to think
that to think is not
what it is to feel.
and to think
that the thought is not
what it is
when it is,
but an afterthought
of the feel felt.
and if the thought of that feel
is not at all real,
then what is that feel?

help

we laugh
     but it's not funny.
we laugh
     because we don't know
          what else to do.
the tears run
     into my eyes
and your blurred outline
     pulses and dims.
i laugh
     once i cant see
          you at all anymore.
you laugh
     because it's done
          and over.
we laugh
     but it's not funny.
we laugh
     because the feel is gone.

It all started out innocently enough,
Shooting the breeze,
Smoking the stuff.
"Let's get outta here."
"Yeah! Lets take the *******."
"Where we going?"
Don't know.
"How long we gonna be?"
Don't care.
Wherever we go
I guess we'll be there.
So we rolled up the joints,
Rolled the windows down,
Lit that **** up
And got the **** outta town.

I am perfect
in those moments
which wont amount
to anything at all.

When no one
is watching,
Where no one
can hear,
I’ll compose
wonderful wisps
you will never
be near.

I am perfect
in those moments
that always
disappear.

When you ask me that question.
When your eyes plead
for me to say something.
When you want a little lie
or concession,
just a little splash of cool water
to squelch the flame.

I stare back.
Empty. Black.

I can't lie.
Despite the hurt,
this controlled burn
of low ground foliage
and scrub trees,
will, eventually,
make way for the life
strong enough to last.

I wont let that volatile fuel
build up
until it chokes out
those beautiful sentinels
just beginning to grow.
And even the smallest spark
unleashes a fire
that wont stop
until every branch and beast
crumbles ashy into the breeze.

Dead.

I take a deep breath.

I got nothing to say.
I'm just gonna fiddle my fingers,
watch you squirm
and let you figure it out
as it quietly burns.

*A little bit of pain never hurt anybody,
if you know what I mean.

The box of fire-starters I had found in the back closet
seemed very simple in their use.
Simply turn the curved side down
and apply a flame.

We really wanted a fire.
Not only were we in need of that comforting presence,
but the spectacular show of  trees and mountains
had disappeared with the sun
and the images of windy lake ripples, although profound,
seemed already years in the past.
We had the night to look forward to,
and our enthusiasm for the stars
would be exercised by our frequent excursions
to **** down some cigarettes out in the parking lot.
So it was decided,
this fire would be our inside entertainment for the evening.

The little black bic seemed a bit inadequate,
but the situation was soon remedied
by the discovery of a larger and quite adequate butane torch.
Now we are in business.
Despite the new firepower
only a small flame caught.

After spending a winter without heat,
in a home that hemorrhaged warmth,
I had become proficient in starting fires
with wet logs and numb fingers,
leaving me with a tendency to add too much fuel.

The little flame was adorable.
it wobbled back and forth on the flat side of the fire starter,
reaching up towards yesterday’s paper
and the cardboard case of Coors from last night.
I felt like a proud parent when it’s wispy tendrils
finally got a hold of the remnants of the pasts dubious reminders.

I’d spent my youth in that one room cabin.
Weekends I would roam the mountains
and dig deep holes in the snow to hide in.
Unfortunately, due to a small oversight,
I had never properly learned quite the trick
for opening up the flue.
I assumed, quite wrongly, that the wee bit of airflow from the fireplace
insinuated proper ventilation for the impending combustion.

A fire alarm
is one of the most panic inducing sounds.
We tried desperately to knock the flue open
praying that the growing fire would have room to escape
and save us from the dismal fate
of burning down my families favorite weekend getaway.

Mere moments after admiring the fragile
and fleeting existence of my little flame that could,
I drenched a towel in the sink
and smothered it out
before any more damage could be done
(which really only consisted of wet ash).

We spent the rest of the night smoking cigarettes,
getting high in the floodlights
and twitching with the panic induced paranoia
the aborted fire left in our chests.

And later, once I had gone back to the real world,
I learned that the flue lever had to move,
not left and right,
but up and down to open and close.

