I walk and the world stares
With cracked glass eyes, the thick green antique kind,
Or was it only yesterday
When my lips touched the chilled oceans
And with each foray into the depths
The emerald vessel, catching the light, splayed out across the walls
A projector of sorts
And with squinted gaze I watched as only the shadows dance
Characters in the same old movie playing out a scene from a day gone and forgotten
And under the magnified burn
How easy to sneak off
To wilt from from the heat, curl up
Await whatever tomorrow is selected
The broken jukebox with only one song to play
"And a rock feels no pain/ And an island never cries"

As weeks slip by
And moments fade from memory
When the final scent of another day
Is tossed away in the breeze
And nothing remembered remains in the conscious
But a shadow in the night sky
What is lost?
As the grains within the hourglass slink along
So many white, flakes of snow
The shade of a lifetime
Lasting for a season
And scattered within a blue, a black, a green grain
Intermixed.
Staining the bland with the pains and joys
A molding of a self, visualized amidst the banal stones,
That salt away the minutes and hours and years
Between the few worthy of mention.    
And when the lost and wasted time drips away
Does the filler of life amount to anything more
Than a tree falling in a lonely forest?

What do you think of me now
"dear old friend"
Once you said all that is will pass
and what's left was never worth having
Do you think you were right?

I felt a twinge of sadness when I heard of your passing
And maybe it's true we are all shadows of what we could be
But did it matter when they came for you
The men with the big, strong hands
hardened by the labor we never had to do
Will they look down on you and I for mocking their achievements
As we sat drinking five dollar coffee getting fat on success
With fancy cars and house poisoned with possessions
The comforts of life: self expression in the highest order

Tell me my friend
In the end did it all stop
Time frozen in the instant between here and gone
are we all a puff of smoke off the **** of a smoldering cigarette
Flourishing only to be choked out by the fresh breeze

But Then again, if I knew would it make any difference?

Somewhere above me
Drifting through the thin ceiling
Of an anywhere apartment
a wailing sound
Calls through the open window
out into the night.
A saxophone mayhap
from a poorly recorded jazz medley,
it has not aged well stolen away in some humid attic
But captured and alive again, nonetheless.
And no doubt years have passed
since each musician drank and smoked himself to death
penny-less and fueled by memories;
Did they realize
Something of them remains
on a scratchy piece of plastic?
And as ghosts they play on through the wind
carrying me into the back row
of a smoke-laden speak easy
The instruments floating on a stage dimly lit
Phantom fingers and lungs propelling the melody
playing on, for the ten thousandth time
Exactly as the first.

Under the glaring neon lights
That flicker and buzz almost inaudible over the background noise of distance and conversation
A guest in the home for the introvert
For an hour or two or six
And company enough within the adorned fragile vessels for even the most lonely
Comfort in idle gazes and nods of affirmation
Another escapist from responsibility


I wash my hands in the stale air and condensation
That paints the scratched glass with a worn face
Shadows and dreams swimming deep within the drug haze
And drowning smiles affixed to each frozen cube
Swirling and laughing, a joke hidden somewhere
And I sit and drink alone until the world drips away
Onto a faded brown coaster

Floating peacefully in the wind
My exhaled breath the music to your ballet
Dancing to the movement of the invisible sounds,
Are you so abandoned that even the eye cannot see your beauty?
The shapes morphing, triangle to square to the ever jumbled system
Blissfully floating along as I wish I could be
Though hidden in the darkest corners
What peace your dance brings to the troubled mind;
The silver threads---beams of light that penetrate the ocean’s murky depths
Struggling to press downward until swallowed up by the hungry mouth of
silence: darkness a pain to the ear.

My cobweb, my friend, dance on in the wind
For as I watch every movement is a new creation,
If only I could emulate your magic,
Matching footsteps to the swaying
Lingering for just a moment; weightless,
Until again a new motion arises from the stillness
And I as well must follow in step.
Were peace of mind just a breeze away
And troubles present for but a fleeting instant
Then too could I be the forgotten cobweb
Free to dance to the clandestine tune,
Swinging gently, ever floating: a first leaf of the fall.
But I remain as just a watcher
Seeing a view into a secret not meant to surface,
And placid images unite with the silent zephyr
That I exhale
With every sigh.

If I whisper into the east wind
Will it find it's way to your ears
Is there enough quiet in the night
To hear my whisper

If the sun and moon appear as one
And night and day mingle and laugh together
Would the stars fall to earth to be seen
To know the company of men again

If the music fades into a clamour
With silence and uproar walking abreast
Can a thought and a dream still survive
In chaos can there still be order