this road shines
as broken windows scream our names under semi-atomic streetlights

caught one last time giving bad directions to beat-up cars
                                                  driving down beat-up sidewalks

& as pedestrians, like spider webs get caught in
                            the crossfire of the ages,

only an echo remains
of a former time complaining
of a better daze left waiting
in a room without a viewing
pleasure mixed with painless
complexities restraining

                        a madness that is now gone..

I am the reckless voice of a thousand nights spent driving down
highways too close for comfort when hometown familiarity
was everything I was trying to escape
                                             only to end up face to face w/ cold
                                             concrete Bank Street(s) where reality was shovelled
                                             in my lungs, where fatality was imprinted on my veins
                                             & where circumstance became a real reason for
those overpasses where I constantly searched for a friend..

you see, the strangers I’ve met have melted into my memory
& given me such capillary strength that the whole world seems like
it’s right in my own backyard too often, & it’s never too late to
                                                extend an energy to save another’s skin..

warmth now pours from their eyes & I realize that it only takes a second
to change a life, a striving moment can be stretched out to last a lifeTIME!

so we survive in these streets of small towns or big cities
& we strive not to repeat what’s been taught to us by silver & living room screens:

I am the reckless voice of a thousand days spent walking on & along sidewalks
                                                                                            on dirt roads
                                                                                            on early morning wet grass
                                                                                            on those highways heading home

a peace is coming soon
& it won’t be showcased at a theatre
   near you, it won’t feature
   wars on stages, screens
or on your TV in the corner of your living
room on the Action News

& it won’t ask you to wake up at
     7 a.m. or beg you to watch
the world burn to watch
the world dig to watch
the world scream
& it won’t ask you to
wish to sleep in comfort
  in silence
  in homes surrounded by fences

this peace will be mending
never-ending seams & it’ll never
leave the wounded to
    brood in ditches built for
their dream
this piece of peace for me will be

     found where sapphire met up
     w/ the shore & where my
     grandma’s voice echoes..

a maddening, vagrant city of composure
                                                     & closure
                                                     & always somewhere to go

to learn
to live
to love
but there are so many megalomaniac incidents of
warm summer daze here

can you whisper through the walls
       of winding roads where
       stars still shine & epic drives down
deserted familiarity still reminds
                                        me of what it's like
                                        to be so much younger..
the peace is just around the corner,
the war is just in our heads..

guns vs. bombs,
they both throw away reality
almost like Friday morning garbage day -
they both ignite capillary, distant/instant
                                                                    reactions

& it's all just tragedies..
& it's all just statistics..

my memory is a stretched piece of
                  spontaneous come bust in: because
                  real eyes realize that acid
rainbows are falling & blending bullets to
               spinning skin, are finding that one key
               left to lose, are finding that one door
               left to open..

"meet me in outer space.."

where a million is a thousand is a moment in a day..

("..& I need you to see this place..")

city lights & I'm
coming home, this
"who you know, now what you know" echoing
                                                 needs escaping..

in alleys/on rooftops, visions
             of reality: what real
                 reality is now a
fierce fight for what I know
       is good & beyond the afternoon,
       things really aren't that
       bad are they?

or are we just making
it seem like they are?

            always shining:
                                   overpasses, freeways,
                                   suburbs & subways -

city lights,
               in my veins like a virus,
               in my head, like a dream..