I drive in circles because I don't want to go home
I trust in the strength of my phone's speakers as I listen to Ramshackle Glory
I drive past a house from long lost memories
What is my obsession with this suffering?
Why can't things move forward?
I romanticize living in my car
But then I remember most people who live in their cars don't have a choice
Does this make me a bad person?
Am I a bad person?
The next logical step after riding the rails is living in your car
Soon you'll find me an old grey beard anarchist living deep in the woods
A shotgun I never intend to fire pointed dutifully forward as I yell an the empty forest to get off my lawn
Surround myself with enough trees to hide from your ghost
I will surround myself with land and won't pay a dime because it probably won't be mine
But no ones gonna look for me where I'm going
I'm going to unionize the college campus
Seize the means of textbook production and go to bed hungry only when I want to
I will have coffee for breakfast
I will storm every Bastille left on earth
I will create a million Paris Communes
I won't go home
I promise I will never stop loving everyone I meet
I promise I will never stop fighting everything that wraps us in chains
I will die as old as I can get
I will hold on as tightly as humanly possible
And when I say I am free
I will always know what that means

I once lived in absence of color
I saw with eyes crystal clear
And when the light first shone in I was afraid of what I saw
I cried out
Save me from the crimson that runs in my veins and drips from my gums
Hide me from the dark green of the forest near my house
Repair my heart after the betrayal of the most beautiful blue

But I have seen the splendor of the ocean's sunrise
I refuse to let life beat my skin till it's black and blue
I refuse to stay silent as my comrades bleed the brightest red
I refuse to let anyone who values a green piece of paper over another human life rest easy
If all that glitters is not gold then my skin will be steel and copper
I am an ironside floating on endless sea green
I am the thunder of a thousand cannons emitting grey smoke from black powder
I am the yellow sun and the silver moon
I am every shade of starlight
I am the darkest night sky and the purest day blue
My eyes are the brown dirt earth that will grow crops to feed all people  
I am the dirt that grows sunflowers reaching toward heaven
I am the ink and the paper where we write "which side are you on?"
"solidarity forever"
And "we shall overcome
Some day"

Maybe some nights it's best not to sleep
Maybe this is one of those nights
Maybe I'm just too sentimental for the 21st century world
With its fleeting associations
And all the heads banging against the walls
Making the walls speak with outlines of faces who are too **** tired or too **** sad or in a pain that won't melt away
Some mornings I wake up and I want to smash windows to let in a little air
Some mornings I wake up and can't stand to look humanity in the eye
It's best not to remember those days if you know what's good for you
I've seen too many dead birds to deal with this ****
I have seen too many tears to acknowledge that love songs do any good

Maybe it's time to stop being a passenger here
Maybe it's time for me to get behind the wheel
Maybe we are already the captains
Maybe the ship isn't sinking yet
Promise me if this ship goes down you won't go with it
Promise me that before I die I will get onstage to sing again
They want to make me a saint
And place rosaries around my neck and flowers on my head
Meanwhile they are fixing to be martyrs
But the only difference between saints and martyrs
Is that saints perform miracles after they die
And martyrs inspire others to perform the same miracles
I still struggle to know which of the two are more holy

Tonight I saw your last concert
It's been a long time running
And it was well worth the wait

Nine years later
Would I rather not have met you?
Seven years later
Would I rather not have fallen in love?
Six years later
Are second chances worth giving?
One year later
Fool me three times and I am a joke

I am not the ghost I thought I was
You are the ghost instead
Ghost that runs in my veins
Ghost that still inhabits my dreams
Ghost I often think about
I need to lay your ghost to rest

Because now you are happy
Now you are whole
I am the one who sulks in darkness and hates their own reflection
I am he who writes about time that passes and love that fades
I am the deathly cliché of a boy who once  loved a girl and now is nothing more than a phantom
What difference is there between the phantom I have become and the ghost you are to me?
Can I exorcise these spirits?
Can my conscious return to solid form?
What chains do I rattle except for those I forged with my own bad timing my own poor choices and my own disillusion?

I must lay your ghost to rest before it kills me
But I can't bring myself to do it
In quiet moments I bridge our past failures to future hopes and my present becomes limbo
I can barely look people in the eye anymore
I avoid it so they can't see that I am never truly there
I made you this ghost in my mind
You and I made me a phantom
You won't forgive me and that's ok
I can't forget you
And I will have to learn
How to make it work
Ghosts are only as real as your willingness to let them into your mind
The door has long been open
And you are always welcome in

I have heard your words in the night
I have read everything your heart has moved to
The very words written on your soul plain as day
There is no need for ambiguity
The bags under your eyes are because you can't sleep
You climb bridges because you know what horrors await at ground level
At times you remind me of myself
In the trinity of your world, you take the place I do
The ghost who stands tall and skinny
I have walked parts of the path you travel and if my journey is any indication you have nothing to fear
I am with you tonight in spirit
You have no need to be baptized by fire for if no one else I can forgive you
Pain in this world isn't always your fault but you are responsible for how it moves you
Do not be pushed into harsh action my brother
Understand the sovereignty of choice for all individuals and that times and people change
Do not blame yourself for the sadness you feel
The writing on the wall whispers "be calm be still breathe"
The saints and prophets wish you well
We are all but skeletons left here
Dry bones rising out of the sand of the desert
Just like Ezekiel
Stand tall and trust that nothing is imaginary
The wounds on your hands will heal and the snow will give way to flowers again

I reached enlightenment going 75 on a highway on a summer night
No visions of Blake
Only spirits of Kerouac and Thelonious Monk beside me as I sat glued to the wheel
The psalms read as tail lights
The night smelt like memories of Boy Scout camp in the hills
I saw all of the kids of the American night as they should be
O holy angels
Fresh cut sunflower souls
Finding cute boys in Nashville or Indiana
Breathing in every ounce of childhood nostalgia with cigarette whispers
The only cigarettes I smoke are the secondhand whisps from close friends
The smell of cigarettes reminds me of lost love
No tears of Marx
Karl Marx is asleep tonight and all is quiet
Josef Stalin sits in an alley
Gut rot drunk and weeping
Somewhere in South America Trosky weeps through holes in his head the shape of ice picks
O American children
Drinking 100 proof distilled American passion
A stronger high than all the drugs I have never taken
A stronger kick than all the boots of the ones who won't put up with apathy any longer
Tonight we are the ones who are holy and crying
The chill of the night seeps into my bones and I shake with the earth and with drums and saxophone and everything sounds as it should
Paul Robeson my heart goes out to you wherever you are tonight
I stand watch so the skeletons of Babylon can throw stones at you no longer
The shattered glass reminds us the struggle isn't over
O American Angels listen to me ramble
I have sat in ecstasy and seen the smile of God and everything will turn out ok
Death comes when it has to
Don't rush it my friends
Until then raise whatever glasses you have as high as you can
Use the stones they throw to build your foundation
Kiss the ones you know in your heart to be holy
Don't worry how loud you are yelling
This is America and you don't have to be sorry
This is as beautiful as we allow it to be
This is as many tears as we can afford
Only saints cry on Thursdays
And tonight the wisdom of sages are written on bathroom stalls for whoever cares enough to read it
Bless everyone who sneezes
Don't  tell yourself that you aren't enough
Don't fool yourself that there is an enough
You are already as complete as you can be
You are the sunflower soul
You are enlightenment
Going 75
Down a highway
In the American night

