I'm a sad excuse for a ******
I ain't consistent enough
I called you here, why I don't know
You just both seemed so tough
And you both sang like gurus
From the land of the east
Chanting your Hare Krishna's
I always thought it was neat
You said you should start chanting
Cuz if you go while you are
You're gonna go straight to Godhead
Comin' back as a star

Yes, I'm a sad excuse for a wild man
My profile's way too low
And I wear the shoes of a large man
I wear a large man's clothes
Got mechanisms of torture
Stuff that'll scare you cold
I'll whip 'em out and I'll use 'em
If you ever get out of control
I'll put the wheaties in the bowl
I'll feed the newbies and the trolls
I used to live for rock and roll
But now that world has wrecked my soul
Yes you can bet that world killed my soul


Oh, I'm a bad excuse for a dead man
All that breathing gives me away
I can't convince nobody, nobody
My eyes move in my face

Thank you Mister Morrison
But I think we got the wrong Mister Morrison
I said
Thank  you Mister Morrison
But I think we got the wrong Mr. Morrison

How thick the glass between you and the ground
From what heights the fall
How far the way down
How many times have I seen you
Pressing your body up against that slick slab of water and sand
Looking down
Looking out
Looking up
What do you see outside this confining ward
Where the doors never lead to the outside
There is a room on the end
With a pay phone
If you know someone who'll accept collect charges
You can sing to them
Tell them they aborted our first child
That you saw them carrying the body through
The waiting room
Or maybe it wasn't the body at all
I'm still convinced of the abortion
Someone around here knows
The ones who are crying all the time
The one with souls
Not the ones arranging table chairs in a row
Telling us it's an airplane like we're going home
I never understood what that was all about
Still I made that trip
Knowing nothing more than
How thick the glass
Thick enough to keep from breaking as I
Ran into it
Tall, such heights, 4 stories to be exact
A long fall, far enough to break every bone in your body
Bust open your head and spill your thoughts to the cement
How many times that was my goal

But the ******* glass was too thick

Always some drunk ******* standing in the back of the bar who feels his life's mission is to continuously shout boisterous requests for "Freebird" during the encore.

Second hand smoke thick as English fog and deadlier than a toxic chemical spill in the middle of the driveway.

The load out and equipment set up in which the drummer inevitably excuses himself from working with any other piece of equipment besides his drums, since  "there a big enough hassle on their own".

The inevitable bartering for free beer which during later years became a case of being lucky if you got your drinks at 50% off but even then sometimes you wouldn't be given a tab.

The lone dancer at the very beginning of the first set, never the most attractive lady I in the house and all too often she made it through a whole song without a dance partner.  It always seemed like some kind if code, especially when an inebriated gentleman would hook up with her. But I never figured out what the jig was about.

Always a drummer in the house, the real deal or an enthusiastic amateur. They will find a way to play the drummer's kit. Don't even try to stop them, for any reason. They will play.

Likewise the older gentleman with the button up cowboyshirt, the one with the stale pack of Marlboros in the front pocket, he will try to impress you by claiming to know every song Hank Williams ever sang. The wise gambler bets that indeed he does have an encyclopedic knowledge of Hank's repertoire. Unfortunately he never claimed to have the pipes to pull one or two or three off himself...but that won't stop him from begging and soon enough he'll be under the spotlight singing "Your Cheatin' Heart" with every word and melody spot on but voice that could turn Hank's mother away. He is the anti-PR agent for Hank Williams. After people hear him butcher the songs they don't want to know what Hank sounded like singing them.

The bouncer is your friend. If such is not the case before the show begins make every effort available short of paying him your whole salary to secure his loyalty. Trust me here.

To be continued
Yep, much more to com

I wonder how many bottles of beeu
I could stand and open, drink one after another
Slugging '. em down and ***** in' 'em back up when there weren't no room for ani more, not one more little drip yessiree bob and tell Katie Mae to bring some cleaning supplies
I done my time
Drinking cheap mad dog 20-20 wine and Schaeffers quarts
I  a rot gut mamA by nature and choice

Where are the bottles?
Where are the silverwar and glassware
Could it be a dry county we've stopped in ?
What were we thinking
Every man woman and child amongst us
Thirsts

In which the glass is filled with sand
Minutes into hours, as full as is allowed
Waiting for someone to come along
And turn it over again
Or break it with a hammer
Grains pouring out with shattered glass
The smashing blow of destiny

Impermanence
Life's greatest lesson
Is the most difficult to learn
Almost impossible to embrace
Until one realizes the value of freedom
That nothing lasts forever
Is good news indeed

Give it away to keep it
Don't need a reason
Generous and selfish
Charitable treason

Mined it from the source
Runnin' through my heart
Lord, it's runnin' through my brain
Love don't tear it apart

I need you to want it
I want you to need it
This narcissistic fire for you
I need you to feed it

Your validation means too much to me
I feel I cannot love without it
You give it then you lose it
I think too much about it

I know there's a closet in your room
Filled with unwanted memories
Piled so high but still some room
For more unwanted pieces of me

If I had any pride I'd raid that room
Plunder it and take what was mine
Maybe give it to someone else
Everything I can find

For I cannot keep it for myself
What once I never owned
The sentiments have gone their seperate ways
From forgiveness unatoned

This addictive need to share
Has drained me of reasons
To find anything worth sharing
In this uncharitable season

