Hollow, haunted, hurting eyes staring at
the ceiling.
Cold, hard, white tile floor a pillow
for my head.
Last gasping, grasping tendrils of reason
slipping from my brain.
Oh the bite of bitter steel; sweet and
welcome pain.
An outstretched palm, ungrasping fingers,
nerve and tendon showing.
A smile of peace, a sob of despair;
blood is thickly flowing.
I close my eyes and now I see that this
is childhoods end; Wasted lives, broken
people and shattered dreams that never mend.

Not your name
Not your nationality
Below all the fame
Below the unreality
Deep down
Who are you?

Forget your license
Forget your authorization
Forget your conveyance
Forget every legal documentation
Now tell me
Who are you?

Deep down in the dark room of your empty soul
Deep down below your average conscience
There are only the things you put there yourself  
All your unused options
And the unanswered questions
like 'Who are you?'


Deep down below
There are only feelings
All your feelings
That you chose to confine
But it really doesn't matter who you are deep down
Because nobody carries around a shovel all the time.

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.

And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world's tears,
And all the trouble of her laboring ships,
And all the trouble of her myriad years.

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.

against the wall, the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn't have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the ******,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.

She swept down from the heavens
To find me
Then eyed me
Lashes long and eyes longing
She kissed like a Goddess
If Goddesses have
Long purple tongues
And swept me off of my feet
I almost fell for her then
But I could tell
It wasn't her
First time
And she had
Other men