In Genesis it talks about God giving people the breath of life
I believe that this happened and I am thankful
It is also said that Siddhartha Gautama reached enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree by observing his breath in meditation for three days
I have always considered the Buddha to be a pretty smart guy
My one issue with running is I have trouble breathing
When I'm stressed I take in deep breaths
I have the repeated verse of Machinehead stuck in my head

Breathe in
Breathe out

The air around us connects us to all living things
Sometimes I think that the air I breathe is the same air Allen Ginsberg once breathed and I feel glad
I once was in the same room as the air Bob Dylan breathed and that was pretty cool
On nights of poetry I breathe in the same air as my friends, whom I love dearly

Breathe in
Breathe out

I started meditating last week and I want to tell everyone
If I'm obnoxious I'm not sorry
But when you have lived a life of constant divided attention you enjoy not worrying about anything
I am hesitant to find someone who takes my breath away
Because at times my breath is the only thing I own
I am afraid to drown
I am afraid to suffocate
Breath is what connects us to all living things
So breathe

Breathe in
Breathe out

My love is like an old stubborn dog
It's tired and sick and sits around all day
But dogs are know for being loyal and sometimes that's all I can offer
The problem with this love is it still has many tricks to learn and I promise to be a good student
But you gotta be patient because this old dog gets wrapped up too much in its own self pity to know better half the time and if it gets too mopey it doesn't know what to do with itself
But even dogs in their eldest years need the love of any of those young scrappy puppies that go running around ******* on the carpet
My love does not **** on carpets
And neither do I

But there is something you must understand
If things go south and we split
If I leave, this old love isn't going to follow
For better or worse this love is yours
It belongs to you
I can't take it back, no matter how I try
You can do what you want with it
You can put it in the back room of your mind and forget the key
It will sit and it will stay exactly where you leave it
But nothing that happens and no mater how bad you treat it,
With you it will remain
So if you are going to come looking for love in my heart come prepared
And please be gentle

How much of the world is nothing more than what we experience?
William S Burroughs believed that everything you experience in your life you were meant to, that it was made for you
He wasn't very religious but in a way I am
He argues that every opinion is both subjective and objective
Because there is always an object, and a subject experiencing it
I'm sure, however, he was a better judge of art than I am

There is nothing more bittersweet than hearing the poetry of someone who you know is about to die
But here I am at nearly 1 am
Listening to your song

How much of the world has passed me by because I'm afraid to get my hands ***** or get my heartbroken?
I talk about our past creating who we are and then I spend months pushing no envelopes and not even stepping near a single line
How disappointed Hunter Thompson must be

I know I write a lot about dead men I idolize
Yet all the women in my life whom I love are living and although many of them have gone their separate paths in life I look fondly on every moment spent and know that no words I possess can describe them.
We are living in a world completely possessed by the human mind
And I promise to be more than along for the ride

I am a simple soul
When I die I want to be remembered fondly as a pretty decent poet
I don't want fanfare
But if I receive it I won't complain
Most of all I want to be remembered
My greatest fear is that everything I am and everything I have ever done will be reduced to a forgotten blip in the back of someone's mind
How I so much wish I had the power and strength to start fires I have no intention of putting out
My greatest philosophy is that a majority of people who do evil know **** well what they are doing, they just don't care
And enough of them can get away with it to inspire the next generation
Let me inspire a generation that won't allow evil to be done and go unpunished
Leniency towards evil is a joke that stopped being funny long before now
It never really was funny to start out with
Sometimes I catch myself thinking of all the rocks thrown at Peekskill and how they got away with it
I think of the four dead in Ohio
Even now I think of Sacco and Vanzetti and cry

I am a simple soul
I only wish that you remember those that came before us and sacrificed everything they had
And then I hope you think of me

I am in love with Allen Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra
And I am in love with sunflowers
But those two facts aren't necessarily connected
If someone ever asks me when I think I will die my reply will be "exactly when I need to"
I once heard of a Buddhist philosophy where you envision everything you own broken, so when the world beats everything you own into the dirt you can smile because it is a fact you have already accepted
The things you own cannot be truly yours until you accept that they are not eternal
I find it important to smile at everyone I make eye contact with
Even if the smile I produce is the usual awkward mess
I don't carry on this practice with the idea that "smiles are contagious"
I do it because I have spent enough of my life with the look of distaste across my face to grow tired of it
This poem is nothing special
It will start no revolutions
It will be forgotten
It will not make you or me or anyone else holy
That's not what it's for
This poem is for a small smile and a chuckle on a night where everything is so bleak and dull
This poem is for me to remember the little things that make this life of mine worth all the trouble
You can feel free to use it too
I won't mind

Such powerful emotions on a Monday morning
Becoming nostalgic to music I don't listen to
Remembering the girl that was my angel
But has since become angelic no longer
I feel wide awake in a sleepless generation
I feel lost in a generation where there is new meaning in finding oneself

At 10:08 am you don't truly comprehend how much you actually slept
My eyes are heavy though I have been awake for hours
At 10:09 am you think to remind yourself that you aren't the only soul experiencing a downward spiral
The only true crime in America is getting caught
The only true sin in America is minding your own business
But if your skin is light enough and your list of friends is big enough then ****** you can get away with anything

I have never been so angry with my personal life that I've punched a wall
I have yet to be so angry with the political world that I've thrown a brick through a window
But somewhere in America walls are being punched and bricks are being thrown and God bless all the punchers and throwers
Yes you say there are "better ways of dealing with your emotions"
But your treatment plan doesn't work for everyone
Some people meditate to deal with stress
Others make holes in dry wall and from what I have heard both ways work

I ask myself at 10:14 if I really want to get romantic love again
Probably not I tell myself
At least not soon
Romantic love and ****** love are mostly lost on me and I turn my love to friends, family, and animals like the birds outside my window
And when I say I love America I don't mean the government
In America we draw too thin of a line between protest and disrespect
Politics is always violent because people are violent
And you can't change the natural tendency people anymore than you can change the rotation of the earth

