I built myself up then I fell right off,
And I did with the characteristic passion of a Karamazov.

I don’t know where I get these ideas, but they fill up the room.
They must be born of a mutilated peasant womb.

They stampede and conquer my days.  At night they melt down my walls.
I don’t dare to leave, because I know they’re apt to ambush the halls.

They  may come quiet, but they build to thunder.
They spike their wagon wheels and throw me right under.

There I lay trapped and beaten.  A born winner, dead and defeated.
I never stood a chance against the poisonous egg and *****.

The things I want to want I never do desire.
I burn to be the light, but only ever play with fire

This time I flew  too close.  A moth-brain in my head,
I simply took a nap, and that killed my father dead.

Am I guilty if I wanted him to die?
Am I guilty if I sleep well tonight?
Am I guilty for an averted eye?
Am I guilty though I never told a lie?

Am I guilty if I didn’t pull the trigger?
What God could ever die for this sinner?

There is something before the words,
Before the light of labels
Descends from the sun of thought
To name her yawn:
Cute,
Precious,
Important.

There is some knowing
Prior to calling it a “yawn”.
Say the word “yawn” repeatedly
And it will lose all meaning
And fall down a technicolor faucet
Towards ridiculousness.

So what is this fracture in time?
This single extra slide
Spliced in before the movie begins,
Displaying more meaning
Than the entire film that follows.

Perhaps it is instinct.
We are (grateful) slaves to the genomes
Of our ancestors.
Do the graceful notes Jerry hands to me
Dance through the synapses of my mind,
To remind me that community means safety?
And success in our endeavors once meant:
Food
****
Sleep
Repeat

Or is it emotion?
Testosterone rising up to battle butterflies in my gut
Because the romantic in me knows
This one
Is worth the wait
This one
Is worth the risk

Is it God?
Fighting with all her might
To tear into our consciousness,
But turned away
At the inhale
That precedes the sweetest of songs.
Sorry God –
Life is short
No time to think about it.

And here is the kicker.

It’s none of these things.
How could it be?
How can words describe
That which comes before words?

It isn’t anything
It just is.

With dirt-caked cheeks (on fire),
With ****** knuckles (both dry and flowing),
With a sweat-boiled brow,
With Christmas morning anticipation,
You will your tired, desiring eyes
Above the jagged, pinnacle stone.

You pinch your eyelids.
Breathe.
And open them
To be cast upon the vista
You have toiled towards for all those sleepless years.
Only,
It is not.

It is nothing.

Blackness, emptiness, silence.
Devoid.
The void.

And it just knocks the living hell out of you.
Your breath leaves you
(hand in hand with your sense of comfort).
Your stomach turns to starving snakes.

Avert your eyes!
But the image remains the same;
North, South, East, West.
The darkness has lain down upon the entirety of the compass.

So you turn round,
Look back for the familiar mountain path,
But it is gone.
Where there was once struggle and life,
There is now only empty atmosphere.
So you turn inwards,
Close your eyes,
And see only
The endless absence of light.

The Siren song
   Sung by the Sea
   Sounded so much
   Sweeter
Before the boy
Was born.

Truth be told,
   I was born that day as well.
   We shared our first breaths.
   Delicate and enduring atmosphere.
   Sweetest, most overlooked element:
   OXYGEN
   Awoken our lungs
   And spread life out
   Through our
   Fingers,
   Toes,
   Tears.
      (His were louder,
    Mine were longer)
We shared more than
rarefied air that day;
Excitement.
Confusion.
Love.
Fear.

Before I knew it
My Scorched sailor’s skin
      Sought sanctuary
In
   Landlocked love.

You see
   The inconvenient, unfortunate, and unavoidable
   Fact of humans is,
   They like to eat.
      And warmth is also nice.
   Diapers.
   And Kathy next door just got this great icebox and she says she doesn't know how she lived    
   without it and that in the long run it will actually save her money, what with buying in bulk and not
   going to the store so often and leftovers.
   So there’s that too.

So I work
   Willingly, willfully
   With wetness
   On Back,
   But not behind ears.

And my captain is a good captain,
   A true captain.
   Our pay is always waiting when and where promised.
   Pennies are not pinched when providing rations.
   He gave me this job out of the goodness of neighborhood.
But he has no child.
   No wife.
   Little reason to head to port,
   And less to linger long.

I see my boy’s chestnut eyes in my dreams
   And they act like the cruelest potion,
   Which, when sipped
   Leaves the drinker with only more thirst.

