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

If you ask me on a good day
What we need to change the world
I'll tell you "each other"
If you ask me on a bad day
I'll look you in the eyes and tell you
"What we need are more riots"
We need people out in the streets
We need a little fire, chaos, and to embrace our friends like its the end
And I would say both answers are realistic
Realistic in the way that I don't have an actual plan

There's a reason I'm not an insurrectionist
Because while freedom is out there
If I only reach out and take it
You don't know how hard it is for me to reach out and turn off my alarm in the mornings
So I tip my hats to all the Dean Moriartys out in the world
Those beautiful adventurous people who go to marches and take a stand or take their whole life and move across states
People who know what it means to "live like you mean it"
I have trouble knowing if I really mean anything I say anymore, much less what I do
I've always been more of a Sal Paradise anyways
The background character in my own story
Writing the chronicles of all the Roman candle people
Beautifully illuminating in the night sky

But I still haven't wrote myself off completely
And I hope you haven't either
Because there are still times where there's power in my step and fire in my mouth
I was born a militant apathetic
All that's left for me is the right catalyst and I promise I'll burn brighter than all the molotovs thrown in Greece
And while I can't promise to make total destroy
I can promise that I'll try my best to fight when I'm needed
Because all we need is each other
Today's gonna be
A good day

And on that day I decided
I wasn't going to go home
Or at least not yet
And so I got in my car and drove the opposite direction and surrounded myself with books and not with the silence and solitude my house offers when no one is home
Where I sit and force myself to believe that there is nothing to do
But on that day I didn't go home
And the days after that I went on walks around neighborhoods with music drowning out all else like I was in Nirvana walking down streets nodding to old men on porches and watching trees sway in gentle breezes
And a few nights later I sat on an old swing in my back yard
And it was in that moment that I thought of you Allen
Allen Ginsberg big beat poet with Buddhist beard and round belly always smiling always there to help a friend whether it's money for Corso or a walk with Kerouac by all the locomotive sunflower days in California
Or Tangiers sipping on mint tea
Or ghats in India
Lost notebooks in Russia or was it Cuba
Oh Allen I think of you now on this summer night
Allen you would have turned 91 today isn't that crazy
The world has only gotten crazier since you left it and there are times I wish you were here because, though I never knew you, you seemed to have a lot of the answers
Like "you'll die when you die there's no use worrying about it"
And Allen wherever you are now I hope you are with Naomi and Peter and Neal and all the other angels you loved so deeply
Allen I wish I could love with half the strength you could
I wish I could see the world through your eyes or at the very least through your eyeglasses
But tonight I will have to make do with the jazz that's coming through my headphones
And the gentle summer breeze through my bedroom window

It's too late for me my friends
Pacing around my kitchen with a half empty bottle of Red Stripe I write this poem to you
To anyone who gives a **** enough to pay attention and listen to all the nonsense that leaves my lips
I am a man with no realistic goals
I am a man who does not listen to the battle cry that beats in his chest and forces it's way through his veins
Instead I plug my ears because I know what danger would come from action
I am a slave to inaction
And I've been told that a slave that doesn't defy their master is not yet deserving of their freedom
While I don't believe that's the truth, I let it apply to me
Because I am a coward
Nothing I want is attainable
None of my dreams are feasible
I have lost more times than I can count
But maybe if I lose enough, it will mean someday I've won
Because I don't want to live a quantifiable life of wins and losses
Successes and failures
I want a life that is worth getting up each morning
A life of joy that is armed to the teeth
Because from John Brown to Emiliano Zapata
From Spanish barricades to French communes
I believe that the heroes who fail are the only one's worth having
Because in failure there is always action
There is sincerity and the feeling that what one is doing must happen eventually
So why not now?
What is stopping me from saying "no more shall I live a life that isn't according to the what I believe"
I believe in a life like the hardships of Paul
"Sorrowful but always rejoicing
Poor yet making many rich
Having nothing yet possessing everything"
Alone I must build for myself a life worth living
And together we can build a world we can finally call home

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

I first saw you as
Old grey beard desert mountain man
Smoking a cigar
You called yourself an anarchist
A democrat with a small d
I dig that
You talked of the importance of the wild
The nature that’s out there somewhere on the edge of the madness we are all stuck with in the day to day drudgery we call “modern living”
You were well spoken and funny, and while I didn’t agree with everything you said, I felt I could go along with most of it

So then I, as fellow lover of nature and person without much else to do, dug deeper
You talked about fire watch towers, Arizona redneck bars, Nietzsche, Einstein, and watching the birds
You talked about sabotaging bulldozers and wanting to reach out and touch the mountain lion
You talked a lot about freedom too
How each person should be their own leader
And no one should be a boss
And about how whatever great expanse of wilderness, or wildness, we have left is the last refuges of our freedom