The Thorazine cocktail is a mean and nasty drink
Chemical sludge, black as hell's deepest dungeon
Enriched with the power of Mighty Thor's hammer
To smash your fragile brain pan and leave your senses numb
Belly up to the bar, boys
Jack Daniels is a school boy writing fifty time I must not
Jim Beam is a bully but he only picks on weaker spirits
80 proof ain't a ******* thang
Thorazine puts them all to shame
Explore new dimensions of bitterness
The Thorazine cocktail is a wrecking ball
You never develop a feel for it
No, it always tastes like half baked death
And smells a pungent metallic drift
Dead animals on the highway, rotting in the sun
Knock 'er back, Jack, drink it to the dregs
The dude in white thinks it's funny when you beg
You plead to take it away, how it's ******* with your head
You can't even remember what any of the voices said
You must be well, Old Jacky boy, don't need it anymore
Then again these things are weird, you can never be too sure
The dude with the cups seems to think it's not time
To kick it cold turkey, the order's been signed
So you might as well resign yourself
To the sledgehammer's blow this fine summer's eve
And shuffle away like a zombie
Hey look, that old John Huston movie about the Bible is on the television in the day room
It's just getting started, the creation scene like outtakes from the last ten minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Isn't that a coincidence?
Doesn't that make a lot of sense?
Jack, you might as well be tripping on Owsley's personal stash

This is the moment Tolle exalts
Unconcerned with directions
Left, past, right, future
Full stop center in linear
A chronology we don't trust
I'm bullseye center
In the shadow of I Am That I Am
Happy to be there
Aching wrist holding this iPhone still
While my numb left pointer taps
The tiny letters and the long harmed f space
Clicking these incomprehensible words
As gallons and gallons of race be
Pour  from selfish yet hursting bags of water
Lightning flashes brilliant illumination
On the center of the spiral
The black hole is surely out of our reach
The exhaustion of trying to edplain
Sends me to the kitchen in hopes of finding an orange
Or pickle juice in lieu of apple and salt

Some unfashionable fear
Repels me from the blinding light of
The moment
Knowing full well that to bask in that glow
Brings the only peace I'm destined to know
My flesh sinning against the Spirit in the conviction
That it isn't enough
Grasping ahold of all I've come to hate
With one hand
With the other all I thought I loved
All that is before me
All that is within me
It all belongs to the moment
Even as I belong to the moment
Though my stubborn will won't admit it

when the road turns dark and I've lost my way
I'll call for you on that long day
wind blows bitter and shivers through
on that cold night I'll call for you

I may go gently, then again maybe not
if you are there with me, though only a thought
I'll go there willing, a simple goodbye
no longer frightened with you by my side

to hide my face forever in the shelter of your breast
to move from your suffering into your rest
through every dimension, viewed and unseen
to every fantasy, hope, wish and dream

on the other side of the mirror
things do seem much clearer

My apologies are powerless
Useful for nothing
Damage done, no turning back now
No point in saying I'm sorry
To myself or anyone

All I can do is hope
You know I was powerless
To keep the tide from turning
I watched it wash over you
Unable to stretch out my hands for you to take hold of
To keep you safe from the undertow
They were tied
They might as well have been nailed to wood

Contemplating my predicament
I'm confused, uncertain
There had to have been a time, who knows how long ago
When the water flowed over me
Sometime, it had to have been a long time ago
The monster swallowed me whole
Only
To ***** my stinking body three days later, stained indelibly
(Three days is a long, long time)
Onto an empty beach, littered with broken glass, rocks and bottle tops
Signs that say, "No Swimming" and "Danger: Sharks!"

I'm sorry
Because I know how and I know why and I know where it's all gonna lead
I'm sorry
Because I'll never tell you
My apologies are powerless
Because they won't change a **** thing

Ah, look. The waters are still at last.
Somebody call a priest.

Could it be nothing more than
A changing of the hands
Maturity, responsibility
No easy transferral
Or could it be the time has come
To believe in something more than we can see
Sit down in the sand and breathe
These years depend upon
The passing on of dreams
All we can conceive
We must train ourselves to live
On the outskirts of
Light and darkness
On the fringe of our own minds
In the place where they all join together
Described but never revealed
There is no air in heaven
We glow
And a mighty symphony
Manifests into an awesome physical being
That morphs and mutates
Infinitely amazing we are forever content
To watch and listen
As we are part of that symphony
Being seen and heard even now
By those who came before us

I never felt the tears
Hot, salty drops of joy or anguish
Rolling down your cheeks to meet
A smile so wide to bless the years to come
Or
A grimace of despair, all hope lost for a future
You wiped them away
Until the only thing left was a stinging
Blush of red
That faded within moments

The only sounds I ever heard were muffled
A one-way communication through a thick wall
I didn't understand a single word
The sing-song inflections lost in translation
Barely disturbing the silence
I am content with
Darkness to float in, this is my world
Tethered not by gravity
But the love and nourishment provided
By Someone I will never know

My mind holds dreams
That are not my own
Visions I would just as soon
Not give up
Every name I have been given
By God and by Man
Is a lie
For my eyes are closed
I speak for an older soul
Unconcerned with a legacy

I have no need for air
I don't need your love
I don't want your compassion
At least, not now
Does it bring you sadness to think
I would ignore gifts you want to give me?
Does it break your heart to know
That I don't need anything?
Do you want so badly for me to want?
Do you want so badly for me to need?
I would never burden you
These things are for you

Go to sleep, mother
Find yourself in that space
Between sleep and dreams
Soon enough the dream will be over
Find me in that space
Between death and life
Soon enough the two will merge
And my dream will begin

