"after 6 beers," says crazy george,
"she's not gonna be looking any better."

                      *       **

Oh, woman!
wounded spirit
of moonlight and broken glass

Oh, fiery night
Oh, heat
raging, dazzling light

the wild place
till the red morning light

till the red morning light

hold me tenderly
hold me with those gentle eyes

hold me in your arms
far from shadows
where the nightingale sings

till the red, morning,  light.

she puts her toes
to an imaginary line
raised by wolves
she chews to the bone

i asked her to dance.

"so,"  she smiles, "dance with me,

sometimes
I feel like
I'm almost gone

and i want you
to hold me,
she says,
hold me tighter

I want you to feel
my heart beating
and tell me
you'll never
let me go.

will you think of me?"
she asks, smiles,
always?"


rain is the night's
beating heart
icy heart,
wind and rain
and a memory
birds are winging west

tired and broken
the ribbon in her hair
footsteps echo
going down the hall

and i could tell by
her smile
she's not coming back

fumbling
shards of broken heart
fall through cupped fingers    

here comes the night.

sunlight bends
as it passes through the water of the pond
and graceful and bright
are the blue and yellow flowers
that bloom above tree line
so beautiful
and i thought what a shame
no one is here to see the beauty
of the flower
but light bends as it passes through water
and sometimes something
can look one way
and can be something else

a stranger to seconds and hours and years
the simple flower,
Just Is.
(the musician's idea of love
perhaps)

and in the sky
shape shifting clouds,
teardrops making figure eights,
the hundreds of starlings
heading to crash into
the ground
pulling up at that last moment.

and a flower 
Just Is

so walk with me through splintered sunlight
on a sunday morning
my arm around you

attentive to the echoes of our hearts
and we'll be the starling
and the flower
for the briefest of moments

walk with me through splintered sunlight

comes running through my window

sometimes,
i think i knew you
all my life

and holding the phone in my hand,
maybe, i'll call

or maybe i'll hear
your soft knock at my door
and your sweet
voice
singing along to a song

walt whitman whispers to me
from the nightstand
and i take your letter
from between
your 2 most loved poems
to unfold your words
and unfold the memories
and unfold your love;
while the cat you drew
on page 34
smiles at me

(and, i smile, too)

i knew you
before i loved you
your almond shaped eyes
and the contour of your lips
when you smile

i dreamed of you
before i loved you

and the sun comes running
through my window

and there's a black bird on a telephone wire cawing
and my cat's staring into the fire

where did we go wrong?

kenny composed songs
and sonnets to an angel
that lives down his street

a woman he has never spoken to

3:13 p.m.

skinny as a reed
4 foot eleven
kenny laveg
did some acid
that turned him invisable
being invisable
he had no need for clothes
kenny walked the 2 miles
to heightmuller's house

now,
heightmuller
had a growing disorder
6' 5 in the 8th grade
250 pounds

kenny was not impressed

so,
laveg
who is now invisable
strolls up cold stone steps
crashes through
the glass front door
where heightmuller
lives

kenny is chasing heightmuller
around and around
the kitchen
and heightmuller
jumps on top of
the refrigerator
screaming for his mom
and kenny rips
rips the door
off of
the refrigerator

and kenny laveg stares
at heightmuller
for a long
long moment
winks
and says,
"you don't **** with superman"...

...kenny stole
a 5 ton garbage truck
the day he got out of jail

you showed me how to think crazy
and be free

kenny laveg
sharp-edged and fearless
the patron saint
of us tortured souls and dreamers

the night is still
the snowflakes spiral down
in a slow waltz

she dreams of me dead

yes
I going to make
a few changes
in my life

i'm going to
run
run
run
and

i'm going to steal
a white horse
thunder in her hooves
and lanterns for eyes
and a heart of sand
and gallop
past the glue sniffers and junkies
through 9 to 5 prison
through the steel and concrete maze
past the grass needs cutting
the garden fence
and rotting cherry tomatoes
past the paying of overdue bills
the chicken deep fried

O, that wild horse!

we will make that run
like 2 shadows chased by light
and into the drift of stars
we'll fly

Oh, that beautiful horse!

no more sad songs

some people feel free
sitting in a tree with shotgun
killing a deer
a marriage
or themselves
some people think they are free
staring into the black sun


my love looks at me with ghost eyes
and dreams a shallow grave

on a mountain crest
my body chopped

and mixed with grain

no headstone

she dreams of me dead
                                                        
"roll over, dear,"
i whisper,
"please, turn off the light."

you know it needed something
but you don't realize it
until months later...

if it had
had a dog and a child

it would be perfect...