But there are dollars here,
And, what other skills do I have?
And, bellies are full.
I try not to complain.

Tonight,
I want the fireplace,
   Roaring.
Our boy smiling, laughing
   His cheeks having played chameleon
   With the scarlet of our flag.
His mother;
   Her eyes,
   Outshining her hair,
   Outshining the sun,
   Scroll between our boy and the page,
   As she reads his favorite book of tales.
   He doesn't understand a word,
   But I do.
   We share an unnumbered smile.
   He likes the pictures.

My mouth has tasted of salt for
   64
   Long
   Days.

The ocean gives,
And the ocean takes away.

My virginal shoulders could only support so much thought,
Before they succumbed to that virulent, green Iblis.
Sons will be what they are, and what they are taught:
A morality drawn to the image of Darwinian fitness.

Casted in His image, but then caught in the net,
Stretching chained hands towards freedom, just to see it sublimate.
Never a seat at the table, but always a back for the Debt.
And to be born of this blood is enough to incriminate.

Shoulder blades tremble, just at the sight,
Of the burden born from that first gasp.
Left with no map, friend, or eyes in the dead of the night,
But have no worries, He loves the first to the last.

*******!  My knees have collapsed and split,
You sit unattached, removed, indifferent on my chest,
But it was you!  You are the one who started all of it.
And when names were called, and the cards were down, you just up and left.

The height of her heels
    Shrunk with every passing year.
Each "December", torn away from the calender
   Was a buzz saw, sometimes taking a sixteenth of an inch,
   And during winters that seemed particularly cold to her bones
   Nearly a quarter of an inch would be devoured by time's steady march.

At 18 her heels were confident, tall, strong,
   Proud pillars supporting the pantheon,
   Complete with Houdini-zippers and unnecessary birthstone buttons.
The Uncomfortable beds
   Of the comfort class.

At 26 her friends whispered,
   With martini breath,
   That they could swear that she had shrunk.
One suggested that she had simply adopted a new hairstyle.
After all, who has time to daily consort with the curling iron
   And still make the 6:47?
Good friends make for the worst critics.

At 41, on certain nights,
   Like when the Jove's had their annual tree-trimming party,
   Believable sources say she could still be be seen
   With 1/4 inch tree-trunks beneath her feet.
There were no buttons or zippers any longer,
   To announce her presence as made her across linoleum deserts
   Towards the desserts.
Her footprint was further softened
   By the Doctor-demanded cushion,
   Which eased the weathering toll of
   Each.
   Next.
   Step.
Everyone at the part paid words to her image:
   "Such soft skin."
   "Eyes that look truer blue after each blink."
   "Pilates or Yoga?  I have to know you secret."
But none of the husband saw her on their eyelids
    As they masturbated in the shower that night.

At 70 her wrinkled dignified carriers
   Were most at home in slippers.
She rarely removed them,
   'Cept when she let her toes soak like veteran driftwood
   In a well deserved baby warm tub.
For some reason the "News" insisted on covering award ceremonies
   And she would always feel a sharp
   Pain ping-pong between her heel and toenails
   As she watched the young actresses climb each step towards the podium.
She would still go out, now and then,
   But nobody noted the style or color that her feet were wrapped in.
   Why would they?
For the record:
   Plain, black, flats.
   Appropriately

She died at 82
   And although the casket was closed,
   It can be taken on good authority
   That this regal eagle of a woman
   Was buried barefoot.

I like to think that she is flexing her feet
   Somewhere eternal,
   Just to see how the sand feels
   Between her toes

The snow in my backyard mildly thunders below my feet
Making a statement of solidarity with her fallen brethren, the autumn leaf.
I make the choice to hear her untimed song, rather than the complaining chorus of popsicle fingers.
Our ball of rain’s most miraculous makeup, hiding the blemishes of men and gods,
In my backyard, on a snowed-in, slow and lovely Tuesday afternoon,
the snow paints the moment perfect, and freezes it for just a flashing moment.
But perfection is too hot, even with mother nature’s Achilles-strength oven mitts adorned.
The moment melts.

The deer have been here, perhaps an hour or two prior
Based on the gentle, temporary fingerprint of existence they left behind.
They are perfect today, and I like to think them well-fed and basking in the holiday spirit.

The coffee is likely ready by now,
And the driveway is not going to shovel itself.
I’ll walk out my front door
And the snow will be stained with 21st century existence.
There is no known cure
And it is terminal to dreams,
But at least for these few frozen frames
I can pretend that the whole world
Is like the snow in my backyard.