So next time you get so frustrated with the lack of justice, compassion or another buzz word that goes with being a decent person
And there is nothing better for you to do than punch a wall
Think of me
Because no matter what
I'm rooting for you

There will come a time when you must go to the river
The only road that can take you there is the fastest lane you can find
Do not be surprised if the music drowns out your thoughts
Accept it
Because when you go to the river you must empty yourself of everything else

When you get to the river you can pray if you want to
Or meditate
Or contemplate universal truths
Or scream at the music that blares from the open doors of Kentucky clubs
All that matters is where you are
When you get to the river pile the rocks by the bank so no one can deny you of this experience
Hold the rocks in your hand and feel each and every crevice
The texture of the stone is a memorial for all who did not make it back from the waters
Remember that every river is one
All rivers are holy
The water hitting the shore is a hymn of death and life and all earthly eternity so listen closely and carefully
Then sing your hymns to the geese and the ghosts and the monsters in the river
Understand why you made this pilgrimage

Remember that eventually you must leave the river
Remember where their car is parked
Remember who you are
On the way home don't take the highway
The highway is only so you can get to the river as fast as possible
Home can wait
Remember the day before
Remember how Allen Ginsberg sent you his answer in the form towers of water that everyone but you could see and know in your heart there is no answer more fitting than that
You will eventually get back to your own car
You will drive to your house basking in violet light
Sing every word you remember from your childhood
Take the long way into town
Get as lost as you will allow yourself and never too lost to find your way back
Do not worry about that river
The river will be there when you are ready to return

Almost a week has past
Since it was announced you will die
A day like that was always destined to come
But I am still not ready
Gordon Downie I want to write your eulogy now
And maybe you will see it
And understand how you've changed the life
Of this child of America

Gordon Downie you have made me scared
And if any sort of courage is going to come
Let it come now
I can't think of a worse time than this
Why must all my heroes leave me here?
But I understand that before a person becomes a saint they must perform miracles after their death

The three words I would use to describe you, you already know
Gordie you are a man
A machine
And a poem
The first song I remember learning how to sing, you beckoned me in from the wicked prairie winds  
And now I just hope that when I hear the news of the final words I smile
And it will be fine
But Gordie
I have avoided all the trends and clichés a young man of 20 can
I have sat in parking lots and coffee shops and witnessed beautiful things continuing as long as this world will let them

But it is you who has traveled to the hundredth meridian
The man who can get behind anything
The man who stood neck deep in the lake and yelled "you are not the ocean" and refused to swim
I learned that I must be ready to live my life because we get no dress rehearsals
I learned to be honest with who I am because no one's interested in the things I didn't do

Gordon Downie you are the machine that powered my childhood so this poem is for you
And when you die Heaven will truly be a better place
And one day I will meet you there
But until then
I will go to Bobcaygeon
And watch those constellations
Reveal themselves
One star
At a time

Allen what happened to the America you used to inhabit?
What happened to the America that raised you to be an angel?
Allen why are the bison in hiding?
When will we ask Cuba for it's forgiveness?
I am sentimental about Cuba and I am sentimental about America

They used to say the American Dream was a green light on a dock at the other end of the lake
Now they tell us that light is actually swamp gas, a trick of the eye, the moon reflecting off the water
And we are left to search for the American Dream at the wheel of a Cadillac in a haze of drugs among the ruins of Vegas

Allen when will we hear from you again?
Allen you would not believe what has happened to love in America
Love has become too serious
Too calculated
Too intentional
Allen wasn't your love accidental?
Didn't it possess mistakes?
Love is ceremoniously scripted
Downright mechanical
An exhibition of State sanctioned sincerity

Allen please give my regards to Burroughs
The space program is closed to the astronauts
We need to get serious about space travel
America has become silly when it needs to be serious and serious when it needs to be silly
This election is a joke and we are dying not laughing

Allen we are fighting wars across the oceans with drones it's sinister
Every general is now an armchair general
They say they bombed a hospital by accident
Allen I'm afraid of what they do on purpose

Allen I feel like giving up on America
The golden valleys have been melted down for the false teeth of millionaires
The highways full or diamonds have been dug up and the diamonds sit in vaults with diamonds bought with blood
Allen you and I are too sensitive for what America has become
Allen I need you now more than ever
Please write back soon
Yours truly

Two years now
Since I have walked the streets
Of the city of New York
I remember Central Park
Avenue of The Americas
A statue of a man
Like Sandburg's General
"Riding like hell on horseback"
The inscription reads as follows
"Apostle of Cuban Independence"
José Martí you truly were an honest man
Your words were the green of the spring leaves breaking free from the winter
Your words were red like the blood you shed
The revolution you died for
The revolution you were sent to a work camp for
The revolution you spent most of your life in exile for and lead you to write "Do not put me in the dark to die like a traitor"
"Leader of the Peoples of America"
José Martí how many New York souls walk by you without a second thought?
How many don't know your name?
They see a man on horseback
Do they see you as the poet you were?
Do they know you as one who loves and creates?
"Defender of Human Dignity"
José Martí what dignity have they left you?
The statue is the moment you were shot and killed on horseback
You were no general
You only wanted to see your country free
José Martí you deserve better than to be locked in eternal death
On a quiet April night I see you writing at a desk
Longing to return home
Longing to return to Cuba and never leave again
José Martí I think of you now
You are a good thing
And you died with your face to the sun
And I too will fill my face with sunlight
And remember your name

When you write a poem
What do you tell them?
Are you honest with them?
Do you tell them that you believe in God
That, though you are not Catholic, you believe in holy saints in plain clothes
Saints that don't know they are saints
No one can tell until they speak holy words of compassion
Do you tell them you think there is a bigger plan?
A greater purpose outside of passing off genetic material to another generation
Would they ask you what it means to you when someone says born again?
Would you tell them that you feel born again most Sundays but let yourself slip back into comfortable death the next morning?
Do you tell them about your job?
(Do they care?)
Do you tell them about your dreams?
(Do they listen to that either?)
Do you tell them that lately your dreams have been faint and you are afraid that one day you are going to wake up and not recognize the pieces that are left on the floor?
Do you tell them when you are down and out?
That you prefer using the term "melancholy"
Because it sounds a lot more artistic than "like ****"
Do you tell them that you think you sometimes swear a little too much?
That it makes you seem unapproachable
Do you tell them about your struggle to decide whether or not you want to make yourself approachable for love?
Do you tell them that maybe you saying "I don't have the energy to invest in a relationship" also means "I don't have the energy to invest in a heartbreak"
Do you tell them you have never been that great at love and you are afraid you missed every chance you had
Do you tell them you would rather dig the world
(As your heroes say)
Do you ask them if you talk about your heroes too much?
Do you tell them about the tears shed for Johnny Cash that night after you finished his memoir?
Do you tell them where you where when you heard the news of Pete Seeger's death and wished you would have learned it later?
Do you tell them about all the times you look in the mirror and tell yourself "Joe Strummer lived with such power that his heart gave out, how dare you be so apathetic, with such self pity"
Do you tell them that you love them?
Even if you don't know them that well and don't understand exactly what they are going through
That deep deep down you do secretly understand
What should you tell them when you write your poems?
You should tell them that