The freedom to be that very thing we crave more death, to be wild
To feel alive
We only crave death now because we never feel truly alive
Grinded down in alienated ******* “jobs”
Promise of nothing more than light pollution noise pollution and the regular plain old pollutions of modernity
We search for some kind of meaning
And the struggle to survive with our own two hands has always been the most meaningful action of the human spirit

So we need this wilderness to ******* and get lost in
To breath in deep and trip and fall and get a little *****
We need that wilderness for us to go postal in, however you take that to mean
And finally we need this wilderness because we are this wilderness
It’s in our bones and in our blood
Oh Ed, you and I aren’t alone in this call to the wild
Ask Fredy Perlman about the freedom of the insect and the bird
Ask Kevin Tucker what he thinks of predicide
Whether it’s shooting wolves from helicopters or poisoning carcasses with stric9 so coyotes die when they eat it
We defend coyotes here
And as a good Christian boy I believe that anyone who kills a wolf, except in self defense, should go to Hell

And maybe one day
I’ll go off into your Arizona deserts
Or Chris McCandless’s Alaskan expanse
And maybe I’ll live and maybe I’ll die
But I will be home
I will be free
And I will be thinking of you, Edward Abbey

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

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

Can you have decent political opinions and still be a bad person?
I'm asking for a friend
How much theory does it take to build up the courage to stand in a protest?
Does a bandana covering your face make you a coward or does it make you careful?
See my friend knows which side he stands on
But when he looks in the mirror there seems to be a different person on each side
The most direct action he takes is sitting alone reading Marx
He's never left the sidelines long enough to understand the front lines
Dignity and freedom are nothing more than dictionary definitions
Liberation is too hard to grasp
He wants to know if it's ok to be timid when the marchers pass him by
If it's ok to doubt his own strength  

My friend spends too much time driving around singing folk punk anarchist hymns
And not enough time living the lyrics
Deep down inside he is still afraid of what people will say about him
He hates that he can be so self centered
He usually doesn't wash his dishes
My friend talks about shedding chains when he never really had that many to start with
He asks if anarchists are allowed to watch shows about cops
He wants to know if anyone will ever truly see him as an ally

Every night I take a moment to tell him not to be so afraid of taking the stand
That what he thinks will only go so far as what he does
My friend wants everyone to live in a better world and he wants to be a better person
I tell him that no one will hear you until you yell loud enough
I tell him that the there's no better place to stand than where he is
He knows better than to give up
He knows he is enough

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

““Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self”

I.
They tell me life is good
And I believe them
But life is a heavy affair
They tell me to seek out beauty
They tell me to attain love
But love, life, beauty these things are heavy
I ask to be unburdened from the love that they try to sell me
Let me love without romance
Let me love without having to say a word
Let me see the beauty in the garbage and the rubble and the decay
Allow me a life on my own terms
A life unburdened by expectations good or bad

II.
They tell us a better world is impossible
They tell us we are greedy
Well let us be greedy together!
Let us be greedy for laughter
Greedy for joy
Let our collective greed take the land from the landlord
So that all may have a place to live
Let our greed take the food that waits to rot
So that all may have a bite to eat
Let our greed pave the way to a better future
For the enjoyment of all

III.
I look into my reflection
And I remark how alien it is to me
This skin is not me
These eyes are not me
This smile is not me
All these things I see in the reflection belong to me
They are mine
But they are not me
I am nothing in the best way possible
I am the limits of what I allow myself to be
I wish to reject any conception of myself that is based on
An identity I did not make
I wish to undue any conception of myself that is based on
A piece of cloth on a pole, where I was born based on lines I did not draw,
Even the details of this body I call my own
I wish to be an expressive moment
Of joy and of freedom
I am nothing in the best way possible
I wish to be nothing if not Unique

“Have the courage to be destructive and you will soon see which wonderful flowers grow out of the ashes of what you have torn down”

"I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD."

There's a storm brewing in the pit of my stomach
There's a war knocking at my door
But the thing is
I never open the door for strangers and I don't know if I'm going to start today
When I was young I loved the civil war
In my closet sits my great great great great great grandfather's musket
I read about Ironsides and cornfields matted down with the blood of hundreds of soldiers
In my mind I would fix bayonets at little round top
I would fill fort Sumter with hours of cannon fire
I could see the mural of John Brown
John Brown who I couldn't fully appreciate in my youth
John Brown the wild man who knew that slavery was a sin that would be payed in blood
There he stands between two armies and fires and tornadoes
A book in one hand and a rifle in another
And on the pages of the book simply printed is alpha and omega
Beginning and end
His story shall end where ours begins
While John Brown's body may be lying in that grave they were only able to **** the man
His truth is marching on in every struggle against oppression
In every fight against people who have the audacity to think they can own another
I don't think John Brown would ever be an anarchist
But regardless he was in the business of setting people free
Freedom is a word I still grapple with
I struggle on nights like these to try and imagine what it truly means
And maybe we are afraid of freedom and maybe we all die alone
But if that's the truth you won't hear me preach it
Because only truth I will fight for is well being for all
Food clothing and housing for all
All things for all people
And we shouldn't settle for less
And one day we will achieve it
But for now
The least we can do is be there for each other
I myself, will always be a loser
But that doesn't mean I'll never win
So tonight I'll dream of Ironsides and cannon fire
And I'll live my days standing up for a world that is made for the benefit of all
Because the truth is out there marching on
And with it we can build that perfect future

"Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy greater than anything else can give"

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

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 haven't written in weeks
And when I did before the words read empty
As they tend to do
Again I find myself sitting alone
A table for one facing the wall
Lost in the sea of a college campus
Hundreds of miles away LRADs blast away  protesters protecting sacred land
Stock prices unthinking and unfeeling
Are obsessed over by men in suits who won't have to worry about if they get to eat tonight
On my arms I carve the words I learned in a women's studies class freshman year
"The personal is political"
Personally I am desolate
Disillusioned with anything I've ever had to say
Unable to bring myself to say more
Politically I am livid
In my veins are the Sacco and Vanzetti electricity
So I spit
Look to the ground
and walk
With a look of righteous anger
And I read
Collected works of Huey Newton and an article about Marxism and Class

When the personal and the political meet I feel hopeless
Disoriented and disillusioned
Not two halves at war but two puzzle pieces desperately trying to fit
I think of a heaven after I die
While advocating for a heaven on earth for everyone
I want to stand and fight
While I feel uncomfortable speaking up in class
I don't believe there is freedom in a free market
But what do I really know about it anyways?
Freedom and hope and art and love
Words that swim around in my head
They lack solidity
I can't grasp them
The meaning drips out of my ears as if they were bleeding
I can't fall asleep at night because I keep coughing
I think about Woody Guthrie
Singing about the powers of the working class and dreaming of what America could one day become
I think of his better world and I can console myself with the ringing of guitar in my ears
I think about Pat
Looking for times worth living in whatever car or house he lives in
Breaking windows to redemption if not freedom and holding on with all that's left
I think about myself
One year of poetry under my belt
Still struggling with what I want to say
Centuries of politics in my head
Still struggling with who I want to be
Personal and political are more than just words to me

I take deep breaths inches away from the pillow
I take deep breaths to center myself
I am here
I am now
But have I forgotten who I am?
   Am I the boy who went to New York on a weekend trip and visited MacDougal street and Washington Square park and didn't see a single folk singer?
   Who ate a date cookie in Chinatown and a cannoli and little Italy because it felt right and good at the time
   Am I the Woody Guthrie Pete Seeger wannabe who asked the audience to sing along to a song they didn't know and no one sang but you didn't care because the words were yours yet you didn't write them?
   Who freshman year read On The Road and Howl and told himself he would be a poet and saw beauty in the world and thought about all the people with beating hearts
   Who sophomore year got his heart smashed against the pavement but decided not to blame himself for convenience sake and is still reeling from his poor choices
   Who took a trip with friends to the Ohio river and held rocks in his pocket because he was prepared to fight his way out if he had to
   who fed his own delusion that he would ever fight his way out
    who lied to himself that he had the spine to fight
   Am I the one who read Siddhartha and vowed to be better and looked toward a golden and eternal time where the words would be simple
   Who cried at Ginsberg who cried at Wolfe and who cried at the Bible because he knew what things were holy
   Who drank tea to center himself who ran to keep himself in shape who had a good time because the world was full of love

Or am I nothing more than what I am now
Breathing inches away from my pillow
Breathing to center myself
So I can be here
So I can be now

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 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

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 tried to write a poem today
But I wrote nothing
Because I feel nothing
Nothing's on my mind

Winona Ryder looks so young
Driving a cab smoking a cigarette
I don't watch movies with plots anymore
Coffee and Cigarettes and Slacker
All random episodes
Hundreds of people I'll forget by the morning
But it isn't like I'll remember if I met them
Or that they'll remember me
We're all stuck in this night on earth

And as the train drove past I rolled down my windows to listen
I was driving the opposite direction
And maybe there's a poem in that
Maybe I'm delusional at this point
And out this newly open window I sing
Of "all my cocktails be Molotov"
But I don't mean it
I don't mean what I say anymore

Maybe things were beautiful then
Maybe they should be now
Maybe they really are and I can't see it
But what prescription makes the people smile back?