Yeah,
I play guitar.
I just sit there and pluck one string.
Who says a magician can't be an artist?

This life, although startling in its brilliance,
remains confined to the electrical shadows
cast on the walls of our brains.

Do you ever feel…
no, no, no
not feel.
Well maybe feel...
or sense…
that everlasting something

sometimes off in the distance I can see…

I’d love to take my hands
and, like the meaty instruments they are, dance
sweet symphonies up and down
your body.
Your mysterious mountains I wish to see closer
to land my ***** machine
among majestic silver seas and
strange beautiful grass of green.

I would use my subtle touch to say
what I couldn’t any other way and
drag you down to the depths.

But things are not so simple
in life
as in our thoughts,
nor so rough
as our poor idiotic language.

Every hand, give me your hand.
I’ll talk to you, you wont understand.

These electrical shadows cry at the ultimate,
but our mere conception shames it.
Like the dream tigers we desperately try to craft
they continue to disintegrate
like the castles made of sands,
rocks piled on rocks
reaching for the stars.

The firmer the hold,
the quicker it slips away.
“Just try squeezing the truth from water,”
the angels sing to me in my sleep.

And it’s the love of dreams
which is so greedy for recognition
swiftly performed in the sight of all.

And it’s the waves I feel…
well maybe not feel.
And I wanna say “*******”
because I still love you.

I sense…
well maybe not sense…
And I feel
my soul being slit up as if by a razor.
frenzied but beautiful and
an awful ambiguity grinning over it all,
cackling out the Tao’s opening words,
lukewarm to the point of being
enigmatic,

“The truth that can be told, that is no eternal truth.”

I guess after the laughter, then comes the tears.

*******, Lao Tzu
and your ****** ancient wisdom.

Why you staring at my finger when I’m pointing at the moon?
I got nothing at all.
The center, unapproachable
forever.

You’re willing to die you coward
but not to live.

*Love life more than the meaning of it.

When life comes to a point of light
trapped between the folds of dreams,
something needs to be done
in order for me to let go
and keep moving on.

When the light filters through the branches,
through my window shades
and through my sleepy eyes,
it hums me a tune of lost planets
and their eleven moons
playing amongst the rings.

The sweet nectar melody calls
and I start to walk.

I walk away slow into the languid ooze
humming and stepping the song
I will never remember
even if I choose to.

I walk slow,
as if I come from so far away
I never expect to arrive.
And that’s just perfect.

The sky and the street
and the breath of the trees
gently caress and remove the stress
in void waves of undulating bliss.

To free my mind and body
of the barbed spikes
that rob the eternity trapped in each moment,
I got to keep walking,
because if I stop
thoughts of the past
and worries of the future
collapse my ability to see, to hear, to feel
and to breathe.

I walk slow.
I got nowhere to go.
I got a moment stretched to infinity.

And that’s just perfect.

split finger tips
numbly bat
at the bits of memory
scattered in the snow

their touch slowly recedes
deep
to the sunken eyes

these helpless orbs
guide pathetic hands
fumbling with that forgotten feel

they watch as jagged shards
of broken senses
tear at paper skin
to reveal frozen veins
gasping for one spurt
of lovely red life
to ignite in the white

listen,
the final whisper winds
along breathless fissures

my cold love sighs to see
the first few fingers
into ghostly splinters shatter
and
without much fuss
drift back to the snow

go home
the musics
over
take cover
alone
not
forever
get ******
enter drone
run down
the list
of things
forgot
find
the zone
hits
the spot
taste
edge
makes sense
when
music stops
retrace
eyes
find
their stare
inside
the mind
kind
relaxed
void
slows
down
time
the musics
done
quiet
quite silent
echoes
off
skull sides.