Everybody's ready for the summer
Except me
I am thinking back to summers of youth
One year ago
A summer of sadness and San Antonio
Two years
With a summer of nervous whispers on the beaches of Folly
Three years in the heart of Montana where I consider the last of the American Edens to be hidden
Summers of foolish young ecstasy
Listening to Matt & Kim
Imagining the holiness of Brooklyn &
Grand Street
Weeks spent in the hills of Chillicothe
The dirt of Chillicothe getting underneath fingernails and Chillicothe winds whispering in the night "Enjoy it now for it won't last"

So raise whatever drinks you've got
Let's toast the summer
On this the cruelest month
But how is April the cruelest month
When we elect the president in November?
We still have the summer left for our love
And if a wasteland comes to knock on our doors in the fall
Let it in
Enjoy the summer now
For even the wind knows
It won't last

Tides of change are like the tides of the ocean
Tides of the ocean I watched on an island off the coast of Charleston SC
Cemented in my childhood memories as a scene of holy simplicity

And like the ocean, these tides can bring forth
Great waves of progress
Hunter Thompson speaks of the great San Francisco wave of the 60s, and how it surged, raged, but could not make the journey farther than they peyote nightmares of Vegas

And still in dreams at night I hear Woody Guthrie singing how there's "a better world a-coming"
If you listen closely
In the alleys around trashcan fires
Or in the last of the occupied boxcars
You can hear the same thing
It's coming
It's coming

Yet tides come in and then recede back
And in the roar of the ocean I could hear it telling me to be calm
The better world is coming
But there is still much more time to wait
I don't like to be a pessimist about such things
But all one generation can do is reap and learn the last generations harvest,
And then go and plant their own

In these reflections I realize why I can't write exactly how I feel about politics or progress
I am not a warrior
I am not a brick thrower or speech giver, though both have necessity in their own respect
Like Hunter and Woody
I am a teller of stories and presenter of truth and life
I can spend endless nights and days writing of experiences
But the future is beyond my grasp

Yet when the times come
When blood is spilt and windows shatter
I will be there
I will experience every moment
And I won't let the effort be forgotten or in vain
For the tides come in
Then go back again

One has become the sunlight
Has become a field of endless sunflowers laughing and crying and being beautiful
This first friend lost because of a fight in the mountains and a bitter poem and inability to decide because I always knew the answer
This first friend had to get away from me and I don't blame them
Now I see the photographs of the first lost friend and I feel melancholy joy that the smile remains three years after I'm gone

Second friend broke my silly heart
Second friend on this list but for all intents and purposes first in many more respects
First time I knew that this sick machine of dark oil brooding and sentimental lunacy could feel regular old love
Second friend that was even the first of my living friends in all sincere sentiments
But the train couldn't bear to stay in the station for much longer and after 2 whole round trips decided that it was best to keep moving, coals in the furnace, fire burning the track behind
Lovely friend that I kept awake for in deep night searching for reasons to go meet the sun together
Honest friend who deep down knew that I would hurt in some way
Foolish friend who honestly felt that the best policy was not only keeping the skeletons in the closet but covering the closet door with wallpaper to keep everything in and me out

Two friends, oh how I disappointed you
How now I ache and twist in sleepless dreams of the one chance you come back to hear my apologies
But in wakeless days I watch and wait for a peace that won't come from either of you
Two forgotten lost friends burning holes in my heart with cigarette butts and cutting my mind with safety pins
It's nights like these where I want to see past my own reflection and see how you are

Days in America spent with poems and jazz
Switching from deep dark black coffee to Jasmine Tea
This typewriter called to me
Jack has been talking at me through recordings I play while I shower because the quiet is becoming too much
And when I leave for work the quiet is all I'm going to want
But for now I burn some incense hoping that the old typewriter case
Would smell musty no longer and instead have that heavenly smell
Of Orange cinnamon

Days in America when I go to work
Shelving library books and the similar media for four hours
While I sit and watch all the people
The regulars include the old lady who can't seem to catch her breath as if she just sprinted the news of victory from Marathon to Athens
And then the bearded Buddhist wise man
Or at least I consider him so from the stacks of words of the Dalai Lama he returns weekly and proceeds to saunter to the 290s, home of the Zen speaking and Buddhist discourse
I don't think I could ever be Buddhist because the world feels too real and I feel too real
Especially when my back aches from the lift and lower to shelve each to its own
And in comes the couple who only call each other babe
In they come with voices I can only describe as whiny
I hate to portray them in such a way but yet those voices make it seem they were born in love and in the end will die with the tone of love on their lips and the word babe in their heads

American nights where I drive home to eat or drive to Nick's to pick him up so the whole gang can eat and play cards and rant and yell like we do each Monday
Or this past Sunday when the destination was Waffle House and I was reminded that young love is a sorrowful dog-eat-dog affair
You want to truly know the American night?
Turn to new old friend Thomas Wolfe
Let him tell you of nights in Asheville and New York and the nights of even Europe and how they are all the same and endless
Just as time is endless
Can you already tell I love time?
I love the contextual seasons and when I try and talk plainly about the American night I lose all words because we've all been there and we all know and there's nothing more I need to say
American days and American nights can all feel the same
And we all eat sleep live breathe bleed
This cycle

In one of the darker moments of his life
Jack Kerouac wrote
"Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word."
And now we turn to a man
Who sits on the edge of a bed
That for almost twenty years he has rested on
He too waits for the golden and eternal things
The time for mourning is over he whispers to a solemn heart
It has been two years since he walked across a stage and was handed a piece of paper that told him "as your childhood ends your life can begin"
And everyday he works and sweats and toils to keep feeling as alive as he did at age 17 when he walked along Rocky Mountain Rivers
At 15 when he was entirely convinced that he was in love
At 13 when he believed jokingly that he was an alien not meant for this place and deep down honestly believed that he truly wasn't meant for this place
And now nearly 20 he sits and his eyes are filled with tears for a man who died 58 years before he was born
But our heroes heartbreak is now
And again the night time freight train pounds less than a mile away and a whistle like a voice calls out
"Sleep is the rest you ask for
Why must you sit so late in the evening and worry yourself to a death which won't come tonight?"
The man knows too well that the best time to mourn the loss of a person is when you first meet them
Too many nights of his youth he spent bargaining with someone near to his heart so they would quit their talk of dying
But when a day came where he thought they had finally done it he froze and did not dare speak
But they lived and he refuses to ever forgive himself for his silence
Life and time are immortal concepts but one must accept that loss is true  
And what of the golden and eternal things?
In those dark moments Kerouac says he saw the image of the cross in a nervous breakdown and take that to mean whatever you want but this man know what it means to him
So on this night he cries because a man in flesh is not eternal
But the sound of the freight train is enough to comfort him with that fact
That the golden and eternal are out there and coming.
And there will be no need for words

There are railroad tracks
That run through my town
And at night when I finally receive
The silence I wished for during the day
I can hear the faint whistle
And hum against my bedroom windows
I hear the whistle now.