"I picked up Bella
our Maltese
and took little Johnny
by his tiny hand

as the ambulance drove off."

7 men walk into Deep Pool
an outlaw motorcycle club
the man in the red leather jacket
stood with his back against the wall
and every once in a while
for reasons
unknown
he'd yell,
"just nobody touch, Toad."

i push past Toad
on my way to the men's room
and as i'm *******
i think about Ron

he trapped rats in corners
then let them go

slapped angels in the face
and ihe craziest things he'd say
like
"the smartest rats
always get out of the maze first,"

he'd give you a knowing nod
throw down a shot
and walk away

but like a miracle
he had you wondering

ron dreamed of the angels
who stand under vapor street lights
at 4 a.m.
or sit on barstools til closing

but love is never
what it ought to be
and he lived his life
like a circus high wire walker
wandering back and forth
day after day

and one day
he disappeared
like the rabbit in magicians hat

now,
Ron was a warrior
he drew to the inside straight
to sunlight fading

and outside the 7-11
where his x-wife worked
with a pair of her nylon stockings
he hung himself

have you ever seen

moonlight on the lake?

the moon whispering

to the water lilies,

the lilies white as the lace of a bride's gown.

have you ever sat on a log

contemplating the mystery
of a cold and distant romance?

2 hearts
forever longing to,
but not able to embrace

separated by endless night...


...wild birds are singing,

and dawn's sweet chorus
chases away the sad, lonely moon.

have you ever heard the moon
loves the flowing water,

loves the mortal music
of earth-borne water lilies?

once inside a woman s heart
tell no sweet lies

she loves the unlovable

so hold her closer

kiss her tenderly

thunder and lightning
a slow dance
and she dreams only of you

once inside a woman's heart

the touch sadness from her hand
heartaches wrapped in silence
only women bleed

28 dollars
got him one to life  

the revolution was at hand
he was going to be free

george lived
like an outlaw
in the land
where he was born

Be prepared to be shot down


George Lester Jackson
lived like an outlaw


George was going to be free

I wrap my arms around you

hold me tighter
I say
hold me till the flowers bloom
and the leaves appear on the trees

hold me
when the wind rustles the leaves
and the turtles sun themselves
on branches in the brook

hold me closer during a distant thunder
walk me through flowers and forest
take the hat from my head
and run your fingers through my hair

i belong among the wildflowers
and when the rain comes down like tears
hold me close to your heart
far from fields of blood and distant wars

nothing is any good
you know
unless you
share it
so Tom has brought back the bar:

the Elvis impersonator
who almost
played las vegas,
the hair dresser
come future race
car driver,
a sufi
and a seer.

the seer
tells me she hit a cat
the cat was still alive
so she ran it over
again and again,
"and that's when god
talked to me."

"was that before or after
you ran over the cat
the second time?"
i asked.

"She talks to me every day,"
the angry divorced seer
tells me.

is god talking, now?

now, elvis
joins in,
"what if camus and nietche
met. what would they think
about the cat?"

"nah, who cares,"
the race car driver-
hair dresser,
says, snorts another line,
"what if they
started
a rock
and roll
band."

the Sufi wonders,
"who would play
what?"

"nietche on drums!" tom interjects
with a smile.

"yes,
and camus,
a gibson semi hollow."

"vocals???"

"god!" exclaims the seer.

