far too long
should of left
hours ago
don't know what
I'm looking for
don't know what
I'm waiting for.

Friends sit
talking, all well
known to each other,
I don't know
a single soul.

I was invited
by a friend of a friend
I met on the trail.

The party has come
and gone
but I'm still
hanging on,
standing here
playing
this is the church
this is the steeple
with my fingers,
open the doors
and
there are all
the
people.

Stuck on pause.

The music is done,
everyone
said "goodbyes"
people headed to bed.

It's dark,
the celebration is done
the wedding had come
and gone.
The band's playlist
lays in the dew on the grass
the ***** was put away
the last bowl had been smoked.

In the distance
I can hear the
scents and sounds
of other music,
the occasional laugh
over the freeway
sounds, acoustics through
the canyons
on a
Southern California
night.

I've stayed here
far too long.
Home is where I need
to go
a direction
I
do not know.

The driver
she wears mascara
the
last remnant of her humaness
she's always been a
little blessed
she's met her death
many times.

You can hear
her coming on
the winds
freight train sounds
through the Jeffrey Pines
this train isn't
Bound for Glory
this train's bound
for eternity
a one way
ticket with
no return.

Though I've always
rooted for reincarnation.

This train
stops for gamblers
midnight ramblers
**** addled ******
addicts caught between
nodding out and cleaning
the refrigerator with a tooth brush.
Even saints on board will stay.

The oblivion express
your going to hop
on board when your
ticket is punched,
the ticket taker
laughs and smiles
his last glimpse
of humaness.

She's the driver
he's the turnstile
they were once
an item
before they were delivered
to their
new careers
never to see each
other again
except through the
glass of her engine.

The fire is stoked
the express becomes
a local
stopping for each
and every
daily passenger
you can hear that
whistle blow.

You don't know where you're
headed
you just know
you gotta go.
Her mascara drips down
her face
you and she
the ticket taker
too
there is no escape
the oblivion express
just around the corner
and
on its way.

Your lavender love
it falls to pieces
falls to pieces
everywhere you go.

Your lavender love
hits the ground
and scatters
all around
all around.

You walk in trails
of flowers blooming
in all the sounds
of harmony
a magical touch
which heals all
pain, and words
which soothe
during midnight
rains.

You come on the
breath of the winds
you leave that
same way
too.

Your lavender love
it falls to pieces
falls to pieces
every where you go.
Where it comes from
where it goes
I really don't know.

Your lavender love
it falls to pieces
everywhere
we go.

"Soldiers Heart"
Two brothers on their way
one wore blue
and
one wore gray
one came home
one stayed behind
one mother mourns
on a November's day.
212,938
bled and died
on
American soil.

"Irritable Heart"
14 years in the Philippines
far too many days
4200 died
so many miles away.

"Shell Shock"
Johnny got his gun
alive in the tomb
of his mind
no eyes
no ears
no arms
no legs
a beating heart
an active mind
alive
with memories and sensations
Paths of Glory
leads
the way
and 53,402 stay
while one came home.

"Battle Fatigue"
291,557
perished.
Nagasaki got its bomb
six million died
before our fathers and grandfathers
liberated them.

To the 38th Parallel
we did go
where old soldiers
never die
they just fade away
with
time.
33,746 died.

"Stress Response Syndrome"
Apocalypse Now
Jacob had his ladder
in
the jungles of Vietnam
Full Metal Jacket
Born in the USA
homeless veterans
now aged still pay today
while 47,424
lay in their graves.

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder"
My daughter
my son-in-law
bring it all
back home to me
Navy Medics
seven years
they traveled with the Marines
picking up the pieces
as they went their way
many too many trips
for all those young
troops
now we are
seeing
their heroism
proceeding
despite being afraid
a price
dearly
we all pay.
5,282 and still counting.

Willingness
or
Willfulness
We find our place
in
this universe.

I began as a spot
of mud
flipping off a comets
rushing tail
frozen in ice
I survived the fall
a few moments of
organic molecules
landing on one
vast continent
integrated
into a minuscule
whole
I became alive
alive for this time
and
all time.

But

There were forces
moving inside of
me
call it what you will
continental drift
tectonic plates
powerful forces
which fragment me
over time.

I come together
I divide
but the cycles
don't stop there
like our love
as all these
parts and particles
slam back together
in a single mind.

Pangaea!  I once
called you home
it was the only place to be
I knew who
and what I
was
but I have become
divided and split
even my dreams are
fragments of scattered
lands.
My center can not
hold for long
as competing desires
beg to be known.

As eternity picks
me up and sends
me on my way
as I scatter back
to those solar
winds
disintegrate to
a spot of DNA
whisked off this
planet
and arrive on
the back of a
sailing comet
frozen for eons
long
to once again
through happenstance
fall
onto a foreign
planet -
home again to
my private
Pangaea
unity
begins the
cycle
all over
again.

Of death
aren't you?

Sick of hearing about it
talking about it
seeing it,
family members
strangers
friends
aunts
uncles
parents
next of kin
all I feel is dread when the phone rings.

Pablo may have been weary
of chickens
but
I've had enough
death
to last a lifetime.

Every night on
the daily news
the death report
reminds me
every time you turn around
there's another tragic story
you're going to hear.

I'm sick to death
of death
in the movies
on
t.v.

You know what I mean.

You know what?
I'm sick of this poem
I'm sick of thinking about death.

It's 8:06
I
declare it officially
dead.

The poem, I mean.