It's been a few years
on this fool's road.
Its crooked way abandoning this and that
swallowing whole
intentions and reasons
leaving no meaning, purpose.
You've left a choice,
and to choose to be apart from
is truly a pain unsurpassed
once realized;
once surrendered, a peace.

Quiet.
It's something I thought I would never enjoy.
The lack of noise.
I couldn't stand the sound of the pounding of my heart.
Noise. Always noise.
Always boisterous boasting
cleverly roasting egos
(on more occasion than one, my own.)
Speaking, complaining
and
not necessarily
communicating.
But the hum of the fan just now...
I turned it down
to hear the quiet
not quite silence.
The hum of the city.
It makes me miss the still
absolute oblivion
that sometimes exists
in the country.
But, even then,
the time is thin
to sit undisturbed.
Three years is just long enough to learn
to love to learn...
and I have learned
how to be grateful
for more than just
quiet.

I mean,
I'm not terrible;
not too terribly timid or brash
sometimes I'm cruel
sometimes I'm rash
but I can be kind, and generous too.
It's just, horrible...
seems to be what I do.
It could be I'm just too bold
or in conversation, exceedingly cold.
I'll lift you up like a king with this mouth
just to ****** you down on your snout.
With one hand I've given my heart...
given compassion and hope and art...
with the other I've squandered my gifts like a like a gambler.
Sold myself as a rambler,
a free spirit itching to fly,
an unchained lover ready to die.
I gave all of what I wanted to be...
but never gave me.
And what good can one be
if one cannot give of the self... to the self... to the world... to a cause... to a God...
to something unselfish
to something un-self-ish....
But, you know,
like I said,
I'm kind of a horrible person.

Fissure
growing;
weather.. suspicious;
restless world;
the Horsemen
are coming.

My mother should have been
worried
when I brought home
Stranger in a Strange Land
but
her missed clues came earlier
and by the time
"free love"
entered the picture...
she would have been too late.
(Good thing I'm not a hippie.)
After just a few years
of addiction
alcoholism...
and the seeds,
implant-ations,
brainwashing
of what could be considered
rehabilitation,
I still write better
(or feel better writing)
when I'm drinking.
Am I delusional
or, more appropriately,
falsely comforted
by
Kerouac
Thompson
and Bukowski's
literary longevity?
As loss, pain and loneliness
are fellows to the drunkard
the malady
may be
the muse.
What more irony
than that
the human condition,
and the consequences
of the self-focused
would lead
to the prosperity
of posterity?

Why do you keep me around?
Because of a time we shared
getting better
and
getting worse?
All
Human
Relationships are condemning
corrupting
redeeming.
I don't get it.
Love, right?
Always... do out of love.
So... doing out of habit
or with lack of intention...
denotes lethargy.
But maybe
expresses a need
to be known
further from alone.
Pack rat
hoarder
addict
consumer....
lonely.

Let’s go knuckles.
Don’t you have anything in you?
Are you not able to
Fashion these thoughts
Coherently, conclusively
With style and poise ?
And can you not, vocabulary,
Keep your wits about you;
Turn these circumstances
Into lyrical dances?
Are your wordy recesses
Now void?