All my life I have heard the trains
And I find beauty in the fact that even when I'm not listening, they are there
The trains carrying coal, chemicals, lumber, and the better parts of my childhood
As a child I loved the idea of the caboose
Allowing any stretch of rail
Any length of land
To be your home
Your bed
And it was probably through this my wanderer spirit grew.

All my life these trains meant something
Escape
But not without possibility of return
I romanticized the long web of rails connecting all the land and Souls in the American night
I have always loved such pieces of antiquity

So in the latter years of my childhood in high school it's no suprise the love I had for Steinbeck, Sandburg, and Woody Guthrie
I would lament to friends that the trains became too fast to hop, but I never tried
I always sat back and watched
Or listened on quiet nights

Now my childhood has passed
I am nearly 20 but wrapped in my head is the idea that the young boy who had train posters and pictures covering his walls was nothing but a stranger or a character in just another awful coming of age rerun
But deep down that child turned to Ginsberg who wrote of boxcars boxcars boxcars
And Kerouac who followed the long stretches of road to the western edge of America
And it was through Kerouac I found
Thomas Wolfe

I feel I have Thomas Wolfe in my bones
Thomas Wolfe who left home rejoicing train rides to the North
Then realized he couldn't go home again
Thomas Wolfe who never wrote a bad train scene
Not all of Wolfe is in me
Not the 1900s Southern prejudice
Or the raving accusing of friends of great treasons, only to have to apologize the morning after
But I can feel his need
To write all I can
To never take away
To add add
To never reduce because who tells Van Gogh "yes yer paintings alright but I need you to reduce the amount of stars by 30 and I expect it on my desk Monday"
I won't take anything away from myself
Only add
So at nights
When I hear the train whistle
And soft rattling on my window
Thomas Wolfe is with me
And he loves the sound too

And in these dreary dreadful
Days of January
I often fear that
Whatever fire or passion
That possessed me to write in the preceding months
Is leaving me
I know not how or why
But with everyday that passes it feels as if the fire is burning itself out

But my friends,
Blame it on the weather!
Blame it on the damp and dark and freezing chill
Blame it on the on the news of deaths and the presence of tears
But if you want something to believe, believe in this:
That **** fire won't burn out

Save your Phoenix symbolisms for another day
A Phoenix is born again from its own ashes
And in my heart there will be no ashes
Because this **** fire won't burn out

It's fine to stop singing when your voice cracks and your throat burns but that's no excuse to lose the tune
So when your voice is healed stand your ground and belt out your song
For that fire won't burn out

Then embrace the weather
Embrace the damp the dark and the freezing chill
Embrace the dreary dreadful
Days of January
Where you fear the fire inside flickers and fades
There is nothing controlling that fire but you
And if you have the patience to think and the paper to write
Your fire won't go out

Don't get me wrong or let the wrong picture be painted
There is plenty in this mad day and night world to be romantic about
But the total collection of my generation gets too romantic to me
This generation isn't even how I pictured it
What happened to the rucksack revolution
The Gary Snyder dharma bums criss crossing the United States with thumbs outstretched, hoping freights and carrying their whole lives on their backs
That is something I get romantic about
Was it really that hard?
Or was it simply easier to stay at home to watch daytime television or evening television or whenever the hell you watch television
I admit I watch television too
And it's certainly no means to an end
But there is gotta be more to this crazy life than that
I don't feel romantic like my generation does
My generation rarely feels romantic about jazz
Jazz is some of the most unapologetic music I can stomach
You will never hear a jazz song that doesn't breathe into your soul
I am getting tired of your romantics
I am tired of feeling like I have to live my life by pouring deep love emotions from the well of my heart into another human heart
Half the time I want to love the whole world
The other half I want the world to leave me to sit and sulk in peace
If you want, ask the two that I've dated
One may not remember but ask anyway
Ask them if I was ever romantic
Ask them what it looked like
Ask them how it felt
Understand that I am the great black sheep of romantic expression
Understand that there is hope even when there isn't romance
Understand that there is hope in every beat of our silly human hearts and every flicker of an eyelid and finally understand that even if someone says they don't feel romantic about one thing or the next, understand that doesn't mean that they don't feel love
Love and romance are all just silly words we give to what goes on deep down inside where we can never see but can always feel

Each death of another year
Brings lives lived in higher resolutions
This next year I promise to
Finally embrace my dreaming madman
Let my ears ringing be a sign that I need to listen up and maybe even calm my mind more
Stop expecting some grand vision to reveal itself and to keep reminding myself that hallucinations are not something I really want
I promise to sit my *** down and write when a poem comes to mind
Not days after where my mind turns to a rusty endless machine of impossible gears that serve no purpose but to clank together and make useless sparks
I will nevermore worry myself that what I have to say doesn't matter in the long run and that my speaking up doesn't always take the spotlight from those who deserve and need it
I will continue to resist being some tragic Faustian punk
I will remember that some things I can not ever begin to understand and just because I love someone that doesn't mean they have any obligation to love me back and that's ok
I will acknowledge that not everyone "gets" what I'm trying to get at and that's fine too
I will write some poems that rhyme ******
And I will probably  cut down on swearing
And I may even cut down on soda or whatever you want to call it, but I won't tell anyone whether that is followed or not
I resolve in the coming year to breathe in and breathe out the beauty of the world around me and surround myself with whoever cares enough to ask me who I really am
I am going to let everyone know who I am respectfully regardless etc etc
I will be honest with my shortcomings, my defeats, my family, and anyone else who asks
I will finally learn the names of all my coworkers
And in this coming year I will finally tap into the holy poet Saint Daniel Robinson that I know lives and sleeps deep down in the disaffected hermit *** Daniel I feel I am today