When not doing anything
      is ludicrous
despite its obvious appeal.
To hold back from
      the pleasures
and how good they would feel

It’s not like I had a choice,
but my fasting continues.
Giving up for a spell
the **** that greases my mind,
the love that lets me sleep,
the spark that ignites me.
I’ll admit,
it’s probably for the best.
It’s like they say,
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

However,
here I am
awake
when I should be quietly slumbering
tucked comfortably into my head.
Instead I face
what will eventually come,
the theme of my youth
abruptly wrenched from me.

No one wants to be dependent,
but I am addicted,
confined to a cage
of my own construction.
A cage with comfy chairs
and all the confections
I need
to occupy my machine.
I’ll scuttle back there and
this particular fast will end soon enough
but I feel the end creeping up.
Its only day four,
and things are getting pretty weird.

Oh, you'd do well
to show me
how you move
and prove
you are who spewed
that spell
that sent me spiraling down
to this watery hell.

Tentacles drag at my heels
and menace my habitat,
of which contained
only a bit of that bad ****.

Now I'm wallowing in it
up to my neck
and I can't quit
choking on these eels and snakes
crawling outta the holes
in my face.

It makes for quite a spectacle
when a maniacal grin
spreads with slime
and slithers further
into the water.

It dissolves and withers
as it grasps at the miracles
swarming and spiraling
high above me.

It oozes and seeps
until it covers all I see.
The sea is alive with feelers
stretched out to reach
the pinnacle
I had tried once to keep.

Now I'm down here
breathing in the salt water
and the filth,
screaming at the sky
and dreaming of the guilt
I had once
when the sun warmed my face
and all fell under
the one light,
where nobody hates
the liquid they are
making it in.

So, I'll ask you again,
how is it you dragged me down
into this freezing marine oblivion?
And how did you give me
these gills
and these fins
that make life
under these unctuous waves
almost bearable?

I stare
     transfixed
at the table.
I could care
     less
about the weather
and current events

My eyes
    follow
the lines that
     swirl
and they connect
     together

The waves
    curl around
in gentle meanders
that
     invite
me to play
amidst the grain.

Nothing else
     exists,
the world
     melts
          away.

I lay in the sand
face down
to breath in the grit
and grind it into my eyes.
I've spent so much time
staring at the sun
and the breaks,
holding onto the hope
that I'll see someones face.
I can't take it anymore.
I just want the beach
to swallow my head,
to steal my senses
and leave my body numb
and at peace.
I'm so tired of waiting
to get out
of this ******* place.

Moving parts produce heat.
The faster they move,
the more they burn.
They rub and resist.
They oppose and exist
to exert a tangible force
to counterbalance what we think
is simply a one way street.
But if you leap
from the swiftly moving vehicle
the asphalt will reach up
for your skin
and grab it
and burn you to the bone.
It will rub you raw
until there is nothing left,
but a grinning skeleton.

Everything's frozen in sweet repose,
intensity buried beneath the snows.

I freeze the silent scream and
although it longs to be free,
I stow the key deep inside.

I suppose that scream might grow
and rise against the tranquil cold,
if it were not so utterly frozen
below the surface of my soul.

The ice blanket wrapped close
slows the cogs and gears,
replacing the clicks and snaps
with smooth rolls and flows.

All machinery calmed, movement removed.
It is much too cold to complain
with my mind reduced to a gelatinous ooze.

Everything's frozen in sweet repose,
freeze the highs, bury the lows.

hold onto the slow
know it’s good
when it goes
let go
of ethereal edges
and feel the smooth
gentle waves
fold into your soul

He liked it there
in his comfortable corner,
a cozy niche reserved
solely for his pleasure.

Warmer and safer
further from danger,
his room was exempt
from the touch of a stranger.

As time passed, however,
he peered towards the light
and feared the eventual
forced evacuation
out from the inner chamber.

He cried out,
"We must be just to the fruits of lust,
don't muscle us from the nest so fast.
It is so very pleasant here,
and out there,
nothing but the eternal.
Leave me be to weave my small story
before I am forced to worry
about the outside word once and for all.

From his corner he perceived
the ever present push,
until
he turned to face,
what had once been a wall
now slipped into space.

