Today I met...
A man with sea blue eyes shining from fiery hair
I said "you should be a pirate"
Then Effie piped "Let's turn this bus into a ship"
He mined for gold in Australia
Working 12 hour days and nights
Visiting home he found bad repute
In Coromandal's strong anti-mining activism.
He complained about the packaging
Of the tourist L&P; ice-cream he'd bought
"It should all be cardboard and wooden spoons"
The miner turned environmentalist?
Did the activists hear him out?

Behind him,
A man with eyes enclosed in triangle parentheses,
A tattoo of reminder.
- Reminder that being locked up is a waste of time, of life.
- Realization that being in that crowd caused trouble. Drugs ain't the thing. And
- Regret. It caused him to care for young minds, to teach what he had learnt.
"I was only in there for drink driving" but for two years?
He left at Paeroa College, "take care",
Not hearing our "thank you for sharing"

At our transfer we serenaded
In happy gratitude and spontaneity
The pirate watched, intrigued.
The drivers; our faithful who had driven us so far
And our newly acquainted about to shuttle us forth;
They watched
'Til ye old faithful lost faith and went on with his duty
A boy stepped off the bus
Listening shyly, hiding.
My bow slipped over out-of-tune strings
Effie's voice rang true, feeling and joy,
Hand strumming, familiar and fond.
A mess of black hair from Colorado
Complained "there's too many guns"
But was a gunsmith "For hunters... I love it"

I held a rifle once,
Scared of its kick and its bite,
A man shouldered it for me,
I pulled the trigger.
Paused. Then relief.
- The clay bird flew on,
Its demise instead the ground
It hit and crumbled.

I guess I just expected
Something else

It happens every year,
I get excited
Hopeful
Giddy
That maybe
This year will be
Different.

Maybe I'll find an awesome friend
Who does my nails
And answers calls at two am
Like Nicole did
Before she moved to California

Or she could be like Kayla
Who would be silly with me in
Drama class
And use chocolate sauce for blood
In our Black and White movie
Before her dad died in combat
And she went to bury him in
Some foreign country
Where cell phones
Don't count

Or a boyfriend like Louis
That I could see a future with
Sitting listening to Relient K
In a college dorm
With a million years to spare
Before he left for London

But the girl in front of me
In English
Pops her gum for the boy
In the next desk
And could poke my eye out
With her fake straightened hair.

The girl in my drama class
Cakes on her mask and
Participates in pageant after pageant
And calls her anorexia
A diet

And I heard the rumor
That the boy I thought was cute
In chemistry
Was caught ******* his
Girlfriend
Under her desk in
Español Dos.

I didn't think my standards were too high to meet.

This coffin
    I inhabit
         Floats along the nonexistence
    Of space
And time

        In such a way as to make me forget what comfort ever was
     Days become eons
Trapped in a box reeking of death and lacking in emotion
     I become nothing more than a trained chimp
            Acting out "living" as I see actual humans do

all for a few measly peanuts

*yes oh yes I wouldn't mind if this rolling coffin crashed and burned if for nothing more than to end this surreal nightmare of not existing

Waiting for the bus and beginning to lose my mind...

A minute turns to four, then twelve and now half an hour has passed me by...

Time keeps ticking, the sun keeps setting and the longer I sit the more I feel my rot

Calling to hear what I already know-- The bus aint' coming...And my inpatients grows!

No further ahead, no closer to my goal...

Just left behind...

                           By the bus that never showed

Inspiration comes only after three glasses of wine or a 12 hour bus ride north 
Some things never change. 
What happens when wine runs out or when people stop breaking my heart
It's bitter sweet to think this will all stop 
The catharsis 
I'm home within my pain because I'm home within my ink 
I suppose I've done it before in times of desperation
Ripping out my own heart, picking my own good grapes
Stomping on them both as equals 
As nothing but something to choke down and spit back up onto paper 
After all, the sun can only shine for so long until we all start dancing for rain 
You and I both know we do it for the rainbows and the clouds

blur of rock, snow, trees
I drift in and out of reality
dream of swimming alone
at night, the sweet danger
your hand on my leg

this highway becomes
endless motion
reach into the grey night
beg a cigarette
off the gypsy woman
desperate
addictions will destroy me
one day, nothing left to do
but wait for the next stop
watch your breath form halos
of precious air on the window
misty and cool                
hey, beautiful stranger
could I rescue you
from sleep, your hand
on my leg feels like nothing
else but it won't last

the driver speaks to me
of wandering souls
in a few hours he promises
we'll be somewhere

Yeah right! I was trying to do this the other day, but I got confused about how I was supposed to know in which moment I was going to live. They all speed by so fast. I could not pick out the one in which I was surely ‘meant’ to live. So I tried to envision my moment as a big red London bus which would soon appear around a metaphysical corner with its number and destination board clearly marking it as my bus, my moment, into whose creative interior I could throw my whole existence and for who really knows how long actually LIVE! But fate decided that all the buses are the same, and I hang around the bus stop with my head snapping from one horizon to the other as one conductor after another raises a quizzical eyebrow as he flies by. I want to get on, I want to get on, and obey that wise imperative…

a. …I jumped on the very next bus and found it was already full of passengers wondering how in hell they could get off without paying the fare.
b. …I jumped on the very next bus and at that moment its number and destination board came in to sharp and comforting focus.

I swear some mornings,
I can see the Tv snow Playing
On the back of my Eyelids.
I'm Auto-writing,
on Automatic,
This show comes on at Ten O' Clock
P.M.,
Eastern Standard Time.
I'm early morning only late at night.
Welcomed back into the Static Noise
When the sun comes back around.
This man don't rise with the roosters.
I'll be not a slave to circadian rhythms.


PSSSSHHHHHHHH!!!
An alarming blare
Breaks news in dreamland.
The fields need plowing,
Barbarians are at the gate,
The taxman cometh.
There is work to be done.


Half Lidded I sip
The Proletariat's Breakfast,
As the Stars Gently Fade Into Sunrise.
Transport arrives at twenty past six,
And the trains must always run on time.


look me in the eyes and ask me,
Who am I to be angry?
ungrateful?
Skeptical of the Great Society?
Who are we to be Disenfranchised?
Disengaged?
This work only means bills and coins,
purchasing power,
And another month's rent.
150,000,000 jobs,
buying time between Disasters,
or till the future makes
the majority of us obsolete
To the whims of the elite.


This doesn't even feel like surviving.
In fact,
I feel I'm being farmed.
Domesticated.
I keep daydreaming of
a stone shack in the woods,
limestone pulled up out the earth
by my own bare hands
and stacked into a home.
It's Six twenty-five A.M,
and the bus is always late,
and these in-ear headphones
blocks out the rumbling
of a city waking up for work.


I'm still asleep.
I'll call you tonight...
If we wake up.

Here I am sitting in a bus
Something so everyday
Motion in tandem
Here where thoughts stray
Where everyone drowns
In thoughts maybe not their own
Here where no eyes meet
But all eyes see
Everyone speaks without a word
Here we are, all in a bus.