My life is a series of random events
No plot no explanation no chaser
Knee **** reactions to every 24 hours and tomorrow I'm a new character somewhere else

I finally wrote a poem today
But it wasn't any good
But I don't feel bad about it
Because I feel nothing
And nothing's on my mind

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

An empty page is a perfect reflection
Of my empty mind

And who took the life away from the words I write?
Who has cursed me to pace nervously around dining rooms with the hope that something meaningful will appear on a page
Some words that are worthy of being said that will be met by crowds with adoration and applause
Yet I am not worthy
I am not worthy of adoration or applause or words with meaning
I am stuck in this flat affair
Because while others seek for meaning with action my hours are stained with a deep black oil that keeps me standing still
When I think about writing my head feels so empty
And I wonder if I have wasted all my pretty words on meaningless sayings in the hopes someone would look at me and say “now there is a good and articulate revolutionary soul, a good man with good answers”
Now, for once, the whole truth is clear
I cannot write sacred words for there are no sacred words
I cannot write a sacred poem for sacred poems do not exist
And I think this is what growing up feels like
The day you realize that just because you read Allen Ginsbergs Howl,
and wanted to write a poem just like that, and you spend two years attempting to create a facsimile of “I saw the best minds of my generation”,
None of that can make you a poet
Just as refusing to have a drivers license does not make one an anarchist
And how much have I grown away from that once holy phrase “I saw the best minds of my generation”?
Since then I have heard Marius Jacobs declare “I saw the world and it was not beautiful”
Max Stirner cry out “All things are nothing to me”
And Johnny Hobo singing “you wish that the world was clean/but I’m in love with the way it’s *****”
None of these words are holy
None of these sayings are sacred
But I hold each one in my heart as if they are my property, or rather, a property of me
I decided to write poetry because of people like Carl Sandburg and Jack Kerouac
I loved the words they wrote to the point that my words were lost
I celebrated their words as if they were holy
But growing up means I understand that, at the end of the day, they are just words
I tried so hard to write the words that came from them
And it’s about **** time I start writing the words
That can only come from me

I remember when I was a poet
Crafting honest stanzas from a fire in my soul
Now I'm just a ***
Casting words into the ocean hoping to get a bite

I remember when I was a folk singer
Carl Sandburg-type, singing about long dusty roads and hard traveling and weeping willow trees
Now the guitar sits most days in my closet and all I ever end up singing is a cry for freedom

I remember when I was a hipster
I bought hats and loved obscure bands and couldn't wait to grow up
But now

I don't know who I am anymore
Siddhartha taught me that life is transient but I was never told I would get to a point where I don't know what I have become
I was once a lover
Late night texts and whispered words and quiet appreciation
I was once an artist
I used to be a dreamer
I had ideas that didn't weigh me down
But I realize that they lacked weight because they lacked substance
They were pretty and felt good but they wouldn't do anyone any good
I still pray every night because I still believe someone is listening
I still believe in life after death even if it sometimes scares the **** out of me
I remember dying metaphorically and waking up literally 7 or 70 times
I have gotten mad, sad, quiet, scared, elated, and everything a person can get
I am a new man
But I still listen to Bob Dylan
I am a new man
I've shot a gun before and I'll sure as hell do it again
I am a new man
I have never cried at a funeral but not from lack of trying
I am a new man
I make the same mistakes as before and sometimes I'm not sorry
I'm a new man
But I still blow a kiss to Ginsberg if I get a chance
I'm a new man
And I will take it easy
But sure as hell I'm going to take it

Our ancestors once believed that their gods lived at the tops of mountains
Unobtainable heights with metaphysical mystique
But like all esoteric secrets we’ve neutered them
Everest has become littered in tragedies
Testaments to our hubris
We need to learn again to respect those spiritual journeys
Made for the aristocrats of nothing more than the struggle
Re-learn to respect that struggle of step after step
Growing danger without the fear of a death that sits at sea level with arms outstretched ready to welcome you
These mountains were not made for all to experience their mystery
Not all are welcome to shake the hands of the gods of mythology
And that’s ok
But if you can do it
If you can slay the dragon like Sigurd
If you can sacrifice yourself to yourself  like Óðinn
If you can reach that mountaintop
Tell me
How did you enjoy the view?

I
Am
Nothing
And it is
Beautiful

Birds perched upon golden violin strings
Within grayscale trees and off-white leaves
Their chirps are replaced with funeral dirges and long extinct sea shanties
And well
I’m no ethnomusicologist
But I feel their eyes watching me
And they are here for blood

I
Am
Nothing
But it is
Wonderful

Your fathers teeth are
An alabaster white
Despite the nights you hear him retching in the bathroom
It makes you sick
It makes me sick
What makes him sick is the alcohol and the one Mirror in the house whose reflections won’t stop laughing

I
Am
Nothing
And I am having a hell of a time

The railroad track beside your apartment keeps knocking books off your shelf
Books you never remember buying whose pages are a deep purple and the writing seems not quite Greek, not quite Cyrillic, and not quite human
When you try putting them back on the shelf they catch fire
And the next day your boss asks you about the strange tattoo on the back of your neck that wasn’t there yesterday
And won’t be tomorrow

I
Am
Nothing
All these words sound the same

You found it in an abandoned building
In the middle of an old growth forest
The buildings walls were covered in blood and concrete
And the object is always warm, sounds like it’s humming, and is covered in strange markings
You are excited and afraid of what will happen next
But what will actually happen is the worst of all
Absolutely
nothing
The greatest curse of a life uninterrupted and uninteresting

