with the leftover rig of someone’s unhappy decisions
and the smell of animals left too long without attention
I curled up for a few days in the cold on hide-a-bed mattress
like the ******* ****** I never was
only thought about being.
“What was I thinking?”
Fifteen and wishing
I was ****** chic
a “beautiful disaster”
a ******* model painted dead for TV..
~that~ was my aspiration.
Fast-forward to the bottle of whiskey
and the smell of old dog ****
and a lingering need to hear that man’s voice.
I was so angry.
“She ****** me off so much.”
There’s little cessation
from the stream of ******* they spew.
“How could I love and hate someone so much?”
“That’s what abuse does....”
Products...
results...
that’s what we are...
from a mass social experiment gone right.
“They want you fat, lazy, and addicted to something.”
“Well, they have me.”
I hear some people have a handle on things...
got “****” together.
I hear that man’s got a job and is pretending to be someone
for someone’s family.
If I had enough room, I’d weep for them.
My tears are all ******* though
in fear of the future and a lack of control.
What the **** do we do?
Where the **** do we go?
That trailer
I thought I could save it.
Cleaned the walks and the carpets.
Drank myself to sleep,
freezing,
thinking
I was so righteous,
so destined for ...
something.
anything
except
that trailer.

I imagine us
dwindling a paper trail to nothing
our footsteps are shadows
our pictures the only remnants our families have
until we call from a land line community phone
and tell them where to go
for freedom.
I imagine us
burning collection notices and old receipts for things we never needed
the smoke is our journey
disappearing into nowhere
having ourselves, our brood and our tribe.
I imagine us
our souls no more like candles that flicker
but stars that shine
like guiding lights to show the way to shore.
I imagine us
forever, before and after, and infinite
having no beginning or end
having everything inside of us
and us inside of everything.
I imagine us
whole and unfiltered
lasting and ending daily
destruction and chaos as beauty....
I imagine us
                                  and we are not ourselves...
                                  and we are not each other....
             we are whole
            the boundaries of existing like dew
                     like fog...
                                   there and gone
                                         old and new
I imagine Us.

It's the waiting...
chest still heaving
heart still beating waiting
the long, hot days spent in stress
and even longer nights
and the choosing...
to live in it
the pulse causing goosebumps on dry skin
the sigh giving way to sobs and fright
caught up quickly once in sight
of that little person watching cartoons.
It's the feeling...
every breath and beat and pulled heart string
every guilty shuffle
every fluttered eye
feeling the wind like a knife in my back...
the weight of the dishes and laundry stacked

and the air in here gets thick
with children running and screaming and needing

and I
just keep breathing.
Taking one breath,
one step,
one thought,
just being.

This cigarette
we have met before
and I left you so long ago with that taste in my mouth.
This bourbon
sweet and hot..
we knew one another well once. I am revisiting your heart.
These words
we have fought a war
and I am coming home to fight no more
bruised but done bleeding
forever.
This empty bed
inviting and cold
our commitment is no longer foiled by loneliness.
This apartment
quiet and cool
we have seen the silent devastating fight.
This moment
surreal and full
and I am content to live in this reality
pain and fear and peace
finally.

My mouth is a monster,
howling down houses.
Rotting roofs are no match
for my madness.

I try to keep it under wraps
this haphazard mess:
my insides, my everything...
but you're so proud
so satisfied...

I try to keep these walls *****
when we are face to face
but as soon as you are in my gaze
they are falling...
the defenses subdued...
the troops refuse
to fight.
I'm standing in the light
of your acceptance...

That growling voice
raspy
bronchial tubes screaming under
cakey mucus;
feelings are thrown around here,
jutting out of auras
like flood lights.
We all need things.
What would it be like if we didn't?
Can you imagine that?
Everyone
having everything they need
to feel safe,
secure,
loved?

Seems my M.O. lately to flit away
a frightened wing
but the metaphor fails me.
Fear is not the word.
Intimidation comes closer.
Toying with phrases like
"meant to be,"
and
"creating reality,"
has left me only less jaded than
"God's will."
Maybe I should have heeded my own advice
and stayed simple a while.
I made myself a hypocrite,
speaking those words
before I could have known
they would one day be true.
How I spoke of myself so highly.
Gave myself all the credit-- undeserved.

These hills and trees shelter me
Their valleys and shadows, comforting.
The fog fills in
it's covering,
healing these roots
and making them real.