He stared down the void
and it glared mockingly back.
Slowly his eyes filled with that blinding light
and despite the love for his life,
he knew his time had finally arrived.

His mind continued to race,
could this be it?
No it's too soon" he screamed,
"I'm not quite done living this dream!"

I'm here
in the dark
slowly melting away
into the couch

My unblinking gaze
is fixed solidly
on the flashing lights
that explode and dance
just behind the screen.

The glowing images
occupy my mind
so that I may
drift away
back to
you.

There are many "me"s
and I have a feeling
this multitude of "I's
may be a surprise
to those individuals
whose eyes can find
only one thing to be.

If only I could be
one thing as well,
simple and complete,
I wouldn't have to wage this war
to see which me is me.

These "me"s duke it out
over inches of space
not worth ****
in the grand scheme of things.

I guess "I" am here
somewhere in the middle
but all my "me"s
kick up so much dust
I can't see my "I" at all.

And all the while,
my "me"s continue to club
and beat each other
and still they continue to exist
despite their resistance
to come together.

Forever warring and feuding
my "me"s
and my "I"s
see things too differently
to ever believe
they want the same prize.

I who am many
desire to be one,
but if one "me" ends up winning
that means my other "me"s are done.

Calm tendrils meander gently up towards the ceiling.
Smoky wisps turn and fade away into the heavy air.
The haze hangs there quietly, drifting around my room.

Have you ever felt,
no,
dreamt of falling down
a precipice into a pit.
That's how I'm falling,
but its no dream.

And I'm not afraid.
And don't you be afraid.
I guess that I am afraid,
but I enjoy it.
It's not enjoyment though,
but ecstasy.

I light my money on fire.
The higher the flames get
the less need there is
to be seen.

Smoke fills eyes
with warm haze,
carrying away the pains
of being awake.
Beauty lies between
the holes,
but the smoke knows
those special spots to go.

It fills space
with wispy substance,
wafting gently
through and out.

The sun outlines
the last tendrils
as they wiggle
into the final ascent.
Their ashy remnants
collapse in the breeze.

I light my money on fire.
The high is better.

Deep flames of inner ecstasy
     throbbed
and murmured
as I chewed out my own tongue.

A steady beat of gurgling blood
     pulsated in my head,
inciting such glorious vibrations
I reached
     deep in my ears
and ripped the sound away.

Silently laughing voiceless promises,
streams of brilliant crimson
     poured downwards.

The rich trails of red
    filled my eyes
with blinding euphoria and,
unable to cease,
my dripping hands
    pried out
those glittering orbs.

Warm spatters of blood
     escaped through the gaping sockets
soaking skin in waves of delight.

Too much.

Quivering with pleasure I
     threw myself
to the flames.
     Burning nerves splendidly erupt
          into smoke.

At last,
the charred traces of my smoldering flesh
     rose elegantly
to my nose.

At last,
I felt the world disintegrate
    back into black.

As the final senses burned away,
     tears trickled from vacant sockets.

          Oh god,
               this is love.

A retroactive reconstruction of
whats forgotten forms what’s real.
We rob and steal
past transgressions,
but what happens
when the  mechanisms making memories
twist elegantly toward
the ego?

The epitome of inequality.
Frosting is distributed unevenly;
caked gloriously on some,
depressingly absent on others.
Anger and frustration mount
each time a claw raises
uncoated multi-grains to my mouth.
But each time my grasp
manages to find
a sterling white mini-wheat,
I remember why
I put up with all the ****.

But the question beckons,
whether or not
the absence of imperfections
would lessen the resonance
of the frosty treats
to my oral senses.

We spite and ignite love and the life
To see what we forgot to be
Its real the pain we gain
Refrain, refrain from sane, from sane
Burn through to the gaze
To eyes, to the eyes, and cry for what dies

Are these memories real?
Scars
Reveal past injuries
But not pain
or the gore

Are these memories real?
Holes
Get filled in
So new life
Is free to grow

Are these memories real?
No...

But at least they have feel