I just read the email you sent me. The one in
which you called me a **** and told me that my dad was right
all along.
.
.
I'm scared of tonight's nightmares.

i can no longer understand how now,
this sleeplessness at night,
when the world is waking in other places
so far away from me,
to the ethereal powders of the breeze,
that paints the morning with its poetry,
as the phantom of the love i love,
causes me to awaken with a cry.

It's going to rain, rain, it's going to rain,
those sleek-silver drops will take me back again,
to those cobbled, winding streets,
the raucous, song-filled pubs,
and the green, the green, the red-brick,
granite and oh! the green,
the steaming Earl Grey tea,
of which i love with a yearning need,
waiting, waiting for me,
on that precious island on the sea.

I

i am so much smaller than you
and i can ever
                            believe...
and you are so much smaller
than you and
i know.

i sit within the winds,
those summer breezes,
some gusty gales, perhaps,
feeling
'the tug
               and toss
of its fabulous force
     rippling
     churning
combing the thinning grey hair on my tired head,
my clothing,
                          so indistinct,
flapping,
                  furling,
floating, --filled with this seen-un-seen presence,
     and i know

a am so small,
and my life so
ludicrous,
like the air
that comes
                      and goes
out of its own control,
but,
                                               i am too small,
and unable
to stop this, its invisible assault.

II


when i am a-float upon
the great lakes, the oceans
the
      rolling
                    rivers
i live
like a tiny slab of flotsam or
     driftwood
sailing
             slowly,
circularly,
(oh-so!) quietly
                                running,
reeling the peeling painted oars of my boat
against
the grainy flashing surface of the waters
                                 rumbling,
                                                                                  rolling
                                                                                       away
this insatiable yearning
to go wherever it takes me to go, but
i know
              i am very small,
and cannot control the eddy's creeping currents-
constant-currents
thus
          submitting
my wayfaring self
to the
unfathomable.

III
__

these trees towering
                                         above me
around me,
the sapling,
the blanketing
                              (in my lifetime)
                                blooming branches
creating
an emotional, outer, physical, inner, spiritual
                              dwindling
like the leaves left shivering beneath the cold winter's frost,
once casually
                falling,
                              dropping,
drying up around my soul
slipping
into silent winter slumber,
to awaken
                     again...
                                    --and then!
(to the dismay of my self-enlightened discovery)
i see
how small
                                            i am
only to return again
from that brownish-moist
soil-bed
                like a seed
beneath
                  the ground
                                        never sprouting,
only fogetting,
the once and always forvever
and ever
the natural
insignificance
                                                                 of being.

with no one to talk to
and
no plan as to where i should go,
i fall into a listless,
waking slumber
and
feel covered up in cold.

Coffee and Tea, I'll take them both,
Light me up another smoke,
Have a piece of Shoo-Fly pie,
Hear the birdies in the sky,
Take my pen in trembling hand,
Compose some poetry, if I can.

I am,
however, no hero,
just a lowly poet
in the always
and forever
quest for the pursuit of
truth...

i am the saddest man on earth.
my rock is mud,
my life has lost its worth.

savage, heart
so hurt
and empty
blackened pools of
pain, not envy
given into sleepless nights,
and pain-filled days,
where nothing's real,
where nothing's right.

this is the way it is,
the way it seems to
be
now i peer into a
dusty mirror
seeing little left of me.

the way we wish
it was
the way
it ought to be
but
fate has set us
on a course
of would haves
should have
been.

I cower in your shadow,
shivering despite any acuity of my own.

(your words are like loaded icicles,
beretta rounds fired through my false logic
and fake religion;
it scares me.)

The truth is I'm not fearless,
I'm pale and lily-livered and only so heathen as the other stars.

(maybe it's good you're in college,
it's closer than you were growing up.
when we were young,
you were short yet rough.
I was the younger,
and, my shepherd, you were faithful;
I only got lost 8 times.)

I don't think I ever really knew you
in any possible perception.

(I know I knew the talk of you,
the hustle and bustle at home and abroad
of your mighty intellect,
your crushing wit,
your driving polities
a war machine and
your gleaming smile
its patron god.)

How could I ever compare, though,
to the goddess of mind and body, brains and war?

(the truth is I am but a defiant priest,
crooked nose and
ashy eyes.
I think the reason,
even today,
for all my insecurities was due to you.)

Appeasement was a method used by the vain and weak
to protect against the humble yet brilliant.

(I feel your ******* take me over,
I feel it acid-wash into my skin,
de-porous my bones
and my imagination structure.
I feel it sink me up to the top,
drowning me in your air,
in your sky and your perfect chemistry.
your burning gold catches me,
smothers me in hands too big
for such a small person.)

How is it you are so tall
when you come up to my chin?
Why is it that I shiver and shake at your light foot falls?
Answer to the shadows
and my cowering will not respond.

(My lady in waiting
Was a cougar crouched in the brush.)
Brush it off, no big deal.
I'll console myself
By talking to strangers,
Fraternizing with friends
And enemies alike.

Maybe old men
Fornicating at my image
Is better than true friendship,
Tangible attachment or comfort.
Maybe I never needed it.
(The look and feel of
Printed words on a screen.)

(Maybe the chill was me,
Maybe I am a bit nippy.)
No time was spent
Trying to harvest this field,
Cold winter took all in bloom,
Fresh compassion plucked
Before ripeness came to play.

What was I to you?
We suspected a dream.
I comforted you in
The idea that I was there,
That I could listen.
(My lady in waiting
Was a cougar crouched in the brush.)

I am a jealous thing,
Prickled with green and bitter
Envy, feathered jealously,
Dusted with desperation.
I am always in flight of
A lover, an enemy,
Anyone to bond with my
Covetous and ignorant
Soul; a pulsing, fleshy hole
Which housed the emerald throne
On my winged back.
Now, you are very pretty,
But you are not quite like me,
Bountiful in quality
But lacking any substance.
That is all I ever am,
Full of substance.
What substance fills my being?
Vitreous stardust pickled
In Elysian fields of cool,
Sneering grass.
Grass? I am a total ***,
Green and made to be grazed;
No flight
With wings of jealous construct.
You
Fly to ever higher heights,
While envy-ground and I will
Forever stare greenly up
At the marvelous form of
You.