"right on," i say, everyone smiles
and the seer is looking better and better
after every beer.

sometimes the dead
travel the road
to nowhere
with a smile


and i've got to get
up at 7a.m.
i'm a college
educated
toy store clerk

it's closing time at the circus

we just stood in the pouring rain
then warm dawn came,
sun running through trees on
Screaming Hill,

the way your hair falls down
around your face,
you look so pretty to me,

my lady of the rain

a rainbow around the sun
and I long to hold you,
the blue sky sowing stardust
and l'll always love you,
O, my lady of the rain

a shadeless lamp
lit her face

" i'll teach you how to dream,"
she told me in her room

broken and beautiful
she was 32
red hair
she had freckles
on her *******
and lost eyes
desperate grey
eyes
like a coming storm
offered heartache held in the palm of her hand

her name i can't remember
it was a kind of whiskey
she loved whiskey

she said it again
"i'll teach you how to dream"

but i had surrendered
many times
many years ago
somewhere along
the road
to nowhere

and she passed out during the act
and the rabbit
was dancing in the ditch
and
so i finished

"don't you get it," i whispered
through her snoring

"we were faded
broken

a long
long

time ago"

walking out trailor
the saddest place on earth
is sante fe at sunrise

another year passes by you

the sadness in your
eyes

like old newspapers
blowing down
a deserted street

the hunger in your voice
drifting between
a laugh and a scream

and your troubled heart
forever
chasing light
down a dead end street

we searched for meaning
in the shadows of dreams

What happen to the nights
when we only wondered
what tomorrow could bring?

"but I only pulled up my underwear?!;"

finish the sentence in a poem.

he s standing on the table

i'm looking up at him,
"this bar
the city
this city
isn t the place to lose your mind,"
I try to tell G..rge

Geo... only listens to sad songs

he's coming undone

he s been thrown
out of 3 bars
one bar twice

did 12 years in state,
said he loves her

"I only stabbed her with the steak knife in her thigh,
I wasn't trying to **** her,"

blames it on
the moon

"the gravitational pull...
we have water...
our bodies are 80 percent water,"

he says, " our brains...90
...the same thing
...happens to the tides."

his eyes rolling back and forth
adrift in that ocean

"...and why do barbers
always think
they need to talk to you..."

edged with sadness
his mind filled with ghosts
his x- wife runs around inside his head
like a mouse on a wheel

and the wind runs dancing through the trees

the screech of brakes
from the garbage truck
the dogs of destiny snapping
at your heels
and the passionate embrace
from endless night,
misery follows you down
springwood avenue
with those nightmares
that can't
sleep
the visions riot in your head

the light of the evening star is fading
The songbird sits on a thin branch

where does the child of countless dreams run to?

cows and horses
the dog barking at the tv
no westerns tonight...

the DEA at my door
want to know if i can point them
in the right direction??? ...

a tip jar at the liquor store
and the mother- in -law is moving in...

a passing fire truck with someone
in a Mickey Mouse costume waving


AND YOU CALL!!!

sometimes
the hangman isn't
hanging
and the night
jumps from the wall
and whispers,
"cut the deck."

"chance," I asked,
"danger and risk?"

"COLD DESIRE..."

she had it tattooed
on her ***

"COLD DESIRE"

we shared a quart of beer.
the dust of time in her greying hair.
she had a wooden leg
and a glass eye
a blue bottomless eye

and she had that, smile
like razor blades and dice
and
sometimes
the hangman
isn't hanging

thundering clouds
and no rain
she looked me in the eye
her good eye
(maybe not
it was a dark tomb
and the night
was blue
or maybe her good eye was blue???)
anyway
she kick me with her wooden leg
I hit her with a right
hand and her
glass eye flew
rolled along
the floor
towards a mouse
hole

a hole in one!

and i
yelled,
ROLL OVER

COLD DESIRE

and here I stand
a stone
beside an unshaded lamp

4 walls and a door

I've tried to chase
your ghost
out that door
many times

and the unfathomable echo
of your footsteps lingers
forever fading down the hallway

the unshaded lamp
the mirror above the sink

a dangerous animal
the broken heart is
in the unforgiving light
of a windowless room.

dark cave spiraling up
into jagged spires of silent distances falling
into splintered sunlight

the winds of the river Styx flows  
on a distant shoal and waits
beneath the waxing moon

for the wounded lovers to bloom
into white and blue wild flowers

and into the loving arms
and silken threads of time lost.

the doomed are the blessed
free of the worry of fate
or misfortune

the doomed dance
in bars
when no music is playing

the doomed are...
never lonely
and everyone is more beautiful
the eyes smile
the legs are long
(almost always a waitress)

the doomed
know what they want
*** and love and mystery
the pleasure of the morning after kiss     

they know dying
isn't any way to be living

humanity is doomed
I'm doomed
we're all doomed

aren't YOU?

