Doing coke with Jack Nicholson
Walking the fells with Wainwright
Stood by Ole Romer's telescope
As he mulled the speed of light
Being that defender
Cruyff first turned
Watching Marie Curie work
Till Aplastic Anemia
Robbed her of her life

Walking well through fire
With Bukowski
And if you will allow me
In all them situations
You'd be alone with the gods.

the wolf howls, no reply.
the clock ticks but never chimes.

who outlasts the tomb?

we walk the halls
to remember footsteps,
shout at the walls, why!

who do walls remember?

whispers and laughter,
the weight of every sigh.
the shadow that weeps
and the child who cries.

the wolf howls, no reply.
the clock ticks but never chimes.

what do windows see?

faces pressed close, lovers kissing.
the tears from a bleeding sky
when the rain
taps gently for all lovers.

walls echo laughter and longing,
and windows dream
of time gone.

the clock is ticking.

who outlasts the tomb?

the wolf howls....
each heartbeat a plea against the void.

She lost her turquoise locket
in the basin when she was a child.
It drained into Red Lake,
her mother swore.

It takes ninety days
for one drop to drift
the length of the Mississippi-
a season of carrying loss
before the salt claims it.

She combs her heavy hair,
to unravel the hush of forgetting,
each strand a river-line pulled south
toward the gulf,
where Mishipeshu waits in the dark current-
copper scales burning, eyes cutting the water,
his breath the drag
that tears what we love
into the mud.

Her hair startles me,
snagged with **** and silt,
a sheet of drowned paper
staining her shoulders.

She still wakes with soreness
from phantom breastfeeding
after her son was lost to her.

She swims the river of memory,
arms open, finding him
for a moment-
his face flashing like minnows scattering.
Her hair glints with their voices,
the water breathing
against her skin.

Her chest folds in,
breath torn like wet paper,
hair knotted, damp
with the stench of river-mud.
Her fingers search the nape-
she curses the river’s lie.
Nothing answers,
only the undertow’s promise
already tugging at her feet.

Slipping from a dream into a dream
and waking up to a dream,
The painter and I shrugged off
our blanket of cherry blossoms.

The tree was asleep; its song sung
The sun peered from among the clouds
careful not to disturb that pink slumber.
And we walked down the hill.

We ambled sans destination or purpose
going where whim or wonder steered our feet
We ate in the shade of broken monoliths
and rested in the halls of ruined castles

Fellow travellers we met a few
each walking in their own reverie.
Some shared a song, some bread
some offered their soul, some a bed

We came in time to the edge of the plain;
Below us was a wide valley
A road ran along its centre
stretching from one end to the other

And though we saw people
on the plain and in the valley,
not a soul ventured onto the road,
walking instead on the bare earth

"The Road of fates," said the painter,
"A road for the impatient..or the despondent."
We sat at the edge and watched;
We were not the only ones.

Presently, there came along a man
holding a pen and a book.
With an agonised look in his eyes
he stood in the valley, pondering.

With a sigh he stepped onto the road.
He started writing in his book,
his hand flitted from page to page.
Feverishly he wrote as he walked

A slab of the road came loose
and landed on the man's back
weighing him down like an ideal.
And the man walked bowed

Dogs came running up the road
and without knowing how
we knew what they were,
what they embodied.

As Responsibility clung to a calf,
Loneliness and Sickness took turns
and bit and clawed the man's legs
causing him to stumble and weep

He picked up a stick of Faith
and tried to fend off the dogs,
but soon the stick was lost
and the man started running

The dogs chased and harried
and took away chunks from the man.
Not scraps of the flesh,
but pieces of his soul.

Still the man wrote in his book;
bowed and in pain,
losing strength and vigor,
still he wrote.

Rain started to fall on the road
and the dogs scampered away.
The man sighed and sat down
and started writing again.

The clouds poured out their balm
and his pains melted away.
The man started walking again.
But it was a short respite.

A scream filled the valley
and we stopped our ears.
But the man fell down
as Loss struck his heart.

The sound of barking far away
as the dogs gathered again.
The man sat up and wept
and picked up his pen and book

Buffeted by the echoes of loss,
dreading the jaws of woe,
weighed down by his ideals,
the writer sat and wrote

The mongrels came into sight.
The man started walking again.
A snake slithered between his feet
and sank its fangs into his being

The man stumbled, stopped
and writhed as in torment
as if the poison of Regret
burned his life blood

Onto the road he fell once more,
his pen flying away from his hand.
The dogs kept drawing near.
Giving in to despair, the man cried

He lifted up his head and yelled.
And brought his face down hard.
He kept smashing his head
until he rended it open

And as his blood flowed across,
the book was soaked red.
Silver figures rose from the red -
the man's fictions, his dreams.