I
Am
Nothing
But I must be everything

Aesthetic accounts on Twitter elicit long lost emotions I never thought I would feel again
I have never written a love poem
I don't know if I have even been in love since I've started writing some 3 or 4 years ago
There were always those few moments where I thought someone would come along and everything would change
But maybe I am fooling myself
Maybe I'm not ready for this idea of love
Or if it's more that I don't care to have it
I know I've never been the romantic type and surely I have said it before
But maybe it has gotten worse
Because no more do I write about people as angels or romanticize the passing of time
This poem itself is so matter of fact
There is no emotion here
I don't know what happened

Let us raise our glasses to toast
To the hope that I can write better poems in the future
To the hope that I can write about my emotions outside whatever political frenzy I work myself into
Let us raise a toast to love, the concept
Love, the flower that is always out of reach
Love, the conversation I have in dreams asleep that make it so much harder to get out of bed each morning
Love: the songs I refuse to sing, the poems I cannot write, the emotion I have forgotten, that one thing I don't necessarily want right now, but probably need, that I will reach on my own terms one day don't you worry it will all be wine and roses then
Let us raise a toast to love

A year ago I could have told you
That the words I wrote were true
That they came from my heart
But today I can't lie to you
Not like that
Tell it to me straight
What I have been writing lately hasn't been poetry
It's the same cry for help in different shades of meaning
Different fists beating against different walls
The only thing that's constant is having to wake up and go to work or go to class and the feeling that everything is entirely utterly empty
I used to drive down highways with windows down blasting jazz
Music I played and music I heard used to stimulate every inch of skin like the breeze that blows leaves through mountain forests
I would rather another summer heartbreak than this emptiness
That old summer heartbreak has become the solemn resolution "well she's happy now forgotten all about me it's all past"
Please won't somebody break my heart
Because that would mean that I had fallen in love again
Which would mean I felt something again

I told you I would get home
No later than midnight
And I did
But instead of sleep I listened to beauty through two headphone speakers
I could feel the rays of sunlight coming down between the gaps of branches
I dream again of my shack in the forest
I dream again of streams and solitude
The love I once had for the world I'm in
And the people I meet
Is not too far gone
And someday I will reach it again
And I will breathe in the morning air
And again I will be alive
And I'll go to sleep no later than midnight

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"

It’s time for me to leave this place
But then you walk in with glasses and curls
(At least that’s how I remember you)
And me, too inebriated to remember but I remember talking to you about poems and liquor licenses and a request for return but only when I could be present
I thought you were cute but never said and would’ve never said
But C’est la vie
Such is life
You can’t go back to that party again

In the woods I am distracted until I make eye contact with a deer
You are probably 8 feet from the trail just laying there and all of your herd are there with you scattered around the foliage
I talk to you
You do not talk back
But in my heart I wish you did I wish we could have a connection that no other human can make I so much want to be a part of nature apart from all the things that make me human the things that tell me to consume without feeling to be forever without feeling to love for the sake of making the next generations work force to eat so that big corporation bosses can pocket the money to buy buy buy until the planet is dead and the rich ***** like Elon musk are living among the stars
But C’est la vie
Such is life
You can’t win this fight on your own

And so here I sit
11:54
Still kinda drunk
Writing this poem for the next time I can read it
Read it for you cute girl at a party
Read it for you revolutionary soul disillusioned by the Spectacle of it all
Read it for me drunken poet who begs himself each night to write but whose life is so serious so serious with State and Revolution and Lenin and Bookchin and Stirner and Ocalan and can I be vulnerable?
Can I love again like I did in high school with the one girl and the one girl only?
Can my heart blaze in the fires of Lenin and Bookchin?
Ocalan, Stirner, Connelly and Mao?
Or is it simply time for me to sleep?
C’est la vie
Such is life
Maybe I’ll convince myself I’m home

I was told you can’t go home again
But a wise man once said to me
“If home is where the heart is
Then I live in my upper chest”

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

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

What can I add that isn't already there?
What have I said that really needed to be?
What drove me to write poetry outside of Steinbeck, Ginsberg, and you, Thomas
I have seen endless rivers
I have had my fill of stones leaves and unfound doors
My roots are of a shallow depth
My branches do not reach as yours did
My inspiration is a well run dry
My words are saliva on sidewalk
Is there a fate for me in California?
Is there a place more kind than home?
Is there a life for those who seek angels made of stone?
Thomas you saw an America I never could
You reached great heights I may never touch
But Thomas your legacy rests in my heart
I will never forget you
Angel child of Asheville
Wild man of words and words
Pages and pages
Thomas the river will always welcome you home

I woke up the other morning
And when I rose from my bed I stepped
Into a puddle of enlightenment
That had poured from my ears
And pooled on the floor
From the night before

