I'm locked in a death match
with the cynic in me
over whether or not to hope.
It's not been going well
but one of the two of us
will still have to go.
Perhaps if happenstance
was lately just
a little more kind.
Perhaps if light in darkness
was just a little bit
easier to find.
And, y'know, yes.
For sure, there is
more I could try.
But the truth is so
much smaller than
even any one lie.
At night, from the
other room I can
still hear you cry.
Though miles and ages
seperate me and you
from him and those dark times.
It has been a rough road
and barefoot we've
walked every inch.
We've been beggers and
heroes and labor and chore.
The songs of Darwin's finch
and the wheel turning
Twain's riverboat toward shore.
We've been the music of the spheres
impressive in sound but nothing more.
It'd be easier to hope
if it were easier to live.
That's the rub, I guess...
I'll have to give.
I've been thirty-five years
in search of answers
and I just don't know.
It's me verse my inner cynic
in a death match about hope.
But, still one of us must go.

I know it's still an ugly uphill
at thirty-five
from the **** soaked
floorboards of a punk rock dive.
I know you quit
but two packs a day
still leaves a scratch
in your voice that don't go away.
And look, hands up,
I know what you're thinking
but the gut don't vanish
when you stop drinking.
Turns out the weight
was Marley's chains
and we'd carry it every day.
Bruised bones and daily pains.
Our long told and retold
haunting, if threadbare, refrains.
Soak in the empty memories of
hard nights and bar fights
burned out stars and candle light.
Weathered skin and the
hungry, open and waiting pit.
There is a high cost to livin'
even the way we did it.
Times up, sales final.
Pipper's callin' and
the wind howls through.
Make your wishes, friends.
The price is comin' due.

I woke up to find myself
a million meters down a hole
I dug myself, lights out
fight bitten and looking
into darkness for a savior.
Thousands of travelled miles
ago a monster stood in my skin
and maybe I deserve this
slow burn punishment. I mean,
blame it on the rage or...

... There are hollow ringing notes
crashing off the walls and the back
of the inside of my head.
Playing cymbals behind my eye
Symphonies for my inner demon.
Young men wrung out and hollowed
used up and swallowed. Thrown away
like fastfood wrappers on the floors
of cars we would drive late into nights
thinking of beds we don't dream in...

...At some point you age out,
you ghetto geniuses,
and find a hostile world
not quite the fish bowl you
spent your life looking through.
And you write hundreds of thousands
of lines in the pursuit of high art
and praise and accolade
and" let's face it" fame
and never write one word that's true...

...you are always that little monster.
No matter where you go
how big you grow
or the quality of what you do,
No one will ever be proud of you.

I blink into darkness and hope
for help or better for rescue.
I find myself, some days,
looking at cherub faced photos
of myself from infanthood
It's been hard practically since
day one. I'll always wonder
if life had been different would
I have built the monster
in the skin in which I stood?

She had not known fear
until she could no longer
see the shore.
Drifting in alien waters
she felt pangs,
like butterfly wings,
against the inside of
her ribcage.
The fluttering, building hollow
that hope makes in it's
death throes.
When you enter the ocean
she heard her grandfather say
you enter the food chain.
The lazy, lapping drift
which brought her ever
farther into the empty sea
would have been soothing
in very different conditions.
Her eyes raked the clouds
searching out the signs
of bird flight.
She was suddenly at the
dawn of seafaring with
early man and his silent gods.
Looking for hope in
the blue void above.
She wondered idlely
whatever became of the
lifeboats from sunken ships
when the coast guard or
someone else pulls the
survivors free of them.
Would she, if she kept floating on
encounter them on the high seas
like a salvation graveyard?
She tried to think
of ways to stay out of the sun
but images of headstones
flocked like an armada
stalking the sea forever
growing but staying
impossibly empty always
pressed down on her.
She too was adrift.
Maybe she'd been headed
that way all her life.
Hard to say.

We are not your prayers answered
we are the sudden stillness before
the sick realization that the
woods around you have become
darker and so very unfamiliar.
We are a generation
treated as disposable
but asked for endless solution.

We are not the prize waiting
for you at journey's end.
We are the parting of ways
that follows like a raw nerve.
We are the departing
backs of comrades
that no longer have
purpose left to serve.

We are not an audience
of hushed worshippers
at your feet.
We are the shimmering
air that summertime
rises from the street.
We are the scared triggerfingers
on people who have finally
had enough.
We are the liminal
space between now
and an empty room of guf.

We are visions of
impending apocolypse.
We are faraway destinations
of many short little trips.
We are a little bit of
yesterday tomorrow.
We are emptied of laughter
and wasted on sorrow.

Life is big and wonderful
and so very sad.
On one side it begins
and on the other it ends
The middle part is
where love, songs and adventure
are kept.
You'll find yourself shrink
further inside
every time your heart breaks.
That's fine. It's okay to be scared.
But try, even though it's hard,
to be brave. Because
the world is huge and
heart breaking
and above all, worth it.
It will not always
pay to be nice
but you must always
be kind.
In time you'll learn
the difference
and many more besides.
Don't force yourself
to smile.
Happiness will come and go
and you may miss it
when it's not around
but you can't trick
yourself happy.
It is okay to laugh
a little too loud,
if it's honest.
Comfort people in pain
even if no one comforts you.
And help people,
when and where you can.
What goes around does not
come around but goodness
shouldn't be about rewards.
Don't look for completion
in others. Only you can do that.
Other people don't complete you
they just love you.
When you look for love,
be earnest.
When you find someone
who loves you, be fair.
Return their love, if you can.
If you can't then don't lie.
Better to tell the truth
about love than to
lie about like.
Life is long and painful
but short and wonderful.
Getting from one end to
the other takes a lot of
careful navigation.
Most people are decent,
but they're not treated that way.
Keep that in mind when
dealing with others.
You're gonna make mistakes
and you'll have to carry that weight.
We all do.
Share the load with those
you love.
I love you.
You are not a burden.

I've got my father's name.
First, last and middle.
My Grandfather's eyes
set deep and haunted.
I can wiggle my ears
I've got double jointed
ring fingers and thumbs.
I've got Grandma's nose.
Like everyone else
I'm living on borrowed time
waiting for the far off day
when I finally get what's mine.

In my life time I've been
bad, lapsed and formerly Catholic.
I've stood on both coasts
and wondered at forever.
I've got a thousand legacies
I've failed to live up to.
The third to have my name.
I've wilted under a night time
sea of stars and lamented all
I had failed to become.

Before you were even
the size of a bean,
my beautiful baby boy,
my precious PeterBean,
I refused to burden you
with the legacy of my name.
When you were born
I held you and realized
I had never known love
or fear or wonder until
you came along and taught me.
My brother smiled
"He has your nose."
I laughed,
"I know."