All along the stream of blood
stories from his travails came to life;
And looking at his creations
the writer smiled and died.

The carcass would be dragged away
The blood would be washed away
But the shimmering silver stories
Would remain floating on the Road.

this, and that,

what good and fine as can be,
may be limited by, in fact,
one bit of both of us acting

as reader one and writer one
assigned to frame a mindform

an aspirant's aim, a mortal hero,
no superior anything, Joe Blow,

Johnny Come Lately, and
Johnny Lunch Pail, and Big Bad John

as a mind user holds self evident
what another holds sacred and undeniable

peace has a rule, least said, soonest mended.

Suffer it to be so, now
fully fected per form re co known,
true rest, debt free, fret free, ready
recognize trust as post warring, after
war reasoning retired, generally,
in peace

knowing using time we share,
my side of the situation produces
peace past understanding we live as part

of something we are reactions to as parts
required to inspire our realization as a whole.

From our marveling minds, we may so wonder
as mankind ever has minds we may open wider
while we are resting, re estimating worths costs

what's it cost to think in English a Hebrew word
a foreign idea, to think in miyn kind classified we

not me, nor you, we ag re spond aghast, what if

this is finished but
for our final faith's polishing touch. A reader.

My dare to say, the way I lived, worked.
My bet if time were today, what I live in;
then we live in it together, rationally balanced

at this previously unthinkable point. Ready

to experience thought slowed to ink speed…

elipses signify, thought pauses to think, read
right to left or up and down or left to right,

front to front, face to face, mirroring mind,
relearn from famous heros, mirroring kind-ness

like me beings shown our premyelinated brain rind,
bring me guile, show me some unprejudged idle word

logical extender of thought you heard said, hermit

hero's… the hidden practically only quiet certainty,

Cartesian or Pascalian, pre trib rapture revelation,
addendum on the end of the narrative, eh,

curses, foiled again… Mighty Mouse, ah,
shoot gee ****, kids

you better eat your Wheaties, be like Bruce,

tangled in a time of thinkable self will power,
dedicated to a timeless sufferage practice
to perfect a performance costing more,

than any other person ever paid, right
at one single point piercing everything

perfectly.
Storywise. Told and retold, to you, your story,

who are you but my audience, or our audience,
as we think during instances of mistaken belief.

The function of the mind, in a verb, by leaving
today the same everywhere right now, belief

can release potential peace, right when lief
as well think of green green moss after rain,

if there be any good, think on that.
Prepose your mind's eye on that goodness,

noticed, mosses and lichens shout bright
reflecting back through our whole being
beauty at the sight, at the action seeing

as today,
where I am, on purpose,
proposing one pastence,
everything everywhere all at once,
now, then

thinkable, in a crazy unsortable
fluid in a bubble, bubble in a foam,

message sent, Peace on Earth.

This lilting night
in a world still trembling,
streets sag with silence,
the hush tastes of smoke.

A crow cuts low,
black wing against orange,
leans into the wind,
folds, veers.

Above the trees,
the sky wears a copper bruise,
clouds thick as wool,
the light already retreating.

Air carries the edge of change-
sharp as bitten tin,
wet as stone on the tongue.

All sound brittle:
screen door whining,
tires on gravel,
a match struck to nothing.

your page turning,
the small sigh after,
your breath, mine,
keeping time with the dark.

Roughly one year,
twelve months,
three-hundred-eighty-three days,
nine-thousand-one-hundred-ninety-six hours,
five-hundred-fifty-one-thousand-seven-hundred-fifty-four minutes,
thirty-three-million-one-hundred-five-thousand-two-hundr­ed-fourty seconds…
It is in these shreds of time that many vile moments will unfold like the last shedding of a snake’s skin.
There is no vaccine for the venom that is soon to occur,
it must simply run its violent course.
It will thin my blood,
and exfoliate me from within so that my soul is raw.
It is neither the lightheartedness of friends,
nor the contempt for those I have wronged that will keep me alive,
as there is no hospital that can cure wounds of this nature.
Time has lost its medical license due to malpractice,
and I once again find myself practicing patience with snakes.