This something of
a doctor once
asked me to
write a list.
He leaned back
in his squeaking,
worn leather
chair.
Entwined his fingers
behind
his greasy
half balding head.
Exposing the
wet stains on the
arm pits of
his creased button
shirt as if they weren't
there.

He thought he was so
smart ,so superior
with his framed
accomplishments
littered all
over his institutional
colored office walls.


I sat across from
him degreeless and
self educated,
therefore a failure
in this sham of a
world they have
created.

He thought
I was dumb with my
crude prison tattoos,
police record
and noticeable
stammer.

I took hold of the
sharpened number 2
and for the briefest of moments
seriously considered
jamming the lead filled
pencil deep into his
razor burned neck.

I stared at the
yellowing
stains beneath his
flabby arms
and couldn't help but smile.
I smiled as I put
point to paper
and began to write
his stupid list.

There's a pistol hungry
for vengeance and heavy in my
pocket urging me forth.
A lazy monkey
who insists I carry
it's burden.
A mind so full of
tragedies that
even nightmares
steer clear.

A broken heart that
needs to stay broken.
Shattered hopes that
refuse to dream.
Tattoos that have forgotten
their meanings.
Junkies who need
their junk.

Death raiding ravens
circling overhead.
A black cat
who saved my life
more than once.
A girl I love
who will never
love me.
******* doctors
with **** smelling arm pits.
Bad kids who know they're
bad.

Stray dogs in search
of a home.
Dead minds cheering
for ball chasing men.
Working men
who know nothing
of the world but
work.


Broke and addicted
writers looking for
a casket to rest in.
An empty grave
that longs
to be filled.

That letter I wrote and
still haven't sent.
And a date with
a dealer
therefore this   
list is
now done.

Again the uneasiness
snuck upon me,
like an empty shadow
on a darken street,
it devoured me.

I was wasting time ,
wasting away.

I sat
parked on some
numbered street with
too many lights and
not enough trees.
I guarded a warm beer
between my legs
and watched
as lost souls haunted  the
city streets in the night.

The car held that  resiny aroma
that only *** can leave behind
in an enclosed area.
I pulled from the beer
and felt the alcohol
wash away a bit
of the plague that insisted
I play host to.

I looked down upon
the pistol,
it laid on the empty
passenger seat wrapped
in a grease stained towel.
It reminded me of a Mexican
baby strapped to its  mothers back,
snug and secure.

That's how I used to feel when I
was alone walking darkened streets
with only the pistol to rely on.
Secure.
I have a hard time remembering
when it was or what it was to
be  secure about anything at all.

Lately my time is spent living
with this sense of dread
accompanied by a nauseating unease.
I turn away from the talking
heads on the programmed box,
I've lived enough horrors,
I don't need to hear their tales.

I looked again to the pistol,
the pistol was bored with me.
I didn't show it enough action,
It laughed at me through the
blackness of the barrel.

In the mornings the
pistol hummed
as I fixed and washed
the nightmares
from my eyes.

And when the sun would set
the pistol would  yawn.
Another mocking gesture
just to show me  how done
with me it had truly become.

**** dribbled down
the shaking leg
of the angriest dog
in the neighborhood.
He stood
whimpering and
shivering within his
own fear driven
*****.

She paid him
no mind as
her presence
brought
a chill to the
otherwise warm
Southern California
night time breeze.
Her shadow engulfed
the cockroaches,and the
mice as they scrambled
and attempted to
flee.
She left them belly up
on the concrete
as her darkness
move on.

The teen aged
lost boys and girls,
****** harder on their
spit glued
joints and
their generic brand
cigarettes
as they silently
watched her stalk
from
across the street.
They would all
be dead
within days from the
infections
her presence brought
forth.

A Flock of
screaming birds
exploded from a tree
as she moved her
darkness beneath
their night time
roost.
The moon sighed
as the fleeing,
panicking birds
began to fall
from the sky
like stones
and land all
around her
as she floated
forth.

The clouds up ahead
retreated into themselves,
and the Milky way
grew tighter
as a new born star
forced its shine away
and took refuge
within the dark
empty matter
of the heavens .

All of the Earth
and the
living Gods in orbit,
all moved a
bit more carefully
as news of her arrival
began to spread.
Spread like murderous
wild fire across a dry
and parched
landscape.

The city blocks
did not stand a chance.
Their concrete
cried beneath her
bare blank lined
feet.
Tiny clouds of
dust and
fear trailed her
like broken bodies
across a losing
battlefield.

The skinny lady
with the line-less palms
and the timeless existence
made her way
toward the sea.
All at once the
Pacific receded into
an unexpected
low tide
as she began to
cross the empty
sandy beach.
She bowed her head
and watched as the
grunions flopped
and died before
her.
Down the beach
two smiling dolphins
beached themselves
as the waves
brought forth
a drowned
sea lion who had
suddenly
forgot how
to swim.

Sadness she
knew nothing
of ,alone was
the only way
she had ever known.
Her duty on earth
and
in the heavens
took precedence over
all.
She knew only
one thing about
the living,
they all lived
in order to
die.
Her duty was
to gather the living
who were ready
to enter her world
of the dead.
A world more
filled with the
empty then any of
the living had ever been
told.

I think of you as a model
and I a painter I am not.
For you, my love,
carry stillness
I only wonder at.

I paint you naked on our bed,
imagine how I’d take this line of thigh,
that curve of breast, those dark shadows
of the lower back, a perfect ear,
a curl of hair, all and more
and because, and only when . . .

And after, then
we sit together
formally, at a concert:
there you are
all dressed in stillness.
Motionless your skirt
falls across a quiet knee
to a booted leg, you so rich
in graciousness and charm
that only the flow of a woman’s
costume holds for the painter’s eye.
Oh, and that warm confidence
born of a body, loved, admired,
always wondered at;
but whose senses so alive
to  syllables’ speech,
to movements’ play.

Therefore with my restless hand
I, for whom stillness is a foreign land,
hold this pen and scratch this page
to write you into each and every phrase,
all and every word and line.

It was the
warmth
I felt at
the sound
of her voice
that assured
me it had
returned.
The way she
stared directly
into my eyes as I
spoke.
The way
she waited
patiently
while I
struggled
with the
stammer.

I placed
the times
with her deep
within the
caverns of
my memory.
In the
bright
place where
all of the
good times
are kept.

I did what
was right
before I had
a chance to
let her
down or
to hurt her in
the way only
I knew
how to
do.

I loved her
for a week
then let
her go.
It was the
only right
thing
to
do.