I am thankful for the mountains
I am thankful for the music that comes from the mountains
I am thankful for every fire that is lit by nothing more than the embers of a fire that raged before it
Only these fires can truly comprehend what it is like to suffer and be born again
I am thankful for the knowledge that every human being has in them a true spark
Only some don't care or are too busy
Or let their dreams be squashed or didn't have the fuel to burn in the first place
I am thankful for the holy beat poets
Kerouac and Ginsberg
I am thankful for the poet saints
Rimbaud and Lorca
And I am thankful for my saints of folk music
Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie shaped me long before any of this
But all in all I am thankful for the holy ghost of Carl Sandburg
Without him I would not be writing this poem or any
I am thankful that these poems allow me to say what I need to
I don't expect my words to be recited at weddings or funerals
But I don't mind because both atmospheres depress me just the same
I am thankful for every trail I have walked
I am thankful for every breath of Rocky or Appalachian air ever to enter my tragic lungs
I am thankful for the bonfires I have lit
I am thankful for the sticks that snap in my hands and leave scrapes that bleed only enough to remind me that I'm alive
I do not need such reminders but it's always a nice thing to have
I am thankful for every lost love
Whether I disappointed them or ****** them off is no matter
All that matters is that there is humility
I am thankful for the fact that these lost loves are leading
Completely happy lives with or without me
Knowing someone's happiness is dependent on me is a responsibility I cannot bear
I am thankful for this typewriter
It was my grandfather's when he was my age
He passed away two years ago on the week of Thanksgiving
He was born that week too
And it isn't pilgrims or stuffing that help me to feel thankful
It's the people like him

What melancholy nights
We experience in the towns we call home
Kerouac's Holy October is over
And November hangs on the lips and minds
Of the denizens of
Autumn Earth

And when will I become the
Angel-Headed Hipster
I convinced myself
I was prophesied to be
Hipsters who bury themselves in the acoustic blues
Of coffee shops
Or are baptized by words
In bars on Sunday nights

Why would Carl Solomon
Ever leave Rockland
If he's promised never to be alone there?
And they say Neal Cassady died counting railroad tracks
And did he want to die counting railroad tracks?
And will I die counting railroad tracks too?

I so much want to emulate my heroes
I fear it will **** me
And if not a death of physicality
Then a death of mentality
Where I will cease to be
Me

But who wouldn't love of life
Of holy restlessness
Who wants to limit their scope to
A town
A city
A state
And when the only state I feel I can truly call home
Is Confusion
I want it to be for a good enough reason

And if I am to die in a state like this
Let me die counting railroad tracks
As melancholy days
Turn to melancholy nights

"Overlook San Antonio Riverwalk"
A line I wrote
In quiet inspiration.
Now memories flood through
In a dreary Ohio night

I see the winding Riverwalk
In the corners of my mind
These memories are quick & scarce
Unable to reach full maturation

Young notebook in which I write
I trust in you to allow my
Thoughts to flow
And I will overlook
San Antonio Riverwalks
Of the mind
Till I return again

Poetry is not the most holy art
No art is holier than another
I tried to write songs
But no tune could come to me
And before that I tried to write stories
But they lacked filling
And the shells succumbed to their own emptiness
Yet all the while
Words remained

I tried to ensnare such words and trap them
But always they escaped
Slithering through the grooves and cracks of my conscious
Finally one day I laid my body on the ground
And let the words come as free as they liked
And only on that day
Did I begin to become a poet

Whether I achieve fame is meaningless
How many more true souls have come before me and have been ignored by the cold world?
I want to write not to be famous
But to know my voice is heard
And that I'm remembered
For to be remembered
Is to be eternal

Do I become a slave to my poetics?
Never
My poetic thought is a chunk of my self, bled out onto a page and then taken from the page by threads of voice to be dispersed into the air for the ears and hearts and minds
You can't be a slave to yourself, if the poetics are yours
And if the poetics are yours you will never betray yourself

If the pen is mightier than the sword, is this mic stronger than the gun?
Will the shouts of truth be stronger than the pierce of the bullet?
Because you better ******* believe that if I have breath in my lungs to spare I will shout these truths until the well runs dry and my voice shatters and my mind and heart rot

Poetry is no more holy than any other art
But poetry is going to shake this earth before I am gone and you better believe it

99% of Americans don't know
That penguins run the world
That's why they all wear suits
Because world *******
Requires a dress code
Yeah it may look silly
To see a penguin waddle around
But have you ever seen
Black Friday stampedes
And midnight premiere lines

Our penguin overlords are benevolent
If they wanted we'd all be gone
Or forced to work in their egg warming factories
And they keep operations where it's cold
Because they know we like where it's warm
And they keep an eye on us from our zoos

I've been to the zoo in Columbus
I've seen how those penguins watch us
I know they are in control
1% of Americans know
That penguins rule the world
And now that you've read this,
That makes 2%

It's a chilly October  morning
As I sit down and reflect
On this summer
I can see my breath
And my sleeves are long

Soon it will have been a year
Since this whole mess started
I'm not entirely sure
About how I've grown
Or the lesson I needed to learn
I don't even know what I want to write
But thank God for this music I'm playing  
Focusing my mind
I sit on a ledge in the Quad
Blasting this music from a small black box

If I learned a single thing from
The summer of my "discontent"
Is that there were parts of this world
And parts of myself
I was missing when I was with you
I am more whole without you

This notebook is filling up
Notebook I brought to Montana
Notebook I had in Yellowstone
Notebook I had in San Antonio
Where I tried to write
Woody Guthrie folk songs
And I first started
My Ginsberg-Kerouac-Sandburg
Poetics
I am not ready for this chapter to close
But like all things
It must
And I will love it always
Like every other chapter
I've lived
Even the one with her

Where did those
Big scaly monsters go?
I'm tired of paying for gas
It would be so much easier
To fly to school on a dragon
No one’s gonna cut off a dragon
And I won’t need to worry about parking
Just stick it in the quad
And walk around the charred bodies
When I leave

I don't remember when the turning point was
But finally the anger inside of me degraded and only pieces were left
In the second half of summer I began to write again
But I made my room a tomb
A mausoleum built not to keep me inside but to prevent myself from making this mess worse
It was this half of summer that I realized that it was all doomed to happen from the start
It had been years since we both fell in love
And in the time between we grew
We both had boarded trains going different directions
And instead of accepting that fact we tried to put both trains on the same track
Why were we so surprised when the trains collided?

