I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and ****** and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.

There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth--
I think that perhaps it's the gin.

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.

Is this the start of something new?
There’s not much I can say
There's not much for me to do
I can only go forward
And the best is yet to come!
I’m nervously excited to see it play out

Oh how will it all play out?

The moon whispers all her secrets
in my ear, as I sleep
creating ripples in my pool of thought
as I slumber, I start to weep

she calls out through the mist and fog
that consume my tortured rest
no Father ever hears her song
but to me she will confess

her hollow voice is searing glass
and screeches like a lark
as eyes turn blind and all but see
my ears hear only dark

and when she's full her grievances
become too much to bear
for a lady of the moon is light
weight passes her to spare

I strip down shirts ,
and scraps of dignity
and bare my shoulders however small
so her troubles may fall on me

and so trouble free and weightless
she floats back up to space
turning back to trouble me
at her pre-monthly pace

...---...
...---.... ...---...
...---... ...---... ...---...

my frantic fingers tap the telegraph
tapping tentatively , taking time
to repeat the single word

...dot, dot, dot, dash, dash , dash, dot, dot, dot...
                                ---
tapping away like a cricket with arthritis
sending my signals and sounds into the night...
...dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot , dot , dot...
                                ---
but the neighbourhood sleeps quietly
and no one cares for an arthritic cricket
singing its song into the endless radio silence...

because dots and dashes are nothing more than
humble beginnings in 96.09.21
and the life dashes by and flat-lines on
a marble stone
1996 - (pretty soon)

...---...
...---... ...---...
...---... ...---... ...---...

dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot
dot, dot, dot, Dash, Dash, Dash, DOT, DOT, DOT
dot, dot, Dot, DASH, DASH, DASH, DOT, DOT, DOT
DOT, DOT, DOT, DASH, DASH, DASH, DOT, DOT, DOT
DOT, DOT, DOT, DASH...-------------------------------------------------------

t­he drummers pack away their drums, the beat forever fades

the thunder stops to rumble, from now on only clear days

my finger stops its tapping, lies numb across the telegraph

and somewhere outside... and arthritic cricket...
turns silent from its wrath

and the dots and dashes ...
that's been beating all this time...
my hearts stops singing with them...
and ends with one flat line

WvWWvVvv-v-v-----------------------------------------------­----