fragmented
you have an impeccable way to make me know im nothing
ive helped u
healed you
loved you
yet when i want you
youre too far away and busy thought we live in the same town.
for weeks your too busy for a message
yet at a drop of the hat you can drive miles
seeing someone you haven't known in years.
this petty existence isnt enough
for i know despite the fact you tell me you love me
i know am nothing but a fragment of the history of your use to be lovers.

salt laced tingles fills lungs on a open bright day
drenched in Chardonnay slathered words.
laying in the soft grass of summer
we laugh and giggle stories.
talking to my sister hugged by her comforting words
the man next to us bends his needle
as he drifts off into a chemical ecstasy.
hooray for family gatherings

My straight back is broken
I can hardly keep an upright posture now
as I once used to
but my spirit is not broken,  Sirs
And though I lean on a walking stick
which is my devoted companion -
more useful to me than a daughter or son
(my wife passed on , Sirs
poor woman she went three years ago) -
I still have my dignity, a sense of my worth, Sirs
O you who enquire where I come from -
where I come from is the past, Sirs, truly
(I do not mean to be insolent in that)
for truly time has eaten much of my memory
and all that was mine or familiar
or what was worth holding on to
The streets here are my home, Sirs
so I know my present
what corner I can find
when the bones are weary;
but otherwise I wander the streets
where my legs will carry me
and where the city police will let me;
and where there are no street urchins, I tarry
And I have naught to do but observe
the energetic world go by
(a world wearied in its own drive)
with which I am disconnected
And that has no personal meaning for me
except for its occasional kindness
But that Sirs, if I may go now, is my beginning and end
and all that which is mine…as my wife might say,
and she said, as the good woman died:
*Well, if it pleases you or not, I must go now

the practical city man –
executive, driven, productive -
so used to due diligence
always pursuing the best deal
goes to the Zen Master
and asks how long it’d take
to reach clear mastery
“Ten years,” says the Master

“But,” says the would-be student
“I’m willing to throw in double the time
your most diligent student puts in
and applying the principles of productivity -
how long will it take me then?”

“Twenty years,” says the Master

you played me gently
your tender spanish guitar
******* at my nylon strings.
rocking my body
i sing our melody
your soul echoes through me
as i become your extended body
you caress my neck
                                stroking
                                           pressing
                                                       holding
my essences with tender love and care
the fiber of my heart string pull
as you rip me open
you pluck hard
as each fiber loosens
ripping the strings apart
i bleed this black blood
tainted with the smog
you infected me
you play with distortion
clashing echos as you squeeze me
smashed my body
And the music stops.
i lay in pieces
finding nothing in peace

That was it,
my greatest fear,
bringing my greatest tear,
a old man unable to keep his hands still,
there is no cure, no pill,
to make it stop,
he stood there unable to stop the shaking,
unable to to be the one faking,
its getting worse and I can feel it,
I can see not being able to write a little bit,
and I am terrified.
My future standing in front of me,
like seeing an island when out to sea,
I know I will get there,
so I keep my hopes up and down I stare,
at the man who can't stop or grip a pen,
there is a now and always a then,
and my fate of being unable to do,
wishing to stop and feel new,
but I have to accept,
I'll be that old man too