You cannot **** me
I cannot die
I would be yours
But I would just as soon
Keep floating
Until the day you find yourself
In that space
Between death and life
Where we will merge
And our dreaming will have begun

I forgive you
Though you need no pardon,
If you need time to get there
I would only ask that you
Forgive yourself
You have done nothing wrong
Ignore the fools crying "foul"
The ones who never walked
From one side of the room to the other
In your shoes
They don't understand these things I tell you
They're blinded by reckless judgment and condemnation
I have no morals
I have no convictions
I have no beliefs
I have no thoughts
I cannot be murdered by the self-righteousness of men

But let our time together bring peace and enlightenment
Not guilt or shame
Let the tears shed for my memory
Be of joy
For I passed through unseen, unheard
Unknown by all
Except for you

In a painful, ****** ritual
I watched my heart taken out and handed over to me
Like someone thought I knew what to do with it

I kept it close, after all it was mine
Alive, pumping life through my body
Giving life to my soul
My heart became a part of me

I was grateful
Until one day
The workings of time, fate, God
Ripped my heart from it's home
Carried it far, far from me

The void it left would not be filled
By anything or anyone

Only hope, only hope
Though sometimes shallow water
With the last drop
I will get my heart back

From God
From Fate
From the cruel workings of time

For my heart I'll tempt them all
And we shall never be separated again

Jimbo rode the tri-county circuit
Holdin' on to the seat of his pants
(They gotta lotta nice gullza)
Ax slung way down low so he could feel it
Bumpin' the ******* grind
Feels so good when the wood rubs against the 501 metal buttons
Scratchin' up the back o' dat Fender P Bass
High on the stage
In front of crowds or in a cage
There's a kinda woman who'll dance all night
Same kinda woman lookin' good in the spotlight
That kind of woman show her ******* if the price is right
For Jimbo and the band it's free
Three sets in and she's just now ready to party
What most will call a party
Somebody yells "Play 'Free bird'" 10 times
Jimbo can't let that go on
He takes his **** *** bass from his sexier shoulders and he walks all the way to a dead end drunk soldier
"Listen man, like you listen to the band, we don't much like playing 'Free Bird'.
It's too **** long and
It's a Skynyrd song and if we was gonna play we'd wait until the encore
When everybody's drunk and shoutin' for more, too wasted to care how bad we ***** it up"
Well that drunk got the gist and he might have been ****** but there weren't no denying the logic
"Free Bird"'alright for the end of the night
Third sets just too **** early
Jimbo kept his promise, he played that song and it ****** sure sounded like ****
But he'd been right cuz all the night they drank whiskey and rye and nobody recognized it
They put it to rest, packed their gear up as best they could
They went lookin for marijuana and women
Jim couldn't tell you what the other boys found but he bought some Zig Zags and he lay right down with a
Heifer who had her eyes for the guitar player
Who wasn't interested in heifers
She was gonna show Jimbo what this heifer could do
Then ask him to tell Mel the Guitar Man what was in store for him if only he'd change that red light to green
This is what the tri county circuits all about
Yours for the asking if you've got a
Shred of talent
Jimbo thought that heifer was fine
Thanked the little lady for a mighty good times
She said, baby tell that *** picker I got a surprise
Jim told her, sorry sweetcheekers, Mel only likes guys
At which point she seemed defeated
Maybe she'd been a little too conceited
Jimbo turned and stormed right out of the place
He went lookin' for that girl who'd flashed her ******* in his face
But he didn't find her

I took something away from you
It could have saved your life
Or made it more bearable
But I snatched it away
I crushed any hopes you may have had
That it could have helped
All the well knowing, even myself
It would have

Why was I such a *******?
What did I think I was saving?
What?
Some barely recognized cruelty
I'm loathe to acknowledge
But knew even as I weilded fear
To set you back
Reinforce the notion fixed in your mind
That I am a tyrant
I think you are probably right

And if I am a tyrant
The weight of my offense haunts me and drags me down
I only wish I was strong enough to recognize
DO something about it, usurp my power
If all it is good for is destruction

The regret nests in my chest
Squeezes my heart tightly
Pulls tears from my eyes
A secret agony, a transgression never to be confessed
What have I done?
I cannot, no matter how hard I try, convince myself
That I've done the right thing
Like a good father taking away a favorite toy
To punish
God, I pray somehow he can get it back
Even if I'm not the one who can return it
I would let my trespass fester, rot inside me
If only someone else would give it back to you
Or something better

God is getting tired of hearing me pray for forgiveness
For my persistent petition betrays my lack of faith
His forgiveness was granted the first time I asked
I'm still begging after 3 days
Impossible, it seems, to forgive myself
With this regret crawling inside me, will I ever be able to?