Webster's dictionary contains a definition for freedom
But I will never read it
The Constitution mentions justice
But I'm not sure if anyone knows what that means
One of my biggest fears is a people's revolution without any humanity
Any great revolution must be an act of humanity

One day we won't bite the hands that feed us
Because the hands that feed us will be our own
Most mornings I have coffee for breakfast
I like the coffee pitch black and too strong to stomach
I like my coffee so strong that the truth is easier to swallow
I am no true revolutionary
I'm a middle class white boy from the suburbs  
Born the day Malcolm X died
31 years later
I have no more that $200 in the bank
I still live with my parents
I'm a poet who is afraid of running out of words
I'm a beat wannabe who's never hitched the highways and has never seen California
I'm a *** with a job
I'm a punk with a tie
I'm a lefty folk singer who believes in God

I am no true revolutionary
But at this point we have had enough of those
I am a man with fire in his blood
Child of John Brown and Joe Hill
The wayward ghost of Tom Joad
I am incredibly tired

If enlightenment is clarity
And clarity is being honest with yourself
I am enlightened
These hands have worked
This skin has sweat
This tongue has spoke
This man has bled
I have sung the songs that come from the deepest depths of the human heart
And the day will come when I write my own
I am no true revolutionary
But my heart beats the revolution

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

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood”

It is written in the Hagakure
That when faced with situations
Of life and death
To choose death
For it is more honorable to do so and die
Than to choose life
Retreat
And then die all the same

Is this what it means to be bold?
To strike out
Against odds that seem impossible?
To stand strong and shout out the eternal phrase of
“I don’t give a ****”
The one in the arena
The ultimate stoic
Uncompromising but not cruel

I must become a man of action
And though it is not the singular soul that drives history forward
Those who do so are not passive
Not timid
They do what must be done
Like Lenin
They are reasonable people
Even when pushed to do things that seem unreasonable at the time

This is how one must be bold
Taking hold of that great spirit that drives all great people of action
To be determined, strong, discipline,
More virtues to be explored
Legs strong as sequoias
I stand on stage in front of you
Reminding myself
And urging those of you who need to hear this
Stand in that arena
Do not choose retreat
Be bold
And leave your mark on the world around you

One of the only redeemable qualities
Of the mass transportation system know as the modern highway
Is occasionally I’ll catch a glimpse of a hawk on a light pole
Patiently standing watch for the next in a long history of casualties
A majority of these casualties are non-human and so acceptable as long as we all still get to work on time

And I still remember the hawk in the woods
Clutching a blue jay in its talons
Not far from where months later I’ll find the body of a deer
I stand and observe it for quite awhile
Half expecting it to get up and start walking again
There is a strange feeling you get when seeing the lifeless body of an animal that large
Almost as if you are being entrusted with a secret
Between me and he trees and the flies that buzz around it’s head

Every time I pass the body now I leave a stone as a sign of respect
A silly thing to do maybe
But I’d hope people would do the same for me after I’m 6 feet under
And the question always arises in my mind if I will ever live a life
That matches the freedom that deer experienced until it met its end
These are not topics to dwell on too often or for two long
Something this existential is best left for the coffeehouse crowds
whether you choose to join them or not
Instead I think I’m more jealous of the community of the pack,
the group,
not a mindless collective blindly following the one next to them but the conscious collective
How together they are stronger
Maybe I’ll bring back the way of the warrior poet
Enlightened, but without the boastfulness
Strong, but without need to prove it
But maybe for now,
I’ll just keep an eye out for any hawks by the highway
And the deer hidden deep beneath the trees

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

I drove back out to Yellow Springs
Because I didn't want to go home
And in the darkness I sat alone on a wet bench
Then a black cat crossed my path
And in that moment I felt more blessed than I have in months
The cat came over to sit with me
And quietly we sat there for a half hour or more

There are some days where I truly wake up
In those few moments I feel completely aware
I can feel my self fill every inch of my weary skin and bones
Everything I hear is finally clear
Everything I see is truly real and alive and once again beautiful
But most days feel like I'm half asleep
And everything is a dream
And if it's all a dream then I mourn the loss of all my creativity and curse myself for making this dream reality feel so dull
I am a house
The lights are on but no one's home
Nothing but four walls a roof and echoes of laughter and tears
Echoes that have been bouncing off walls for years
I am an abandoned ship
A sloop floating far far far from the coast
The old man is long gone and I'm lost in the waves
Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up again for a few fleeting moments in the sun
Maybe I'll continue this dreary dream walk
And then I'll dream of a wet bench in the quiet dark
With a black cat on my lap
And tomorrow an eternity away

