Why
do we call the blues
blue?  I'm playing on
your blues guitar,
wondering how you are.
Blues, blues.

My mind walks the streets
of saxaphone,
experience,
cigarette smoke--
like Radiohead says,
I don't care if it hurts,
I want a perfect soul.

Blues, blues.
The Yapese call blue
'ran mak'ef'
the water of the reef,
the blue within the blue,
beyond the blue--more blues

than these eyes have ever seen,
than this mind has ever known.
We only call the blues blue
because there is often something
so beautiful
in sadness.

its cold out
the color of slush and mud
and blinding cloudy skies.
there's the dumpster
from years ago
behind the high school where
the *** heads come out to play.
but none of that matters now, i have somewhere to be.
the casting call
it's today
and i have a shot at landing a part
so people
can finally know my name.
but then you're there
unexpectedly
and i bring you along in my search.

and then because my subconscious is big on plot twists
i take you urgently and
kiss you hard.

and i can't tell if i like it or not
and i wake up
terrified.

***** hands, gun-powder face
Pressed against holy robes,
Begging final forgiveness.

The father holds his son,
The grown boy
Clothed in military brown.

Steady, mourning lips whisper a prayer
Into the ******, sweat-soaked hair.

His life leaking away in the darkness of the stain spreading across his chest,
The soldier sobs.
Because his eyes have been dry
As his brothers have fallen around
And before him
As cities have erupted in boiling flames
As he has been torn from the inside out by the sounds of human suffering
As children have died in his arms
As mothers have cursed his name
As the world has grown black and charred beneath his feet.

He weeps,
Shaking in the arms of God's servant,
The sins of his work
The guilt of his rifle
Burning in his chest
Hotter than the biting bullet.

The words of the priest
Are drowned
By the malicious hum of aircraft overhead.

An angel of death
Finds them kneeling on the cobblestones,
The holy man and the soldier,
Folds them into its inescapable and
Unbiased jaws
And turns them the color of
Fire and gunpowder.

Oh, the horror.
When the teardrops falling
On your shirt
Stain you the color of dying roses
And the pale eyelids
Flutter suddenly shut,
The cheek in your chest and
Weak arms
Begging impossible safety
From your helpless hands.

And the scream ripping out of you
Is as warm
And as hollow
As the body
Resting quiet and heavy
In your shaking arms.

Feet cracking, bruised concrete making skin peel
Walking on the aching pads of reason
Finding home
Away from thought
No mind, he would call it
Acting without acting
Till the murmur of my disillusionments fade
To nothing

Quiet in the echoing void of my mind
******* away intended function
Allowing bones to cave in on themselves and muscles to stove up
Like dried dates in the summer heat

The night was long
Stretching its fingers out, pulling the hands inplace
So as an hour felt like an eternity
Each breath even longer still
I was exhausted
Walking on fumes
Blown over by a hard wind

But the end was in sight
The welcome red, bolted 1823
Where you rested, with soft bed
And warmth
Waiting to sooth the burn of my body
Final ease
Embraced in comfort only you could bring.

saw his mother
while they buried him. her hair
--with sorrow as flint--
smoked and caught fire. the world began to
cave in up and around the swollen fist of regret that punched
through my stomach --the fire spread--
speared my gut with blame.
all the while
a cacophony
of strings and trumpets
cried parting and
a soul flew
on golden banners
towards heaven
those stone white graffitied gates.
--the fire grew too much to handle--
in agony I flailed and screamed.
rolled down tall mountains clawing at bone and dirt
and flesh. gilded chariots breaking free. shepherding the beautiful
from the leperous, riddled atrophy that controls the living.
the dying and the burning. how everything burns
dies. fire smoke guilt regret. oh sweet death.
death in the summertime. death in the
morning, the evening, death of
everything. always.

eyes open
--a crisp, cluttered autumn hillside--
fall back upon his mother
reality stricken and grave.
blink twice. refocus.
a tear falls from her face
followed by
one from
mine.

the fire is out.

His teeth are crooked, bent and brown
   he grins with mirth, eyes pointing down
   his hollow head contains a thought
   friendly, yes but pleasant, not.

His whims, in fact, are quite alarming
   for what's on his mind is harming.

He wants to steal and take what's mine!

Alas! Why must Death be charming?