In this half of summer I knew that what happened was more of my fault than anyone else's
These are the kinds of things that happen when you turn a blind eye to reality and instead only saw the dreams in my head
These truths made me feel no better than before
The bitterness was still there and I reached its epicenter one night in San Antonio
San Antonio where I realized the weight I had gained and where I knew I wanted leave all thoughts of you behind

We stopped talking
It was the best decision I had made for months
And in this time I felt both forgiveness and regret begin to grow
The darkest parts were over yet I decided to close myself off to others

In this time did I forget beauty?
Did I ignore love?
No
Instead I turned the love I had for you into steam energy and saw again the beauty in the world around me
I took the love of one beating heart and extended it to every beating heart within radius
This is how I found healing
And this is how I realized that the pain I felt had become less heartbreak and more ego
I decided to gather as much as that ego I could to burn it and spread the ashes

I have said before
We are products of our past
The two halves of summer were nothing more than individual tracks leading my train farther down the line
Destination: anywhere
Any homes of love, beauty, or any other arbitrary human word for the holy things
Summers end was a flash of blinding light and I travel forward new
Less born again
More never having truly died

The tone of my summer was set three days before it began
As I look back now it's as if I am looking into the mouth of a long forgotten cavern
On that day I got the message
A message that I knew was in front of me the whole time like a snake whose venom had already seeped through my skin
But now the message was tangible
Sent to me by a friend
A screenshot from your private Twitter you wouldn't let me follow
What it said was unimportant
What it confirmed was something I should have known all along but made myself blind to in order to keep up the illusion that we weren't falling apart
Yet the truth was that for a month now we were the farthest apart we had ever been

You said it wasn't cheating because we weren't "technically together"
You had said a break was what you needed
And I wouldn't have been suspicious if that hadn't just come up the day after you kissed him at some drunken madhouse party
And if you don't call it cheating what was the point of lying to my face and sneaking out at night?
I went to your house in a moment of foolish desperation and you lied while looking into my eyes
The truth would have been easier

Summer came nonetheless and I begged you to explain yourself and be honest about what had happened
You refused to say a **** word and honestly that hurt more than the actions you took
It's been 8 months now and I still don't know what happened

The first half of summer was madness and bitter anger
Over 19 years I had built a reservoir of raw emotion and when the dam finally broke it was from a hole no bigger than a pinprick
Yeah I acted like a child
I admit that what I did was wrong but at the time it felt nothing but appropriate
Half of summer I brewed in a disgust that only ever bordered on hatred
And I never left you alone like I should have
I wanted to dig myself a hole all the way down to the burning magma with no intention of dying but rather a grave deep enough to bury my bitterness

Half of summer I wanted to hate you
I couldn't
The first half of summer closed as a chapter of utter frustration and complete denial of who I thought we both were
In the end I cared less about the relationship but rather the seven year friendship that was ruined for a guy you talked to for no more than a month
The first half soon ended and the next began

She said her name was Sky
Or at least that is what I think she said
When we were asked to turn to those around us
And to shake hands and say good morning
I thought it was a beautiful name
And I have thought of it since Sunday

I saw her first when I walked in the door
She wasn't the first face I saw
But she is the first face I remember
Now that isn't entirely true
Because if I was asked today to pick her out of a crowd I may not be able to
I am a nervous man at times
I did not stare at her
I didn't even look long enough to take in the intricacies of her identity
We made eye contact
I nodded in greeting as I always do and continued walking
I can remember the coat she wore was purple
And I didn't know she would sit two seats down from me
And I didn't know I would become entranced by the thought of her

I fear that I fall more in love with the idea of a stranger
Than I would once I know them
I feel that I am a dreamer at times
Though I would never admit it
I know however I won't die lonely
Though not without its bite,
Lonliness isn't that strong to me
I don't think much of it

She said her name was Sky
And in my nervousness I only said
Good morning
And I hope I see her again

11:42
I should honestly be asleep now
But instead I lay here and listen
To October winds
Blowing through my neighborhood

Yes it is October now
It never started feeling like summer to me
Now why am I so surprised it's gone?

But honestly October
What is it about you
That made Jack fall in love with you
That makes the kids of my generation
Manic
And ranting
Pumpkin crazed
October winds are peaceful not spooky

When you asked me to write you a poem
I was afraid about what I would say
(I still am)
It hasn't even been a year since
I disappointed you
I try not to think of such things
But my life is full of many moments
I let people I care about down

You have done a lot of traveling
Since we first met in that coffee shop
Where all my good memories were made
The coffee shop has since left
And now the whole building reeks of emptiness and what once was
It depresses me to go back

You have seen so much more of the world than I have
California is only a name on a map to me
But you made friends there and in that state you grew to who you have become

And oh you have felt more than I
I lock up my emotions in a faux stoicism
I don't like talking about my feelings
But I haven't lived the life you have
Oh the people you have lost and the things that have happened
I can't imagine what you lay awake at night contemplating as I lay and think of such trivial things

I wish we could both go back
Valentine's Day
2012
I was never mad at you
I understand why you never came
It wouldn't have changed who you are to me

I wish we could go back
To the fall of last year
I wouldn't have taken the path I did
I wouldn't have alienated you
For the sake of her
Or anyone else

You have been there for me
Countless occasions
And I have created this debt to you
I wish to pay
But I am unable

Now we don't talk as much
And when we do it lacks what it once had
And I know it's my fault
I know what I did was wrong
But I'm glad you haven't given up
And you haven't forgotten
And I have never doubted that you have cared about me
And I hope we stay close
For as long as we are alive

I often write my poems too fast
And the emotion gets passed by
In a rush to be finished
I gotta remember
I'm not Jack
I can't write on a continuous scroll
In a Benzedrine blur

I wish I could read my poems
With a jazz backing band
I keep a terrible rhythm alone
And when I'm in my car
Listening to Thelonious Monk,
The Jazz King of my heart,
My voice has this growl of feeling
But when I'm on that stage
With the mic staring back at me
I hesitate
It doesn't come out right
It doesn't sound like I rehearsed it
In my bed late at night
Or on those countless car trips

Oh I wish I could take that car
Gun it down an empty highway
Windows down
Air rushing in
And the Miles Davis trumpet
Screaming for me to go
Go
Go

I want to write about more
Than just how I'm feeling
My hero Woody Guthrie said
"All you can write
Is what you see"
But I've spent too much time
Looking in the mirror
When I should be looking out the window
But the window reveals my reflection all the same
I can never truly escape my self
But still I write

I know they are in me
The true holy poems
And maybe they won't be howling
And maybe they will never have been to Chicago
And maybe they don't know any Rimbaud or Garcia Lorca
And maybe they can't sing the blues
But when it is all said and done
No matter what they are
They're all I've got
And you can never hate something like that

And tonight I name myself
Misery
Something very fleeting
Only when thoughts of you
Bombard their way to the top of my mind
"What a tragedy"
I cry out to myself
Expecting someone to hear me
And take pity
But this room is empty
And my voice echoes and burrows itself
Into painted corners
Of gray or black
Tonight I feel misery
But it won't be long
Until the cool September air
Trapped in this room
Listens and feels the emotions in my words
And wraps itself around me
As I sleep

