemed impassable

The ladder is not ours to climb
The ladder is an illusion
They have built only a
Noose and thrown in a
Complimentary
Thick brown rope

You ask yourself, "Where do I start?"

You ask yourself, "When can I stop"

You ask yourself,
"When the eyes have finally
Opened,
When will I know?"

You will know
When it is the end
And
The beginning

And nothing
Has a
Name

It is love
Only love
When
You
Hear echoes of
Pain and Pleasure

Bounce from

Wall to Wall

Into

Eternity

A smile
Never
Lasts

She sees
Past
The
Future

No promises
Of love
Or
Of nationality
Ever
Render

Past
The drinks,
The laughs,
The compliments,

There is a

Loneliness.

What
Have you got
To offer
To fill
The
Void
Before you?

At least
The day
Isn't here
To mock
Us.

At least
The morning
Hour
Is
Far past
This
Hungover
Sourness.

My love,
She smells
Of fresh sand,
Effortless and
Grand.
In tricks
We show
Our
Means to
Survival.

At long
Last,
I am old
I am young
I am dying
And I am learning
As I
Am young.

Take me for
Peasant.

Take me for
Prince.

My body
And I...

We are bound
By an

Itch.

A number

Is nothing

But a shoe

Without a foot,

Without a name;

Without.

Sounds of uprooted affection
The hands of time
Take their signs to post them
On the faces
Of lost hope

A sincere apology
To no one

For sincerity
Wavers like the white flag
Upon the battlefield

Apologies
Come and go
Are said and spread
Like
Friends
Neighbors
Parents
Lovers

The stinking dead
Language of our
Contemporaries questions
Whether I even belong
Here at all

Was I ever here?
Or was I ever there?
Was I an illusive memory
Some people
Can't seem to forget?

Guitar strings she wears
As a reflected dress
Amplifiers of America
Reverberate through her
Angelic straight spine

A question
An answer

A query
No solution

Nodding to the
Television as the whites
Of my eyes splinter &
What I once was
Lays upon the
Clear blue drift

Burning skin that
Covers all of me

The fire was hot
But why was I caught
In something I thought
Would only be stopped?

Rules & regulations rear
Like a spanish bull at noon
The customers are here
Entertainers ready their spoons

Blankness of verse
Painlessness of death
Forgetting that yes
One day I'll have my rest

I am here within a house I once did live
No one is around so I have only this to give
Birds fly through the open cracks of trees
Hearts surround this place which I do not believe

At the sight of the first light of the morning
Coffee grinds and cream began foaming
Stairs do creak when one weighs heavy upon them
My feet are pointed in every direction but where to begin?

Closed off chest shaky the knees begin to go weak
Living in life nowadays is no easy feat
Inches no longer matter for honor is in the mile
Soon I hope I can muster just a small smile

These hours here hold no haste within them
They creak along like a snail upon the hem
Tree branches crack hold an echo like a gong
Cheers of triumph from the animals held on the log

I sweat for my humor holds no strength in these walls
I meander for my words fall on no mouths to read or call
Alone instead underneath this starry leave filled box
Attempting to break free from my once familiar flock