I've spent decades chasing
a dream I woke from too early
and couldn't get back to.
Not a pleasant dream, perhaps,
but important. Significant.
Something about scattered light
and the damp smell of tunnels
run under old rivers
and the distant sound of
city traffic...
Gone now. Gone for so
long even the memory of
the memory is fading.
I don't know how to catch
a dream, how to hold it
in your hand or force it to be.
Maybe there are others to whom
we can turn for help
but careful, little love,
of looking inside other people
for answers you don't have.
They cannot make you whole
that you'll have to figure out
on your own
but in the arms of comfort
you may still feel a lot
less alone.
Wasted time in hunting
for meaning instead of
for sport has derailed
my ambitions and left me
bitter and empty of purpose.
You cannot find your reason
in what people want from you
not even what you think you want, too.
You'll find it in knowing
why you want what you do
and there is purpose in need
if you can identify it.
There might not even
be any real completion,
I don't know just yet
but happy may be a ring
within our reach it we've
the courage to make that bet.
I hope your dreams are pleasant
and give very little chase.
I hope you find love and laughter
in every welcoming face.
I love you, Little love,
I just haven't worked out
the rules to this infernal race.

You wrote your name
in cursive
across the surface
of my still beating heart
Left me blinking.
Waiting to wake up.
Waiting for the real world to start.
So leave me here
under the sign that says
adopt a road
as I struggle to stand
under an increasingly heavy load.
I smell so strongly of gasoline
it itches inside my lungs.
You spend your sundays
on your knees
speaking in tongues.
Do you remember when
yesterday used to be full of forever?
Do you remember living
days and days of mild weather?
And if we struggle
can we still get better?
If she needs to let go
do you let her?
Then can we give each other
a little grace for the things
we didn't do?
Is there any room left
for hope inside of me for you?
And can we channel these feelings?
Like one would an angry ghost
or are we forever doomed to lose
what we need the most
I believe there are things
that are never found
and always sought
like a big word that
derails a train of thought
And in all these lies, maybe there's still a little truth to be told
god knows I'll love you forever
until the stars go cold.

I don't know how
to be good on purpose
and so I stumble through
the days trying my best
to touch better and
falling into the divots
left where once the
ladders stood and knowing
that even if they hadn't
all been pulled up
like long ago bootstraps
I would've just hung
limp and grown cold
from the rungs miles
from the summit and
out of sight of the tarnished
golden ring.
I swung back and forth
an imitation of a pendulum
in my convictions about
truth and god and myself
and even about you
because I am built
with indecision and
bitter to the taste
you'll walk this earth
trying to spit me out
and find relief in
any other's embrace.
I'm working on myself
like the old car in
every sitcom garage
but the musical montage
won't start and the
waiting is ******* killing me.
Excuse my language
but love wasn't taught
in class for me.
I missed the part that
mattered and floated
out to sea on an ocean
of regret with a sinking
raft named
Who I'm meant to be.
I don't know how
to be good on purpose
and I'm probably not
going to learn how today
but if I keep trying to
be a little better
you may see me find a way.

You brush your teeth
in underwear nonplussed
by my stare, tomorrow's
plans casually discussed.
I boggle at the privilege
at the simple dust to dust,
the life spent instead of
alone as a part of us.
Let the curtains close
on one more day spent
in tiny kisses on the head
and whispered little
promises made in
giggled sincerity in bed.
Tomorrow is still coming
and the light is on the way
bringing ever after with
it and leaving yesterday.
The gray in our hair
consumes the color it was
and the fuzzy words spoken
don't reverb but now buzz
and the sand in our joints
makes movement into complaint
and these old walls could
use a fresher coat of paint.
And maybe the potential
we once looked at in the distance
is behind us in our path
and maybe it's cold insistence
that leaves us where we're at.
But I still believe in every
muttered little word
of the promises that I made
and the vows that you heard.
I see you young in the sunlight
like the teenagers that we were
because I love you like a religion
and my heart begins to stir
I used to wish for fortune, to be
discovered a diamond in the rough
but right now could be forever
and this would be enough.

Big beautiful blue eyes
and soft squeaks wrapped
in hospital blankets
and unplugged from machines
find a world of promise
and undreamed dreams
surrounded by heartache
and very recent death
your cry doesn't pierce the
still air bit it signals just
the same as laughter in
and empty house.
You sleep in comfort
and warmth and I love
you like crazy or at
least as much as
I hate myself.
I hope you run and play
and recall me in brightly
colored shades and I'm
sorry if I seem broken
on your arrival,
My little love,
but loss has it's tenterhooks
pulling me taut against
the ongoing anguish
that my life had
long ago become.
And I know, of course
I know,
that you will light in me
a fire that can one
day burn the pain
into distant echoes
and I will never be
able to thank you for
pulling me out of darkness
and I hope you can
forgive finding
me there so often.
I am trying, every second
of every day
with glue and with tape
to put myself together
into a more acceptable shape.

We've all sweat through
everything we own
and the grief blends into
late summer humidity
like a poison miasma descending
on us with cutting talons
sharpened by the wonderful
memories of our better times.
And behold this new hole
inside of me that somehow
adds weight to my burden.
I cannot fill it with oceans
of shed tears or cover it
with misplaced stoicism
because when the room is dark
and the people on whom
I should lean have left to
tend their own bleeding wounds
I stare into the distance
and boil regrets to chew on
in bitter silence for the
things I didn't do or say
and the meal isn't filling
and the liquid is unpleasant
and **** this stupid pain
and the tears always waiting
to break and *******
for leaving and **** me
for all my miserable
failures and these stupid
******* dreams unfulfilled
and my dumb ******* human
need to feel and to heal.
And forget all I've just said
because you were good
and wise and whole against
a once blue sky
and I don't know what
I'm meant to say
I wanted to say something
profound and beautiful
and blisteringly true
reaching toward meaningful
with fingers stretched out
almost able to touch
but all I've got is:
I love you and I'm going
to miss you so much.

Helicopter searchlights
probe the area around
our home as the haunting
final refrain from long ago
plucked guitar strings
fill my brain, the kid sleeps
in summer heat so strong
the a/c fails to fight it
the baby next to you
and the window unit
as grandpa slowly dies
in the finished basement
and life goes on in every
lit window with variations
of the same song
played in blue or as a dirge
or a 4 chord pop tune
or stilted verse and endless
repeated bridge.
Mumbled or strummed.
Power chords or hummed.
Played different as snowflakes
but played all the same.
I thought it would be
blue collar poetry
with gearhead love stories
or porch swing sincerity
in cable knit sweaters
or even fire escape nights
with the radio on low
but this ain't so bad.
I don't know.
I knew life for it's
difficulties, spoke hardship
like a native tongue
and expected to get covered
in dark earth right about
where I'd begun
but the joke, says John
the joke.
So I trudged all those
miles in beat up old shoes
and wrote punk rock
love songs but had in
my secret heart the blues
because love always seemed
bitter and days always long
and hearts seemed closed
and everyone was gone
should it have ended exactly
like I thought, I'd have been
ready for overstayed heartache
grim poems left in typewriters
cigarettes left burning in old
brown glass ashtrays
once white now yellow walls
The sad old static inside
us one and all.
Like tin foil on braces or
the derelict old mall.
Decay by commission
a corpse by design
ending in omissions
and claims that I'm fine.
But the joke, says John
the joke.
Youth is ending, the sun
circles the western bowl
and hopes are different
when dreams don't come true
and nothing is the same
in the absence of you.
My hair isn't thinning
though my teeth are now long
and I'm so far from the beginning
I've forgotten the original
shape of the song.