blame it on the moon
shame on Eve

we are the catbird in the bushes buying time
a moment of sunlight fading in the grass

those who use their real names
on poetry websites:

we own a poodle
2 leopard geckos
buy ***** by the half gallon

have killed 2 to 3 people
BUT ARE NOT
serial killers

we only listen
to Tom Waits
songs

are surely
on the f.b.i 's no fly list

may own too many
guns

we  wonder???

how long???

is a piece of string???

and tattooed
on our genitals
"live free or die"

a dog pees on
every tree
telephone pole
and mailbox

to let  the other
dogs know he was here

and here I am

been to Wawa
bought a drink
had to ask for a straw
the powers that be
passed a law
that requires plastic straws are
kept behind the counter

now

I m home
sitting in my easy chair
putting on my st. francis socks
shotgun across my lap

first, they took
our plastic bags
(the *******)
what's nexted?
seatbelts for pets???

the darkening  room
and  I'm staring
at the glow-in-the dark Jesus
fondling my
plastic straw

they will have to pry
this straw
From my
cold
dead hands

"live free or die"

build my gallows
build my gallows high

blood moon, fire red
no gentle breeze
not a flower in your bed

the echo of rocks
from your fingertips
a roll of the dice
in your eyes

no flowers or the sun
a roll of the dice
and i'm gonna run

build my gallows high
with long fallen trees
in ragged, wind blown skies

build my gallows high

the roof rack:

george:

I pulled the car in the driveway and my father s standing on the porch, he s wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt

"George, where s the roof rack, where s the roof rack to the car???

George, "what roof rack, dad?"



sam and george at seton hall university:

sam: "we were smoking *** and drinking beer, I don't know who brought it up but we decided to drive to Steubenville, ohio and run naked through the girls dorm, we made it to youngsville, Pennsylvania, we ran out of gas and didn't have any momey so we go into this store, tell the man we ran out of gas and don't have any money, he reaches into the cash register and hands me a twenty...  

stolen cars:

(we weren't stealing cars, we were joy riding...borrowing)

bobby came back with a car, I dove through the back window,  he crashed the car in Belmar, bobby was smart he walked down to  the beach, I went to main street and, the cops stopped me and I would of gotten away just denying it but my hand was bleeding and there was blood in the car...
the owner of the car claimed there was 2 hundred dollars in his wife s pocket book...there wasn't, I know, I went through it...

...I wasn't with sam but he sideswiped a row of cars on second avenue, it was front page news and I read about it...

jack:  they needed valets to park cars at the berkley carteret hotel, this guy pulls up in a mercedes and hands me a ten... I drove the mercedes to the nearest liquor store and bought a six pack. I picked up a ******* 2nd avenue, she really loved the car...
... I pulled the Mercedes into the entrance to the hotel just as the owner of the Mercedes was coming out. I jumped outta the car, handed him the keys, he gives me another ten...

miscellaneous zen moments:


it was the state fair at the horse farm and they were charging 25 dollars per person and jack was with his girlfriend, he didn't want to pay 50 so he climb into the trunk of  the car, unfortunately he put the trunk key in his pocket.

Marybeth pulls the car in front of jack's house.

Jack's dad, "where s jack?"

Marybeth says nothing, stares.

the voice from the trunk, "in here dad."

Dad shakes head.

what do you hear
little angel?

moans from the well of hope
scattered and beneath
the blocks of stone?

(but not for you,
sweet kitten)

so run past the iniquity of man
past the dead who dwell
in the hearts of the living
past compassion silenced

run
run
run

like the fire in your heart
past soldiers marching
run as if midnight and darkness
are your lover
run past the grinding of tank wheels
past misfortune

be not a sin offering
O, my angel

make your midnight run
and tell no one
of the sadness and sorrow
of Gaza

(shed no tears for mankind)