I see them sleeping here between three places...
and my heart tells them,
"Your dreams are mountains
climbing high into the wispy clouds."

The seasons are changing.
The cold night is frost bite
to the balmy day.

I feel expanse in this beauty.

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?

You said, "How do you react when **** hits the fan? When you're under stress?
Do you go to work,
or hit the dirt?"
The truth is
I am transformed by the glory of battle
into shining metal
into this beast of action
that's not bad... it just is.
I remember my Dad telling me to "Be prepared.
Be aware.
Stay calm.
Don't be scared."
                           (He also taught me  how to take a hit
                            and return the favor.)
You said to me,
"Maybe,
you are not afraid.
Maybe,
you are excited.
Maybe,
when you feel that feeling you call fear
your spirit is responding
with acceptance....
Maybe, you were made for it."

It may not be fear today...
or excitement...

Today I am the villain.
I am taking them away from him.
I am breaking at least two hearts...
and pouring salt inside of mine
                                                        for endurance
                                                                     for preservation...

I am the hard stone for flint to strike.
I am the rushing floods and the strong ****.
I am the hot concrete and the melting tar.
I am the engine and the speeding car.
I am  adrenaline in the soldiers veins.
(Long since wasted and drained
from too many fights.)
I am the candle's burning, flickering light.
I am present, and aware.
But I am not scared.
I am ready.

I'm listening to opposition.
Is there anything else?
The bird perched on the winter branch
cursing itself?
I've got two hands filled with empty,
like distance relates to envy.
And in the quiet stillness of this Midwest winter night
my shoulders become heavy.
My heart flirts with steady.  
My head calculates ready.
You wipe tears from my cheek and nose.
You're telling me to let them flow.
"Don't wipe them away."
I have nothing to say but that I am
afraid.
And I can't even say it.
The words are a bayonet at the end of the gun I hold to my head.
Is there requiem here?
The forest trees made clear in the fog of my disillusion?
The clever twist of fate that thickens my confusion?
Sometimes I doubt if I were made for this life.
I doubt the strings that fate has wound around our hearts
and save for my frown, my face seems to show the world
nothing.
Who or what am I becoming?
No longer the grouch, the fastidious mouse, or the the hermit.
I can not be the addict or the martyr in the skirmish.
And I am not in search of identity. I know me.
But I don't know this place inside of all the waste that has been this life.
I have only two things that are worth anything: their lives.
The courts are waiting, but the jury's still out on the verdict.
Not "Do I deserve them," but, "Do they deserve it?"

No desire for stone.
Growing cold
and wearing away over time.
Stationary and strong.
or flaky.
Fresh from festive
the winter is itself again.
And I am cold, wearing away.
I view the mountain in transparency.
"I see plans inside of plans."
You should never run on the ice
and I have never been fond of the thought of freezing to death.
When fertility is in the air again
and we see flowers...
then flying will become us.
We will be as fetching as the sunset and as fierce as the storm.
Nothing will stop us, short of death,
and then,
only a little while.

Biting back bile like
When I believed I could be born again and the bible was a buoy
Floating on whiskey breath.
I never could "be good" then.
The only absolution
Is slow execution
Dying the same way baseboards turn brown
The way cobwebs climb corners
Forgotten
Until they're ***** enough
To need attention.

I'm trying
to read poetry...
a new love for me.
My critic's heart
is not so harsh
since you came to me.
             You've freed me.
                                              But...............­...
I'm distracted.
I'm stuck...
thinking...
your hand in my  mouth...
the other on my wrist...
the blankets falling down...
There's teeth inside that kiss.

                         Even now
my breath is ragged...
my heart is quick
to send oxygen to my
                       (you know what)
and I....
know I love you for
          far more than this...
              but..............
OH
my
GAWD...
Did he just?
Yes he did.

And a smile wouldn't cover
how I felt with you last night.

Sounds like some ****, right?
Like I'm lost inside
some teenaged *****
and thinking only of my groin
but you know me more
than I know me.

I spent six years waiting  for this...
                                like it could be cultivated..
making love
instead of
making love.
Like the goal
was feeling satisfied
instead of
feeling **loved.

you have married me
married my spirit
called it to life from death
and bound it to you
flaming
hot
waking each limb
sensation
thought
vibration
atoms in unison
singing the cosmic rotation
"You make my life a love poem."