My son, take this guilt from me
Spare me my life
That I might be able to live again without this black hole in my heart
Quickly, cut and dig, yank it out
Resurrect my hope, let me dream,
Before it's too late, before I lose you to the world

Son, you are my hero

Why am I sitting here writing this ******* poem, nothing but a ******* poem, do they have such power? I don't remember poems breaking me down, let alone a poem I'm writing a poem I'm not even finished with a poem that hits me hard like a ******* sledgehammer in my heart, hating myself for writing something so ******* pretentious as "sledgehammer in my heart" and wondering if I should have written "sledgehammer TO my heart", every bit as pretentious and with not a whit of power to stop the tears from flowing and oh, my god, I think I'm speaking in tongues this brutal truth, who do I think I am, is this my reward for taking it away from him and yes I deserve this and a lot more and I fear that I will get a lot more if I don't let it out in some other manner than a ******* poem, a ******* impotent poem a ******* poem that has broken me and brought me to my knees, ******* impotent poem, I should leave the poetry to you because YOU are the one with the gift, YOU are the one with the talent, YOU are the one with the heart and mind to create something worth bothering with and I never meant to take THAT from you, but I took away your paper and I took away your pen and I took away one more shred of respect you may have had left for me, and Oh God I Miss You, and Oh God I Miss You and I can't wait until you get home this afternoon so I can be reminded of why I miss you or no, no, that's not quite right, just trying to sound poetic, what a laugh, what a joke, I Miss You when we're in the same room, if I didn't know that there was a little love left, or if I didn't think I had reason to hope there was a little love left in your heart for me, I would find a way to sleep. I'm settled down now. It's okay, no need to call the cops. I'm done with this poem. This ******* poem that has

Opened my eyes
Made me realize
The weight of my offense
My transgression in need of confession
(But to whom?)
That God had better just get used to my prayers
That
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY
I HATE POETRY

I write poems before I fall asleep
I post them on the Internet
I let their existence guide my dreams
Then delete them when I wake

Obviously this is not one of those poems

from high above the clouds billions of raindrops
shapeshift in free fall weightless collective vertigo
moonlight's glow casts a shimmer on the screen
blink-and-you'll-miss-it stabs of lightning
slash holes in dark clouds that reconnect with
the exhilarating, damning clash of God's displeasure
deafening earth-shaking thunder one after the other
I turn my music down so I can hear the din
all the windows in this hail-washed house have drapes drawn apart, shades rolled up
so I can watch the majestic display and pray
for a tornado to swing by just close enough
for me to gaze at but so faraway as to assure no damage to my observatory

these storms call to mind
secrets, reminisces surprising, in their own personal way terrifying

knew a dude in high school
found out too late he was the go-to man for controlled substances in those days
this kind of weather would send him to the phone
dialing Rhonda's number and she knew exactly what the call was about
the wind that swirled 'round the eye told her
she hit the ignition in the cute cherry red Ford truck he'd given her and braved the storm until she made it to his house

maybe it was an adolescent power trip
the sensation he felt through his ***** when the thunder spoke
then when it screamed he ******
she melted, the explosive crash drowning out the involuntary gasp which escaped through clinched teeth, the precursor to secret tears she seemed to have no control over
pitch dark, intermittent lightning strikes to illuminate the Storm King sprawled out beneath her, the look of aroused determination on his face growing more elastic with the clatter of hailstones on glass windows

I never knew about the drugs, didn't need them then, though I sorely need them now
but I knew he called Rhonda every time weather turned severe
the talk amongst peers was that the two of them were never seen together in an underground shelter no matter how bad the moon may have risen
Nudge nudge wink wink a nods as good as a wink to a blind horse say no more, squire, say no more!

I envied them
I broke cheap champagne glasses when the storm came and used them
to carve snaking tendrils across my wrists
barely any blood shed but scared the *******out of that witch my dad married after mom left
it was my failsafe procedure to assure at least another month away from them
yes, the mental hospital was preferable

the rain fell ******* the Doctor's house
weatherman said tornadoes were inevitable
flipped a switch in my brain, activated a mean streak
Doctor's favorite was insufferable
brewed a gallon of sweet tea every day and drank every drop
I saw lightnin on the horizon but that Big Bad Bear with the gun he stole from the Doc was nowhere to be found
I'd be leaving soon
I took out the gallon pitcher from the refrigerator
not even cold yet
unzipped my too-tight jeans
hung my spout over the edge and turned the beverage into 1/2 sweet tea & 1/2 cloudy dark yellow *****
placed it back in the fridge and waited

sat with him that night, playing guitar, singing incomprehensible songs, watching him drink that **** tea and possessed by just enough evil to laugh
in a ridiculously high pitch and enunciated to where I knew he couldn't understand what I was saying...
I sang
"****** in yer tea you know I ****** in your tea
aren't you so ******* at me?"
he never found out, else I probably would not be here to tell the tale

I had my excuses
broken and discarded
I was lost
toyed with the idea of being a Satanist
still lost
standing outside in the middle of an electrical storm
yes, I'm afraid
I'm told family members have been killed by a well-placed bolt and if it's good enough for them
by God
it's good enough for me
rain baptizes me, too stupid to come in out of it
the thunder makes me **** and shudder
lightning a brilliant fireworks show surpassing the best available powder and fire variety
I have become part and parcel of this thunderstorm
wait only for the appointed bolt to impale me with it's rapier voltage
here he come swingin' I almost missed him what with his night-black get-up-camouflaged by the black night that tried to hide me from his sight
alas, foiled by too much lightning

voltage from the heavens
I could personally think of much worse

These lines are written
In the slow nowhere zone of sleep
My fingers animated with thoughts
All their own
I don't have to pretend
Ambien's licking in
Like a donkey straight
To the beck of my neck
I've seen it done enough time
Not to fooled into thinking it's here for
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hara hara hara Rama. Hara Rama , ram  EMram hare hare.  
Maybe that's the strong wind that guided my pen
Benevolent trickster soon to.bury. The things
that make him whole
Someone is mowing theirbli
It happens on ambien
But I swear there's. Meaning somewhere hidden between bags of honey oil **** ands great changjbbbbb
He might be a nice guy......  Nice and buxom, he could eliminate the thy free of  before his Pixar
My mind thinks one thing and fgisvonytspio

wasn't strong enough
got tangled up
could not contain
a brutal future
doesn't get better

and i have hurled my fair share of scorn
at the weak strategies of women and men
inherently flawed by turning blind eyes
or simple willful ignorance
a poisonous bliss
bliss nonetheless
something more than this

not strong enough
to do what needs to be done
still nothing new
under the sun

The prophet is six minutes late
I was really looking forward to his analysis
Of the characters on "Lost"
Six minutes is unusual for him
The prophet is usually early
I thought he was excited to see the program
Not realizing what he'd missed in it's network run
Not one to give his money to Netflix or iTunes or Amazon or blah blah blah
He's never heard of the Dharma Initiative