O, lost angel of Gaza

why do the most talented poets
**** themselves:
Anne Sexton,
Sylvia Plath,
Dylan Thomas

it's better
to be a sheltered poet
and follow the Robert Bly formulas
a few weeks on the New York Times
best sellers list
then the college circuit
and come up with something

controversial

like

Iron John

but not, too
controversial

there is far less peril
as a minor poet
stick with J. Lohr Los Osos Vino
and ***

make the poems personal,
ruthless honesty

a plus

occasionally

something from the heart
something like a watercolor
in the rain
beautiful for a few brief
and fleeting moments

always the wolf
no subject matter
forbidden

and if perchance
you are jailed by the pen
don't **** yourself
too soon

linger in the darkness
step inside the Bell Jar
and write

she had 2 horses
but she was the...long shot
pretty and flawed
edgy like storm clouds
drifting over the sun

that brief moment

of a faltering ray of light
fading in the grass

you belong among mountains
you belong among  the columbines
blue violet
pale blue
that bloom in the high meadows
above tree line

you are a memory
and a walking dream
so run away and find another lover

and on the snow white bed sheet

I write the words

that you longed to hear

the best fishing trip to the cabin
and we never went fishing,

a torrential down pour.

it rained for 3 days, the electricity

went out and we had charcoal, barbecued
on the porch.

a candle and a lantern.
there were batteries and a radio.

we smoked a joint,
drank beer and we talked
about the the stars
and the care and release of fish.

listened to music...


...an hour before sunrise
I took my fishing pole
and headed down to the river
where the ripples and rapids
mimic modern life

sunrise lit the sky on fire
and slowly off the river the mist rose

mingled into sky

and I spread my brother's ashes in the river
and every river flows to the sea.

(love you, Dean)

I floor the car
through the orange traffic light
pass a line of cars
have to cut in
and I m behind a hearse

trapped in the sad procession
traveling
to
some cemetery...somewhere

and on the way
I have time
to contemplate
my demise...

... at the viewing
as I lay in my casket
I want speakers playing
Purple Haze

and a strope light
in my coffin

the scattered
on again off again
flashing

and
it ll look like

I m dancing... dancing



my last dance

LOVE,

5 cards calling
trying to fill that inside straight 

love
the baby kicking in the mothers womb

the match flickering in the wind

filling that inside straight

an ember glowing after the fire

love
the nightingale's song in the night,

love the one who knows your heart

the edge keeps getting
harder to find
keep my ledge clean
brush away this uneasy
disparate ride

spin your thread
that delicate strand
wish me good luck

and i'm not a dancer
but if you ask,
fate or fortune?
smiling,
dancing madly backwards
I'll ride the razor ribbon wire
into the wall of shadows

and until the tug of destiny
and before the ringing of bells
keep me close to your heart.

"A" has all the men
40 and up
in love with her

"M" is most likely
a nun

"C" is in the CIA,
or the witness protection program
perhaps a quantum physicist

( you all know
the people
who who I'm talking about)

for all the forlorn
lovers,
who've been spurned,
I share the advice
my mom gave me
"you'll find someone else"
and so, please
don't write you are
*******
angry
or sad,
tell me you
want to ****
the son of a...*****
write about something
else...

(...you can never
go wrong
writing a poem
about
***

men,
make all the women
have big *****)

and for the paranoid poets
just because you are
paranoid
it doesn't mean that
people are not
following you, so,
BEWARE

we have a separate life
here
we exist on comments
we live
on the internet,

we:
the psychotic
the lonely,
lovers
and perverts
and dreamers,
some poets
some mystics
some saints,
most of us, tortured souls
trying to find solace
in the words we write,
and to leave a piece of us
and not fade away
like a shooting star
into the nothingness
of thin air

he wanted his  masterpieces
to hang in churches
throughout the world,
the clarity,
the emotions,
the details.
ah, Raphael

the symphonic poems of Franz List
his strophes and antistropes
linger in the ears
for centuries

the depraved bukowski
collecting numerous rejection slips
hated the rules
created his own rules

and 64,000 years ago
in caves,
the vibrant colors,
the fearsome predators,
the herds racing,
the sense of motion
that still moves us,
and deep in that cave
the stenciled human hands
a woman's hands

and i'm every dog
that ****** on every mailbox and tree
to let the other dogs know I've been here

i sat in the rocking chair
in front of the window
expecting a long night.

"a broken nose and a broken heart,"
i whisper.

"and 2 black eyes,"
the moon tells me.