Whether we like it or not
We are a product of our memories
Our past
But the memories only have the power
That we give them
This poem would have been about
Desperation
Disappointment
Fear
Loathing
But as I sat and looked at the words already birthed unto the page
I didn't know where I wanted to take it
And in that moment of blessed and holy realization I knew immediately that wasn't the poem I wanted to write
Loathing had its time
Fear was an anchor only attached by a narrow thread
Disappointment was a lie to myself
And I felt no more desperate at this moment than I did when a million other horrible moments were conceived by my mind and cemented in my heart and ultimately made me
I am the direct consequence of my circumstance
And I wish it to be no other way
Failure is only but a new way of finding a path
The true path
I do not walk blindly
My stumbles are a part of my stride
This poem would have been about sadness
But I realized the sadness wasn't me after all

I can promise you that
I rarely cry at photographs
This is very new to me
But these tears are true
Just as your photos are true
Your photos are the true America
Thousands of photos
Of lives you only knew
I want to cover my house with your work
I want to imprint your photos inside my eyelids
So my dreams are filled with
The magnificent contrast
Beautiful simplicity
The truth shown through your eyes and the eyes of your camera, held at navel level, as you look into the eyes of your subject
What true art you have made!
Art rarely seen
Until after you passed
I wished I could meet you
A true beautiful soul
Why do all the beautiful souls leave me here?
Your pictures of the poor enlighten me
Your scenery inspires me
I can almost hear your faux French accent

You worked as a nanny
And you hid yourself
With fake names
Always a secret
You locked the doors behind you
For years your art was locked in boxes
Boxes and boxes
And photos of dead horses
Crying children
Extreme human conditions
Photos of trashcans
All was art
You could truly see it couldn't you?
You could see the truth
Of which I wish to write

I hope you were happy
Or at least content
I hope the nights weren't too dark
I hope you are glad to hear
The world loves what you have done
I thank you
We all thank you
And I wish you well

I’m leaving today
On this San Antonio Highway
While San Antonio jazz
Oozes through the speakers
Of this big blue Subaru

I-35 N to Austin
Destination Texarkana
And in two days’ time
July 15th 2015
I will be back home
To the humid Ohio weather

Ohio is covered in rain
But on this San Antonio Highway
The sky is dark and the ground is dry
And Louis Armstrong sings away

I had a dream the other night
That I had found a window
And that window revealed to me the entire world
I could see everything there is to see
I could see the sun set in one land
As it rose in another
Nothing could hide from the windows gaze

I could see kids in public parks
Late at night
Staring at the dark, foreboding trees
Hallucinating the majesty
Of the way the branches moved in the wind
And upon reflection
Were called into the forest
By the sinister shadows inside themselves

On the West Coast I saw a girl
Separated from her Midwestern friends
And her Midwestern love
(Whom I have not met)
I see as her mind is split
Cross country style
And her thoughts fall
Like the raindrops on her window

I see a single match being lit
In the basement of an East Coast hospital
A young boy has traveled many miles
(Hitchhiked across the country
In a time where the Cassadys and Kerouacs
The great heroes of the road
Have all died out
And the road is home to the carcasses of a million dear
A thousand raccoons and a hundred skunks)
The boy lights a second match
And with the match lights a candle
Then he pulls out an old dusty guitar
And begins to play

The boy,
Born too late,
Journeyed to this hospital
The hospital here his hero stayed
While his hero’s mind decayed
But now there is no one around
The hospital is long empty
So he plays a tune to himself
The guitars’ celestial strings sing
Echo through the Empty
But with the window I see the boy is not alone
The spirit of the boy’s hero
Smiles down upon the boy from Heaven
And with God & Saints
Bless the boy
The song
The guitar

Miles away
Out west on a lonesome prairie
In the cover of night
I see a man sit at the bar of a diner
The warm glow does not penetrate far into the solid darkness
The man is alone
A fry cook stands in the kitchen
But is not in the man’s view
The hostess is out back
Smoking in silence
The man is left with his thoughts
Along with his rancher’s jacket
And ***** ball cap
This man wears an air of sadness
I can’t hear what he is thinking
But in his silence I can feel the weight of that sadness
I can almost know all his troubles
The man finishes his coffee
Puts money on the counter
And leaves without saying a word

As the dream ends
And I can feel myself begin to wake
I can see all those faces staring back at me
Each look through their own windows
I see the man stare through his car window
And the window of hope
I see the West Coast girl
Stare out the window of a plane
And the window of longing
I see the boy stare through the window of time
And finally I see the children in the parks
Staring through the window of Nature
And the window of the soul

Inspiration is
A busy college cafeteria
The rushing of a freight train
Crowded Time’s Square on a rainy night
Walking along a quiet trail
A bird blind in the morning forest
A highway road flanked by corn
The seaside town of childhood memories
My inspiration comes from this whole eccentric world

I can feel the drum beats in my bones
I close my eyes and I can feel my soul
And I can sense that it wishes nothing more
Than to leave this stubborn body
So it can dance in the air
To the great guitar vibrations
And the melody of the wind
The sweet smell of cigarette smoke drifts past
As the first band finishes
All is now quiet
I wake from one trance
And gratefully await the next

I will never beg you to like me
I will never force you to read or listen
To what I have to say
One day, on your own accord, you will listen
And you will understand
You know what I am saying
Because you feel it too
We all feel something like this while alive
No one promised us that Earth will be our friend
No one promised simplicity
One day you will read the words I write
On Thursday nights in my bathroom as I stare into my mirror and wonder who I am
You will read those words and you will feel in your heart what I have said because everyone like us has something in their heads
I will not beg you to understand
Because one day you will

On a shaded bench I sit
As large black birds squabble
& squawk
& fly all around my head
Families walk around
Forcing pictures
My family is elsewhere
I enjoy the momentary solace

32 men from Gonzales
Died near where I sit
Yet I can smell no gunpowder
I can hear neither shots nor cries
Only families snapping pictures
And children crying in the Texan sun

Ladies and Gentlemen
Please silence your cell phones
I want to hear the children sing
For they sing a song
Sad but lovely
Their voices rise like smoke
To be carried off in the breeze

Let me have peace
Quiet your voices
Quiet your minds
Listen to the children sing
They sing away oppression
Cast out hatred
Become baptized by the children’s song

Let me hear the holy songs
Of the holy Children
Let me free my soul
To the songs of Love, innocent & free
Songs about the Earth, basking in Eternity

Men & Women
Put down your guns
Cast away your atom bombs
& nuclear deaths
Stop your fighting
Silence your scream
For we all need to hear the children sing

I saw the ghost of Jack Kerouac
Walking an empty highway at night
I walked with the ghost of Carl Sandburg
In the ancient streets of Charleston
I sang with the ghost of Woody Guthrie
Along Rocky Mountain trials, through Yellowstone
I played music with the ghost of Pete Seeger
On my guitar, around a campfire
I read the words of my poems with the ghost of Allen Ginsberg
Quietly, in the dark, alone in an empty room