Ah...the prophet has arrived
I knew I shouldn't give up hope

Stood too close
Way too long
Lethal dose
Not too strong
Bring it on

I see you hiding beneath
Old shirts and memories
***** jeans and worn-out shoes
That have walked a saddening mile
Weakest armour of cloth
Ripped and torn by cruel adolescence
Cursed with hate or blessed with indifference
I see you in there

Surrounded by toys
Some broken, unneeded
I see you and I know that you want to play with them
But time seems to have withdrawn permission
Or maybe you're frightened
Of how happy they once made you
Reluctantly believing they will never again make you smile or laugh
For they have become little more than fodder for the garbage heap
You find yourself beneath

On the other side of the locked door
I bend to peek through the keyhole
Expecting no more than shadows on the wall
But I see you

I've watched you walk in...
(you didn't know I was there...sorry)
...and it broke my heart
To see how swiftly you ran to the door
To behold the look of relief on your face
That broke up and melted the death mask of grief
Saved by grace
When you stepped in and turned the lock
A beaten veteran getting off a plane, whose salvation is the tarmac beneath him
You kiss the ***** carpet and call this place "home"

"How can a man be born when he is old?
can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb, and be born?"
Behind a locked door
You found the answer
Discerning flesh from flesh and spirit from Spirit
From the crowded confines of  your mother's womb

I wanted so badly to see the look on your face when you emerged
Refreshed and ready to battle demons
Or downcast, crestfallen for another day
It would have been worth the waiting hours to bear witness
To the power of this basement haven
Alas, sleep was not as curious
I could not risk your discovering me
Where I was not meant to be
Fallen from my hands and knees
Best to settle for forbidden glimpses through a keyhole
Best you didn't know I'd stolen a tiny part of your soul

I see you there, hiding from the light
Books on shelves half read or dog-eared to the very ends
A hardback Bible, the binding cracked, it's pages would spill out on the floor if not for your curiosity
66 books held tightly in your grasp to hold them together
In order
Camus, King...Baldwin, Irving...tattered paperback
Koran, Augustine...Srimad Bhagavatam, L. Ron Hubbard...sturdy hardback, spines still cracking
Barnes & Noble books unnaturally pinched between mold smelling garage sale bargains and bulky Salvation Army bookends (Webster's Dictionary, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Bullfinch's Mythology, Asimov's Chronology of Science & Technology...anything thick and sturdy enough to squeeze in a row of lesser volumes)
I see all those books but I don't see you reading them
Still, I don't wonder why they are there

I only wonder of you
Why you lie like a skeleton
Beneath piles of junk

I only wonder how
You find comfort there
And not in the arms of the ones who love you

I wonder what happened here?
The stench of ***** is strong
Foul
The vacant faces lining the walls
Seem not to notice
Careless of blame
Fumbling around in their own dark minds

Something definitely happened here
The smart ones mill about
Sworn to secrecy
Their eyes give them away
The air of unease
Betrays their awareness
Ready to spill, but not to me

Mother, mother, I've lost your face
In the crowd and the time and the lines of age
It's just like you to fade away
To leave me to lions and life this way
Now here I stand, so many miles from where you are
The distance and the time to cross is too far

Father, father, I've lost your face
Though I've tried to forget the pain
It's not like me to cling to memories
That make a fool of me
In my heart I'm still down in the corner
You taught me to be ashamed of all these tears

Wave goodbye

Brother, brother, I've lost your face
And the hope that I wanted so much to replace
It's just like you to drift away
To get lost in the daisy chain of days
If I could offer comfort in your darkest hour
Would you forgive me of those sins?

Suffocation
Alienation
Separation
Wave goodbye

What are these
Wet and warm
Dripping down my cheeks
Moisture cutting scars in dry skin
Surely blood is thicker than water
I'd be a fool to ask from where they came
Rare as they are
I cannot bring myself to wipe them away
So I leave them to the air
Thankful as they evaporate

I put all my bibles in a big box,
Stacked two-high, two long rows,
That was heavy to lift when the lids were closed.

All the books of theology
Endless volumes of philosophy
Filled five more boxes in the trunk of my car

It seemed that one box was lighter than the others
But I didn't think it was worth the time
To weigh them.

I carried them for 30 miles
Until I found the apartment
Of the old lady who bought them from me on the Buy 'n' Sell

She'd only had five dollars when she made the call
Said her home was lonely, her mind was lonesome
I spent more than five dollars buying gas for the trip

Heaving them out of the trunk with a grunt
I asked her if she wanted me to unpack them, put them on her shelf
"Oh, dear! I don't want to put you out!"

