This poem should not be written.
These thoughts should not be thunk,
because I'm a little lost right now.
I think I might be drunk.

You're the one who hides beneath every thought that I do think.
The cause behind my highs and lows -
you're the reason why I drink.

Please leave me alone.
You haunt all of my dreams,
and turn me out until I'm coarse -
I'm splitting at the seams.

I didn't want to love you.
It was just a game.
Elaborate revenge for calling me "cute."
I underestimated the heat of your flame.

Big mistake.

Now I'm burning for you.
In the smoke, I see your name.
It repeats through my head as I writhe in bed
again, again, and again.

My mind has been cleaved open.
I'm feeling expansive.
Take me out tonight;
I feel like dancing.

Buy me a drink or two.
By the end we'll be in flight.
"I swear I'll make it up to you."
Let's feel alive tonight.

Bump and grind and jump and jive
to get lost in the moment.
The meaning of life can sit behind while instincts take up the forefront.

I do love this song so much,
and this is what I live for.
Philosophy is out to lunch when I'm out on the dance floor.

(This is the part where your theme song surges up inside your head,
and when you feel the energy hold out til you see red.
Release it all in one hot go out into that hail storm
with the passion that you've carried with you from the day that you were born.)

Fields of bridges burn while I'm
waiting for my turn,
and she looks into my eyes while I
hear my feelings die.
Screaming loud and wild.
I pull them down beneath the surface
to drown under my silence.
My heart is blackened tar.
My mind's a searing furnace.
Your eyes are just a canvas for my mental plants to flourish.

Hide in obscurity.
Cryptic visage.
Anonymous shimmer.
Arcane mirage.

Be the enigma.
Wear the unknown.
Always a question mark.
Forever alone.

I used to write my dreams down
until you showed up.
Now thinking about them just hurts too **** much.

Something in the way that . . .
something that was said.
I don't know if I ever knew a way to not feel dead,
but everything is swirling.
Everything at once.
I lost my mind a couple times just to rise up from the swamps.
These reeds do leave their marks.
This mud has ****** the color.
I'll sleep beneath the cypresses to feel closer to mother.
She speaks to me in dreams of things that only once were hinted.
How shall I ever get along after being so afflicted?

at the track today,
Father's Day,
each paid admission was
entitled to a wallet
and each contained a
little surprise.
most of the men seemed
between 30 and 55,
going to fat,
many of them in walking
shorts,
they had gone stale in
life,
flattened out....
in fact, **** it, they
aren't even worth writing
about!
why am I doing
this?
these don't even
deserve a death bed,
these little walking
whales,
only there are so
many of
them,
in the urinals,
in the food lines,
they have managed to
survive
in a most limited
sense
but when you see
so many of them
like that,
there and not there,
breathing, farting,
commenting,
waiting for a thunder
that will not arrive,
waiting for the charging
white horse of
Glory,
waiting for the lovely
female that is not
there,
waiting to WIN,
waiting for the great
dream to
engulf them
but they do nothing,
they clomp in their
sandals,
gnaw at hot dogs
*******,
gulping at the
meat,
they complain about
losing,
blame the jocks,
drink green
beer,
the parking lot is
jammed with their
unpaid for
cars,
the jocks mount
again for another
race,
the men press
toward the betting
windows
mesmerized,
fathers and non-fathers
Monday is waiting
for them,
this is the last
big lark.
and the horses are
totally
beautiful.
it is shocking how
beautiful they
are
at that time,
at that place,
their life shines
through;
miracles happen,
even in
hell.
I decide to stay for
one more
race.

from Transit magazine, 1994