"she gives that smile,"
i tell the moon,
"i don't know
what it is
that little upturn
in the corners
of her mouth
no
maybe,
no
that isn't all of it,
a part,
maybe,
and her dark eyes
bright
like a streak of lightening
across a thunder clouded sky
beautiful and dangerous
and in a second,
gone and"

"funny,
what a man is willing
to die for, "interrupts the moon,
pauses
and then," love
is when the damsel
shoots
the werewolf
with a  silver bullet
holds his hairy paw
and looks into his
wolf eyes
and as the wolfman slowly
is turning human
the man
returns that love
you can see it in his blue eyes.
now,
that's, TRUE LOVE."

i put a cold can of beer
on a book of Neruda
love poems
a sacrilege
i know
so i kneel down
and pray
she will read this poem
i'm writing
and it will take her
to some
distant flowered field
but...

the poem never finished.
the letter never sent.
so i'm talking to the moon.

rules for wars
and other fictions

and the grave digger
gives me a nod
hands me a shovel of thunder

what to tell the children?

shadows can't exist
without light
and on my bended knees
lightning in the air
looking up

what to tell
the little boys and girls?

be amused,
smile,

darlings, it's not odd, not at all

we humans shed our skin like snakes
and one man's freedom fighter
is another man's terrorist

hell broke loose in Palestine
hell broke loose in the Ukraine

the angels' weeping choir
and cat eyes turn grey as the sea

the cat stares into the fire
cold as the sea

child, have you seen some
awfulness?

what could it be?

my cat howls into the fire

what to say to the children?

(welcome to the night)

pawns and kings, the rooks
the bittersweet comedy
of the heart and other losers


what to tell the children?

on a Friday night
no matter where you started out
you always ended up
for last call and

the unexpected was expected

you might find a line
on the women's room sink,
the bartender dancing on the bar
tequila in mouth
a lit match
then spitting flame

maybe
some guy pulls a knife
so the other guy shows a gun

satori's abound

beach day in January
300 pounds of sand
and a sand castle contest

crazy George swings
from the wooden wagon wheel
light fixture
and the lights flicker off and on

and the desperate and the dying
lost in want

appear and disappear
pop in and out of existence

dead
then alive
dead
then alive...

our cards are spread
and the joker card smiles

no search for meaning here,
the ****** return the dealt card's smile

we are the wolves and the lambs
no saints here

and no matter how you acted or what
you did or owned
who you hated or loved
no one was ever was bored

so alive for the fleeting moments
of Last Call

a random freedom of sorts
seen in a wink of an eye, heard in a sigh
the kind of freedom
you only experience
once in a lifetime

folie a' plusieurs.

on a windy fall day

rain can be beautiful

"Liston caught Patterson with the right
and Floyd kept trying to get up
trying to get up
off the canvas
and that's something

beautiful
terrible
free

if you have,
HEART

and i'm shooting to turn in
one
last
great performance
knocked to the canvas
i'm trying to get up

i'm going to punch a hole through the moon
through nightmares and rust
through days shorten
like streets that have no street signs

through memories of you
in that yellow dress
dancing in the lightening, rain and thunder

it takes Heart
to ask to be forgiven

the radio was playing softly
and the space between your 2 front teeth
and your crooked little smile

and then I was holding you
in my arms
delicate and soft and tender
and i'm stealing quarters from the wishing well

what was the name of that song, anyway?"


"Rain Can Be Beautiful," she says.

in the kitchen
on a shelf a digital clock
5 baby doll heads on one side
and 5 baby doll heads
on the other

the digital clock is blinking zeros

a can of Schaefer in his right hand
a cigar stub
in the other
he s plants dead flowers
In his garden
tills the soil searching
for his forgotten prayers

his grey eyes
narrow slits bright as steel
his crooked dreams clutch night

he knows no other way

he stands in the fire
he knows no other way

a lonely rider lost in a glass of yesterday's

the digital clock is blinking zeros

her feet touched lightly
as she walked across the carpet
almost floating
and her voice was
like all the sad songs
sung by romeo s
from under street corner
shadows

claire had soft eyes
gentle blue eyes
dancing
that hid her wicked smile
and sharp teeth  

and his lover could touch places
too painful inside of him
and whenever she cried
he cried
too

he loved her
like the mad hatter
loves alice

yes
he loves her so

and claire had a pit bull/mastif mix
130 pounds
gentle and sweet
so she had him fixed
and then kept him in a cage

she had beautiful blue eyes
and when she smiled
her eyes grew wide
like a cat staring into a canary's cage

and when a body is finally found
in the east river
the coroner
grabs the body by the collar bone
so that what once was a man
dosen't come apart
in his hands

she had
soft
and gentle eyes
and her blue eyes
put an imaginary dog collar on jim
and she is dancing on his tombstone...

pocket full of pennies
rolling across the kitchen floor,
down the steps, out the door,

pennies running into the street
(and i'm right behind them.)