I took the first few books from the first few boxes
Running my finger down the spine of an old favorite
I felt a pang of regret

One by one I handed them to her and she placed them on a wooden bookcase next to a television set
Out of order, no sense of alphabetization, she didn't care
It was stupid of me that I did

Two rows across and two rows down
I gave her the last of the bibles
She marveled, "That's a lot of bibles, young man".

"Yes, it is", I agreed and she turned away
I was so glad she didn't ask why I was getting rid of them
What she must have thought

As if it mattered what some crazy old lady with just a five dollar bill thought
Five dollars to buy a few thousand dollars worth of dusty thought and rusted belief
Forty years of crossword puzzles, the easy ones quickly done, the expert ones left unfinished

So many not even begun

As if it mattered that she could never understand how dumbed down I'd become
Falling beneath life's hard demands
Taking the punches, getting back up again

I could never have told her, whether I wanted to or not,
That those books had picked me up and then let me down
Too many times to count

Those books had given me treasure to take it away
They'd taken my heart, swept up the floors
Opened the doors for Legion

They left me with nothing but answers to questions
When questions were easy to answer
And they teased with the only answer that mattered, refused to give that one up

Through pages and pages I waded and waited
For some kind of hope to go on
Something to show for once and for all that the wading would soon meet the shore

I expected too much of ink and wood
To convey what I needed to know
Binders and leaves could never contain the spoken Word

I tried to give her the five dollar bill back
She could have it all for free, it meant nothing to me
The trip had been a nice one, her manners were sweet

She wouldn't take it, though twice I insisted
But she sternly insisted to me
"There's too many bibles in this here lot, you have to take one back from me"

She was right. There were way too many bibles in that lot
I couldn't argue with that
And though my better instinct begged me to flee I got down on my knee

I reached to the bottom shelf, a pain in my back
I picked out a ratty old paper bound NIV
I'd drawn **** all over it to prove that pages and ink can never contain

The living...the breathing...the mystery...the words spoken
Even more importantly
The silence

I took that old tattered book and threw it
In the passenger seat of my car
I never thought about it all the way home

I rid myself of words and language
Driving through the dark night, squinting at the lights of oncoming cars
Dimly aware of the instinct to look away when they got too close...too bright

Turned my eyes to the right for the seconds until
Darkness returned for the precious time
Before another car came up and over the hill

Up, up, over the hill
In my pocket a five dollar bill
And a bible to my side

I looked to the western sky at sundown and I saw it as the Canvas of God.

I stared into the deep infinity of the night sky and imagined every star a pin-***** in the fabric of the black horizon, offering tiny glimpses of the Light on the other side.

I came to realize that heaven was to be found in the moments after sleep consumes the intellect and just before dreams tease the spirit.

I feared inner peace and sought distraction to the point where distraction took the place of inner peace, and I was content with it.

I sought to deny myself thoughts, beliefs, experiences…to sacrifice them to a code I thought prohibited them.

I tried to do the right thing when most of the time I hadn't a clue what the right thing was. I learned that "the right thing" has more to do with luck than any result of good motives.

I celebrated diversity and sought to tear down the walls of intolerance. I firmly believed that you should do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

In regards to how others lead their own lives I added this amendment" "Mind thy own business".

I closed my eyes and thought "This is all there will ever be". And so I taught myself to love darkness.

I opened my eyes and thought "This is all there will ever be". And so I taught myself to love light.

A guru led me into a place within myself that was neither light nor darkness and he told me "This is all there will ever be". He told me that if I wished to find it again I must empty myself and surrender to the Supersoul. It was then that I realized I knew nothing.

I wanted to be a philosopher. I wanted to be a priest. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be a famous rock star. I wanted to be a mentor. I wanted to be a scholar. I wanted to be a Marine. I wanted to be a champion. I wanted a lot of things. Too many things.

I listened to a great man's words…."You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need." And so I tried.

I noticed that the numbers on calendars never went backwards.

One morning I saw a storm brewing in the eastern sky and I gave God a high five.

I was told that "good things come to those who wait"…I'm still waiting to see if that's true.

I willingly lost myself in the dreams of others, then felt used and manipulated when the credits began to roll.

I satisfied my soul with poet's nonsense.

I was content with someone else's song.

Memories kept me from believing that all the things I thought were real were vapors all along.

I spent all my life searching for the meanings of some things I was never meant to know.

A strange thing, that the more I really loved someone the less inclined I was to tell them how much. As if "they should know by now" was good enough." Many were the times such logic turned against me and proved me an idiot.

I proposed that loving someone grants them entrance into your heart, where they will dwell until the day you die. I like to think that, of all the foolish notions I've entertained, this one is an unshakeable truth.

They knew he was leaving the band
It broke their hearts
Like loosing an arm or a leg
Sometimes they cried about it
When they played the ethereal songs
They pictured stars in another universe
His was going supernova
Would never recover
He didn't feel as if he was being
Left behind
To a quieter life
A wife, a child, a Name
He'd done what he set out to do
The dream was no longer his to chase
It was his to share

who sings you to sleep?
who tells you the truth?
she carries divine breath in her chest
sacred heart beats between her *******
pores dripping with soma sweat
panting, exhausted, shudder and shiver
when the cool breeze brushes up against her

did you hear it in her secret sounds?
did you recognize it, soul aglow?
in the moment when the universe imploded
when you gave in and gave it all away
she wrung it from you like water from a towel
and surrendered you to the little death
to witness her power and marvel at bliss

"is this the truth?" you have to ask
"what is the name of that song?"
it is a song without a name, different every time
it is a truth that all forget the moment after it's revealed
for in these bodies and with these minds
we could never comprehend and live
with such a joy eternal

Gently nudge or better shove
Push me into tomorrow
From blissful blessed Nirvana
Empty head and hollow
Sound bubble drone flight
Bent bludgeoned never loved
Bend time till tomorrow
From restful dreaded medication
Full of shine and shallow
Waiting for the whipcrack stripmine
Vaudeville blue light favorite
Poke the carcass with a stick
Cut from cloth of felt
From the hearts of the Feltmen
Trapped in Gormenghast
Or doomed Hagedorn
Seasons change our sole entertaining
Reasons vain our Souls rearranging
Feather duster birds take flight
In deep forests of the night
Flee from the Tyger's malicious eye
Have a slice of this delicious pie.

