on altars of make believe
because I witness suffering
even when I was addicted to self imposing
pain
I felt
the total craziness of religion:
179 die and one gets a miracle and survives.
Like the other 179 were ****.
I used to be addicted to me
and then one day how much higher I got
lifting or helping another.
It was no saviour or religion that brought me striving
out from the dungeon I was in.
It was the seed of empathy I had hidden.

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

My glances surreptitious
and from a distance

with a certain amount of concern
and now i've learned
that i am not the strongest person

i know and my life is so,
so small in comparison.


r ~ 12/17/14

In the bin I buttered her up
I thought funny for I find loony
insane but never duck  her incoming flight
nor pluck any downy plumage stuck
I elongate my neck
even when temporarily flightless
with grog of fish
my wide beak grins
holding slippery food items
but, geese are rather appealing,
I squack,
so out again,
of it,
I extend my breast proud..

I was walking home past the Rose Hill Cemetery right
around the corner from my tepee here at 111 North Street,
when I heard a sweet voice call me, breathy and my *** immediately took notice, when she said my name like she knew me intimately.
She said, "I am Mother Mary, and I have come to relay to you your
destiny." I froze-recalling all those psychedelics I used back in the 70's.
She continued, " Your need is great, and Jesus awaits, and all of heaven will
welcome you as the newest angel."
I swigged again from my Olde English 800, and thought, well,
and turned around quick, and saw three broke *******, I laughed.
They, smiled sweet, and begged one cigarette. I gave each two,
and all of my religion!

Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves

Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then I was seeing
A melding of shapes in a hot rain:
Horses warped on the altering green,

Outlandish as double-****** camels or unicorns,
Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,
Beasts of oasis, a better time.
Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:
Red cinder around which I myself,
Horses, planets and spires revolve.

Neither tears nor the easing flush
Of eyebaths can unseat the speck:
It sticks, and it has stuck a week.
I wear the present itch for flesh,
Blind to what will be and what was.
I dream that I am Oedipus.

What I want back is what I was
Before the bed, before the knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.