"where do you think you are going? and
I m feeling a bit embassed, so i whispered.
"you belong to me,

to keep or to throw away." and

there s a light tap on my shoulder,
and the policeman tells me,

"better find them soon
before they turn to rust,

I couldn't find mine
and I'm sure they turned into dust."

and the echoe from the hole
in my pocket shouts,
" his dreams are
trying to find the waterline."

i did find a few of them, a handful,
(I had swiped my hand as they tried to roll away)

I did grasp a few

but some of the other
pennies i threw into the air
where they may have fallen,
I know not where.

on the silent city street
when the bar closed
that's where I met her
she was crazy

and wanted to dance on rooftops,
at sunrise
she took me to the cemetery
pointed to the graves of children
the box turtle crawling
toward the 3 crosses

full moon

we climbed the water tower
her eyes dark as coal
looked inside of me
and she began unbuttoning her blouse,
" just tell me you love me,"
(and we howled with the wolves)

2 troubled spirits

she wanted to be held
"and tell me you love me,"

she wanted to be held

but not
the way I held her

she's in my dreams

waiting for me

and no matter how you play your cards
misfits and wanderers
are lost and never found.

her seductive voice
and a forbidden love


the black and white photo:

2 men smiling

gaberdine coats and hobnailed boots

the delighted dance in their eyes
the intriguing puzzle

finely woven into their subtle smiles
of wind and lightning and snow

they have heard
the goddess of the sky
and she beckons,
COME

her beauty, cold and captivating
snow and vanishing hopes
and into the silence of no turning back

for king and country
climb high or die


the black and white photo

2 men
smiling


2 men smiling
about something
few men
will ever know

Mallory and Irving disappearing into the clouds.

"Kate left pieces of me
here and there
in her house
around town
in city streetlights
disappearing down empty
dark roads, " i'm trying
to explain it to Maria.
"understand?"

her comforting smile,
and then she says,
"and so we huddle together in huge cities
yet, still alone."

"one punch can change a fight
but i've been kicked in the teeth."

Maria nods her head,
"loves been a little bit ******* you."

"yeah. and I swore i wasn't going down
this time."

"you shouldn't bet
when all you do is lose," she tells me,
crosses her long legs."

"have i played the game too long?"

"you paid her with promises."

" Camus saw life as meaningless,
didn't need hope."

"and you do."

"she left me in the cold fire.
see me through this night.

can I sleep on your floor?"

stone angels and crosses,
myrtle leaves and a wreath of roses.

i have built relationships
among the tombstones
and beneath dirt
silent voices shout

time is quicksand!

so, climb a mountain,
swim the sea,
jump into the fire,
walk the high wire,
stumble on

be free.

the softness of her hand in my hand.
her humming to a song
and a whisper comes from the grave of my mom,
don't let life slip away into sorrow,

and through the moonlit smiles of angels,
through the silence of stone,

there among the tombstones
where time no longer teases,

the silent flight of tomorrows.

i had the windows open

the heat

and of all the nights
not to be able to fall asleep

and the neighbors had their
bedroom window open, too

some songs you never forget

and he played the same song
over and over
like ocean waves cresting,
falling onto the sands of time
and never lost in memory

yeah, the fireman
had a wife and child

some songs stay with you

touch you some place
to deep to descern

some corner of your mind
holds it tightly, angrily,
hidden away in that dark corner
of never forget

i don't know who sang it
or the title
but i learned every line
that late august night

it ended with

"Lord it'sad to be alone
help me through this night"

and the fireman turned off the stereo

no muffled sound
no flicker of light
just the shot


"Lord it's sad to be alone
help me through this night..."

some songs play over and over

... on and on...