How many regrets are you allowed to hold before its better to lay them down and forget them?
I'm spending a lot of time looking back
Back to when I was in high school and I felt that I knew who I was
Back before the heartbreak that made me rethink all of my actions and motivations
I have reevaluated, reexamined, reminded, and rewrote so much of who I am
I see that past as a stranger
I'm on the outside looking in
And what I see is a skinny boy with a lot of acne and a big heart that he tried to hide under layers of boisterous and loud nonsense and misanthropic dispositions
There are apologies I wish I could give but I know it's better if I didn't
But it's the music tonight that brings me back again
It hasn't been all that long since I took the stars down from my ceiling and whenever I look up at the night sky I can only imagine myself, age 16, looking back and wondering what the future would hold
It's baggage I intend to leave at the station
It's bitterness I want to erase from my heart but haven't figured out just how to do yet
Back then I put a lot more hope in love
But what did I know then of love?
Will love be more kind to me in the future?  
I had only loved one other and since then I have not yet reached that emotion even when recently I had gotten closer than ever before
But I am different now and don't know how to process such emotions and I feel all the dark moods waiting in the corners to once again make my mind consumed by their doubts
So tonight
As songs from high school and miscellaneous memories fly through my head I decide not to hide the dark moods but rather allow them to pass quietly in peaceful alone moments before they cause the dam to burst
It's been three years and I have changed
It's been three years and I am better
It's been three years and it's approaching four and I'm beginning to realize now who I'm truly meant to be

And maybe I haven’t felt alive since those summers
When I close my eyes I can feel a warmth that is not quite sunshine not quite nostalgia not quite bittersweet heartbreaks so long removed from my thoughts
I was so much younger then
Or at least I feel older now
And though I’ve never moved from this room or this house I’ve never really felt at home since then
Memories flash through before graduations both college and high school flashes of me at my desk on a laptop long since deceased
And I remember Death Cab for Cutie of all bands
Grapevine Fires and that song that made me want to wear cardigans
And I remember Fanfarlo trumpet fanfare, Decemberist Crane Wives, and that moment that the song Little Lion Man first felt new
Maybe I haven’t felt the same because I’ve never been in love quite like I felt in those days
But that doesn’t explain the more recent, the drives with Jazz and beat Poet souls, long after romance had faded
Black and white footage of Pull My Daisy and all the familiar faces in New York apartment and you could almost hear Dave Van Ronk or Bob Dylan in the background folk alleyways
Oh the emotions I had then
The passion I had for life
It didn’t seem much then, but now it’s like I hide in the shadow of it
I’ve considered giving up writing because the words don’t come
It’s taken me 3 poems to get this emotion right and I still won’t be happy with it when I end up reading it
But maybe I’m remembering because those parts of me are not forever gone in long past memories buried by political odes and the need to be serious I tell myself I need to be serious all the time because I never could take myself seriously
I always saw myself as a parody of what I wanted to be
A parody of the Doctor a parody of Guthrie a parody of Dylan, of Ginsberg, of Kerouac, of Lenin, a parody of the parody that is myself
But hopefully that is all over now
Hopefully I’ll be able to feel the warm heart deep feelings of those summers past
Without anyone’s help or anyone’s sympathy or well wishes


And maybe I haven’t felt alive since those summers
But I sure as hell ain’t dead yet

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

Only a matter of time
Is what I muttered to myself
For the better part of a week now
But that day has come
That day has come
And no one knows but me
And you
But you really knew all along
Didn't you?
Holidays tend to spell the end for me
And the writing on the walls is the same color as the warning lights I ignored for months
No one knows but us
No one knows but us
And only I know what these nights can do to me
Blasting Dead Kennedys to write this poem
Carve my doubts and solace into walls
I warned the both of us
but we were too young and proud to listen
We were warned
And tonight
If the devil goes down to Georgia
He will take Sherman with him
But the hand of war is here
And I can only keep it out of my heart for so long
State lines are prison walls
Only if you want them to be
An incarceration in my mind
Solitary confinement in my head
My heart beats like a gavel
Darling I'm here for life

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

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

There was a great sadness that enveloped us
A great gladness
A certain beautiful glorious madness
In our dreams is a world without pollution or decay
A world where our ancestors stood tall and strong and proud because all that was done was done with their hands and the work they did they could truly call honest and good

We will never have flying cars
We will never have green cities
We will never explore the far reaches of space because we don’t deserve it
We were given an earth of wonder by God our creator and we have forsaken it to live in middle class comfort
Every Bluetooth signal and Current Year Ford Focus is an affront to God
Every industrial creation is a sin in which limited forgiveness can be given
Every day I am losing patience

Deep in the woods of community park East there is a tree
Completely stripped of bark and branches it stands as a spire, White as bone and without blemish
Around the base of this tree there grows vines and bushes of mysterious variety
If I were not Christian I would feel compelled to bow in worship or in reverence to this holy spire of nature
Oh Elder column of wood
Oh spirit of Earth, if such spirits exist
As I stare at its silent power as 100 or more feet behind me lies a wealthy suburban neighborhood
Unknowing of the sacred ground on which their McMansions are built

