Tonight, outside the storm
rages while the silence
inside me is as deafening
as a drowning violin,
I am as lonely as a lost feather
floating on a wandering
wind, my thoughts as painful
as a heartache wondering
when the beating will end
and love has turned cold,
passion has left, and when
the wine is all drunk I'll become
the insatiable leviathan
sinking ship after lost ship,
the salmon who drank the river
dry, the sailor who swallowed
the sea, until my forgotten
lover's face is seen in each breath,
and crystals condense
on my heart and my hands,
and the night is as dark
as a stranger’s stark shadow.

called


******* three AM  

fast asleep I didn't answer

that is when the earth shook
the 747 crashed and two people
aboard survived
and the survivors  appeared on CNN thanking God

I was having a dream about
babysitters I think or
raw bare muffs
muffins getting stuffed
i forget

anyways
I appeared in my dream all staring
back inside me laughing
you are an imbecile
my me said coarse
harsh

I then awoke
I ain't gonna take **** from my **** self
tried to call me out
fight like a man
you imbecile

I had divided thoughts
I and me presumed
and doubts along a thin line
left or right
and in between

as fisticuffs met jaws and legs tangled up
noses bent but
most of the damage went to
knuckles aching again

that night
God's office
didn't call
I don't
know why

it is a bitter pill to swallow
a willow on my shoulder
her width is covering me
in shadow

I try to grow all tall
and better I try
to make each sunrise
day brighter

My roots grow shallow
I fight
I strive to
get nutrients

among this forest
of tall trees
suffocating me
I am but a little
****

and my father was
an oak
my mother grew her hair
long
to the ground

The sleepy man at the museum
directed me to the balloons.

Ten out of ten shots went astray
proving my eyes are lame
and so my aim.

The galleries were eerily deserted.
(is people's interest in science flagging?)

I looked down the infinite well
for awhile eternally falling into it
recovering from the realization
they were merely infinite reflections.

The man's smile told he knew from my dazed look
I was lost in the mirror maze.

(Was I stuck in all the wrong exhibits
for my age?)

I got a ticket for the sky in September
finding peace in the dark of the planetarium.

it's gonna be dry one day
when it finally stops raining
down here in old Alabam'

seems to be either drought
or tsunami rain forest ****
down here these places

Outside the puddles
are taking over, the farmers
always proclaiming catastrophe.

like drug dealers, I used to know
they don't want you to realize
their prosperity

or find their two ounces stashed
buried near that peanut plant
in the field

or the fifty thousand cash

When love comes to visit
she only stays a few days
at a time; her work in the city
is important she says, so
she brings her satchel of books

I wait at the crossroads
where the bus lets her off

Then we go to bed to dream
where she sings and hums
before morning comes

When she gets up
and pulls on her jeans
and goes out on the porch
it's so early you can see the moon
and the sun; I go to work
while she lays around
to read and do what she does

The days go so slow
and when I get home
she's baked some apples
and painted my bedroom blue

The next morning
I take her up the road
to the bus; we say so long

She never talks about her job,
so I leave her  alone.

At dusk I hang up
a worn blue work
shirt that smells
strongly of love
of dirt of the earth
melancholy, sweat
yesterday's brews
the blues, regret
twenty cigarettes
black breath
of the bone moth
old blood, moon dust
spring pollen, summer
grass, Autumnal ****
winter's cold blast
sea salt and pine needles
mountain laurel, desert air
my dog's hair, I swear
I can't bear the thought
of washing or throwing away
all the stains, the growing pains
the laughter, the sorrows
these history lessons I need
to get me through tomorrow.

Who is that man
in my doorway

his shadow
smelling like grave soil

face cold as a dead star
dark as a pond full of oil

his hair floating like weeds
eyes blank as a book of good deeds

turning slowly with grace
like a boot tied to the end of a lace.

They bring with them the baggage of men
the lost children attempting pathetically
to recreate the aura of time long gone.

If you discount the roughness of skin
travel past the thick hedge of beard
penetrate the silt on the eroded eyes
you can delayer the hardened coats
and get to see  faces barely recognizable.

Some were once too close to be missed
their names and all
but most you could hardly recall
and it agonizes your thought
were they in the same class or not.

You smile till your jaws ache
fetching stories from the blue
dazzlingly colored and half true
for they are all in the mood
to joyfully succumb to falsehood.

You could tell from the body language
who's  in the backburner
and who on the front page.

Forty years break and make men
but they feign happiness
to be united again.

Night I call you
portal of silence

the true divided light
of the moon through
my window leaving

shadows like crosses
of time, that old bandit

on my wall, the panes
stained, broken and sharp.