I am so white
Chalk-white and dry
Skin like cardboard
Peeling snakeskin
Scattered about

Hard and white
as excavated bones
The dirt of years
washed away and cleansed
for exhibition

what I wouldn't give
for a taste of gray
for a splash of red

Look at these stains
Reminders
The bottoms of her feet
were ***** and yellow
Her eyes were green

Hateful atheist
Ecstatic to convert
With cruelty and a mean spirit
A facade of compassion
Fingers to point at what you can't understand, bewildered
What you cannot understand, unable
To point and to laugh
Refusing to "come down" to a level
You feel above
A different level of hate
A different level of love

Worshiping science
You somehow can't see
Science is to look
God is to be
Through microscope and telescope
God can be seen

A rotten fruit on a dying vine
Cursed to be trapped in space and time
An awesome cathedral you feel is enough
It doesn't worry you that there will come a day
When you will be evicted
Wanting more
Never enough

The best you can do is to die in your sleep
Or fall to the elements
Anything to steal away the last 60 seconds
The panic of uncertainty
The all consuming fear of something unknown
The dread of learning, finally finding out
Finding out, in this last moment, that you're more than you thought
Just in time to say goodbye, just in time to lose it
Your infantile perception of space will collapse upon itself
Your time is running out, second by second, precious, more than days
More than years, more than a lifetime

Or perhaps defiant
"I don't even care
Take me away
Get me outta here"

Still mocking the faithful
Hateful and condescending
Giving no quarter
You tell me you are content
With your legacy
"My legacy will be more than enough"
When what we'll remember
Is how you used to smoke all our dope
And when it came time to share
You never had anything more to offer
Than a lousy pinner

the window to the world
frightens and confuses
terrorizes
makes me grateful for distance
and an early bedtime

*****, wobbling Buddha
I think you may have cursed me
With your eyes closed
Picking at a chronic scab
Delicately placing the detritus
Into your mouth
Ha!
You didn't think I saw you do that
Did you?
****** you off
Didn't I?
A wave of the hand, a well-worn expletive
And I'm dismissed

Smoking, hacking gargoyle
Glued to your grimy floor
Staring at me through tight squinted eyes
Damning each and every
Soul you've ever known
Have I been convinced
That I am exactly like you?
Or that you can send me to hell?
I think you may already have

A wave of the hand, a well-worn expletive
I'm down in the hole

But one thing must be said:
You have a wonderful collection of dolls
Every peach pink pucker-lipped face
Stares blindly
Lined up in rows on shelves
In an unused room
Their feet scuffed with black tar
Little silk dresses torn
Or naked
**** plastic
Unashamed toys
Five gates, uncaring
Five doors, barred forever
Heads filled with air

Still they feel more than you
Still they feel more than you
Do

Dark clouds driftin' 'cross the sky
All my years, all of my life
But today's been a good day
I woke up dead

We don't say "I love you" anymore
The sentiment buried deep
Seldom considered
Never discussed
A declaration that swims
With memories
Sinks with exhaustion
Hardens with repetition
Deep in the recesses of our souls
The fear of it's loss
Is the proof of it's existence
Throughout it's evolution
How painful to let go of what it once was
How difficult to grasp what it has become
How dreadful to consider what it may turn into
Sublimated, as it is
Fighting gravity to escape the ocean floor
This love awaits resurrection
The renewal of senses dumbed down

"I love you" takes it's rightful place
Beyond the realm of intelligence
Into the dumb bliss of Spirit
To mingle with childhood dreams
Memories of carnivals and candy
Moms and Dads
To pick up after us
Teaching, alas, by example
Wide-eyed wonder for alien species
Dogs and cats and turtles and frogs
Butterflies and bees, lightning bugs and praying mantis
We marvel at it's devotion and wonder
What is he praying for? Who is he praying for?
More likely we marveled at how green he was
Days when we knew love without knowing it's name
Before we knew what it was
A given
Yes, a Given
Waiting for the day when it would be
Taken for granted
Yes, Taken

The words have become useless to us
Offered and received so many times
Put them to rest
Hope for the best

The trash men carry it off
Barrels of garbage, the waste of the week
Rotting, molding apple core
Worthless reams of sales circular
Advertising *******no one needs
Books of tame philosophy
Books of lame poetry
Covered in half-burnt grease
Sophisticated scumbag
**** of the earth
Hauled to Gehenna
Where the dead litter mounds of refuse
Reduced to ashes in perpetual fire
Kept burning by priests who can keep a secret
Dustbins overflowing with trash
All that is ruined
By use or lies
Disappointed
Naive I suppose to believe
There was a garden
But now it's a dump
And there you are swimming in the middle
With a blissful smile on your face
Misunderstanding
Everyone is gone
They are never coming back
You will never see them again
The breast stroke is the best
You've got a long way to swim
From this wretched refuse reality
To your under-populated heaven
I would loan you my life jacket
But you've already stolen it
What, did you leave it at home now you need it?
Sink then
Never stop smiling