There is an idea deep inside those of us who see the writing on the wall
Those of us not deluded by the myth of progress
The arc of history is long and it bends ever towards that day when Nature finally conquer the last human endeavor to subjugate it
And on that day we will stand tall and strong and proud because all that was done was done with our hands and the work we did we could truly call honest and good
Just like those who came before us long long ago
And God will see it
And He will see it is good

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

I suppose I should say
It’s 5:30 on a summer day
The temperature is 82 but it still feels nice

When José Martí chose to return to Cuba did he know he would die?
Certainly not, but he knew that he might
It almost certainly crossed his mind
But still he returned to die on horseback forever immortalized in New York statues and mediocre poems
I feel I’m ok without that level of courage
I feel I’m ok with where I’m at right now as long as I’m aware that some day I’ll be moving forward
No sense in rushing in to free fall leaps of faith
They don’t often tell you this, but in order to be a martyr someone has to see your life as important
And don’t take that the wrong way
But I don’t see anyone raising any statues if I died

The students from May ‘68 look back upon the events, 50 years later, and claim they never expected it to become a revolution
And they were right, because it didn’t
Oh what fiery idealism drove them
“The Communist Party saw the Workers for who they were”
The interviewee states
“The students saw them as what they should be”
And in my eyes there lies the fatal trap
To hold any earthly thing as sacred is to build upon a foundation of ice
When things get hot ice tends to melt

When Nestor Makhno fled to Paris did he feel that he would ever return to Ukraine?
It had happened before in February 1917 when he was released from prison, but certainly he must of knew his anarchist revolution was over
I look at the pages of how the Makhnovists said this and Trotsky said this and I’m much too tired to take sides
Makhno, Trotsky, Lenin are all dead now and the wheels around us keep turning
There’s no use dwelling on the past when the future creeps up a second at a time
I could end here on an optimistic note
And say something about the strength of the human spirit or the power of us working together or something you have heard a million times before
So instead I’ll leave you with this

It’s 5:47 on a summer day
It’s 82 degrees, but it still feels nice

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

I know that one day I will die
As all people must
And I have learned not to fear it
Not only because I believe in an existence after death
But because I am getting over my fear
Of being forgotten by those I’ve left behind
I hope I have left seeds of hope
Some shred of understanding in this world
I hope my life will be seen as an expressive moment
Of joy
Of strength
Of compassion
And if I am to be forgotten
I pray I am not left in a grave to rot in a cemetery
I pray that I am buried beneath a sapling
So that the roots will surround me and the tree will grow from my decay
And then one day someone will look at that tree
And compliment it’s long branches
It’s sturdy trunk
And I will find peace knowing my greatest contribution to the world will be this tree about my grave

I know that one day I will die
As all people must
But that day is not today

I think I’m like a firecracker
Just less impressive
In a moment I can explode into a creative fervor
But it only lasts for a moment
And I’m left lighting more and more matches hoping that the ashes will spark and take flame

I guess I’m waiting for that big moment
Where the whole truth is clear and everything changes
That big moment will be my big moment
But the problem with this waiting is you miss all the little moments in between
The little moments that give the big one context if not meaning
You can’t be a movement if you’re always standing still

The chasm between thought and action is wide
And although I tell myself I can make it, I never seem to have the energy to make it across
Or is it simply that I’m never sure if I honestly intended to try

Tonight the sky is a dark grey
It rained all up to this point and you can still see some collected puddles on the ground
But the temperature is perfect
Except for the breeze you can’t tell where the air ends and your skin begins
I hope the beach is like this
I wish it could always be like this

“The tame, the domesticated, try to monopolize the word freedom; they'd like to apply it to their own condition. They apply the word "wild" to the free.” -Fredy Perlman

This is my appeal to Heaven
I was not made
For this
I was made for a little a-frame house in the forest
Using as little electricity as I can manage
I would build fires and send prayers to ancestors that were never mine
But I send prayers to them anyway
Because I don’t know if their children will do the same

I dream of a world that lies on the cusp of tomorrow and yesterday
Where all we have learned can come together with how we were meant to live
We exchanged that world for a lie we live in everyday
A lie that tells us what we are and what is nature are separate
A lie that has allowed us to continue tearing down all the things around us leaving us 12 years until all that we built begins to crumble
The Greeks wrote tragedies where people were punished for their hubris
How will our tragedy play out?

This is my appeal to Heaven
I was not made
For this
I begun exercising because I was inspired by those who came before me
Those who could throw spears hard enough to pierce animal hides
Or could pull back the entire draw of a bow
I hope for a simpler life where all the people I care for are within a short walk
I hope for things made by hand
I want to know how the gnats dance
I want to love the ways the winds move the trees
And I want to know the secrets of the birds and the forest creatures

This is my appeal to Heaven
I want to live wild
I want to be free


“Why this cult of wilderness?
Because we like the taste of freedom
Because we like the smell of danger” -Edward Abbey