****
Writer's block has got me
By the short and curlies
I wanna be profound
Grammatically sound
Surely I have something to say
Or maybe I really don't
Could be it isn't writer's block at all
I'm just boring tonight
Tonight of all nights
I was gonna write a new Odyssey
I was gonna compose a postmodern version
Of The Divine Comedy
By God I was gonna make a name for myself
Acch, my short and curlies
They're all over the place
Writer's block is a *****

This is mine
The overwhelming urge to share
Is a symptom of a condition
Is a desperate plea for affirmation
Unbecoming one as needy and selfish
As I

There was a time
I was the loudest laugher
When the laughter was at my expense
Hunkering down, stealing against depression
With varying degrees of "success"
My sense of self-deprecating humor has suffered

But this is mine
So I can take it with me to the grave
Walk it down the aisle
Put it on my face fall in love with mirrors
Turn up my nose in scorn
At any fool who thinks he can take it from me

I'm way past my bedtime
Losing balance, veering to the right
Before I hit the wall
Or the cabinet or the floor
Where did this jelly come from?
I thought I had it down
It wants to come up
So let's help him up
He's already drowned
Twice we drowned him
But they kept coming up

A man I once knew
...he was a professional man...
He should have known what he was talking about
I thought he did
More often than not
I trusted him
Law and natural fact
I could see the love in his eyes
He was convinced the cessation of my problem
Was it's light dying and silently slipping off
Into the air
My, oh my, I must not have been paying attention

Another hour passed
My mind was worked up
Worked up professionally
With pure quality workmanship
But it's not gonna last
I don't care
If they invested millions of dollars
You god, Oh Mighty Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick
I'm just gonna fall asleep
I'm a-gonna sleep until I wake
And I ain't a-gonna wake up until
I'm good and ready

He seemed to know what he spoke of
He was, after all, wearing a doctor's coat
After all, he had a silver-pearl stethoscope hanging around his neck
I was tempted to believe he was a great physician
But I wasn't so sure he was a Good Doctor
Not a very good one
The only sawbones I could afford
He told me that I'm very selfish
But not to worry, he said
"All bipolars are like that
All that they see is filtered through
ME ME ME ME ME".

So I had to think about it for awhile
I had to rub it in my clay-hands brain
Until I understood it to be truth
My hardening heart beats only for me
Prayers found me on my knees
Knelt
Until my legs fell asleep
Circulation staunched, the numbness
I tried to rise and walk
I tried to rise and walk
"Come forth!" I heard. "Rise and WALK!"
I tried to rise and walk
I TRIED
Fell down three times
It was like skating in an ice rink
The pulsating music of KISS throbbing through the loudspeakers
(It was that disco knock-off they took to the charts)
I was the kid who got knocked down
I know that funny man didn't mean to run over my hand with his skate
Accidents happen
(Even if the Good Doctor says that's all a bunch of crap)
I lifted my hand to my face
I felt nothing
I thought perhaps it would take some time to kick in, that there would come a moment when the pain would crash over me tsunami-style. It would overcome me, and at that point I would not be screaming at myself anymore but at everyone. I'd curse them because they were there. I'd **** them for no good reason whatsoever. Wrong place, wrong time. Unlucky twins. God knows them not, nor vouches them for His. One is chosen. The Other refused. ME ME ME ME ME. It is more cruel to be told this secret than to be kept in the dark.
Keep me in the dark.
Leave me alone.
Silence your Teaching Voice and let me sleep
Let me sleep in disbelief
Forget the part where I said,
"I ain't a-gonna wake up until I'm good and ready"

I've been put down
I'm held down to drown
Jelly air to fill my gills
No longer screaming
Abandoned my temple
To the banks of the Ohio
I gave the Good Doctor something interesting
To write in his reports

How to make nonsense out of bitter citrus fruits
Leave them be, already a font of nonsensical egg yolks
You do this for yourself, your own self, and no other self
Endure another fortnight daliance, you dance forthrightly

Absorb information like paranoia
The facts are lying in bed with an orange banana
How to make something lasting in a world cursed with impermanence
It cannot be done. It simply cannot be done.

The length of a breadbasket will often determine
the size of the loaf
The ratio of meat to potatoes makes nonsensical lemonade
The worst kind...worse than the worst

This document is not intended for distribution
during the lifetime of the author
Only with his passing disseminate expecting sympathy for
the old poet's story, how rarely it truly changes

The ingredients for the above mentioned nonsense
have been properly proportortioned and mixed per instruction
Take a wiff, you can smell the sweet aroma of their baking vapor
As a child I ate spoonfuls of baking powder

The aroma certainly saturates the proceedings
Almost intoxicating how it smacks your heart with nostalgia
The stupid cartoons, the National Lampoon stolen from the convenience store you hung out in
Out in, Out in, Out in, Out in, Out in, Out in, Out in, Out in, Out in

That, my friend, is the beginning from the end
That, my foe, is the bleedin' end of the road
I'm in Ian Curtis' voice, deadening repetion
Day in Day out, Day in Day out, Day in Day out, Day in Day out, Day in Day out

Ding, Ding, the timer in the kitchen chimes it's melancholy ring
The nonsense is at this present moment complete
Ready to serve, ready to eat
and please don't choke on my words, I'm half asleep