True Reflection
I saw him walking down the uneven concrete
He had a beat to his step, every move on count
Avoided slanted ladders and black cats on corners
Steel noose hung from his neck that resembled a cross
It dangled like an unsteady decoration
He had a long stride and I was on par with pace
Walked close but there was a wide gap in our bridge
Chicago wind pushed through us with cold shoulders  
It carried harsh fumes of a forest cremation  
Evergreen trees torched, leaves fall to the ground mourning
He enjoyed the smoke’s company, didn’t wave her off  
But she left as he heard chords of American horns
He bobbed his head to the sermons preached by beggars
Ran from synchronized fireworks between gangs
Glared at visual art of red and blue strobe lights
Treaded his fingers on chipped pale skin of town houses
And tasted the sweet sourness of a girl’s rain-check
His expression was content like the heart of a book
His smile fell in sequenced with the collapse of eyelids
I became aware that something was weighing his walk
Opaque bottles barely stood straight in his coat pockets
Staggered after each other like rows of dominos
Bottles fractured causing the cement to catch ripples
He couldn’t brake over broken glass he drove into me
Nose to Nose we touched as we were about to crash
I carved into the core of his eye and saw myself
Lying on the pavement with a blanket of fragments
And I realized I couldn’t remove the stained glass
Because what was there belonged from the beginning

getting lost in towns
i regularly find
myself in.
looking.

for the way the earth stands still
when i am with the people i love.
looking.
for myself in old library books
about the government and God. "Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier." I am forever searching.
I am forever looking.
i am the vanished frontier.

these are regular routines
of an irregular human
with ambitions
who can barely get on their tippie  toes
to touch them.
there is love in me
and it is in forms
you all can barely fathom.

I live in a small town with nice people.

Nice community theater people.

Nice non-swearing churchgoing people.

Nice people who keep their mouths shut and their eyes closed.

Nice people who live in ticky tacky houses and sweep their front porches.

Nice people with children who send text messages and drive to nowhere in the middle of the night.

Nice high school teaching, comfortably living people.

Nice mothers-and-fathers people with bright voices and dark eyes.

Nice bored people.

I live in a small town with nice people.

But occasionally they all go momentarily mad.

Through nostalgic forest I wonder yet again..
The feeling is quite warm and it makes me smile so.
I think of the music I would listen to and the way the sun would light up your face.
I think of traveling with you in the near future to small towns and museums..
To see the countryside only and avoid the cities all together.
My mind has been asking my soul to do this for so long.
Ill take you to a bed and breakfast in a small town where no one knows us.
We will wake up to the sun and drive one through the evening.  
Just so we could remember it all.
Looking for new sounds, new colors, and new feelings altogether.
In doing so we will find the beginning of us yet again.
A beginning with no end.

The albatross once filled the skies
Cormorants watched silent, from the shore
These are echoes of times long ago
There's nothing here for them any more

The coastline littered with sunken ships
Villages full of ghosts
Empty buildings and empty lives
Where just the sea gulls act as hosts

Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out past the breakers and out to the sea
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out on the Ocean, where my soul is set free

The cod stocks have dwindled
There was no need to stay
There's no catch of the day, son
From here to Gaspe'

The canneries shuttered
The landscape has changed
I may be a sailor
But, my life's rearranged

Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out past the breakers and out to the sea
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out on the Ocean, where my soul is set free




The Grand Banks are empty
Our boats are in hock
There's nothing that grows here
Except depression and rock

While others moved onward
I'll stay 'till I'm dead
Now, I feed off the tourists
I work the casinos instead

Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out past the breakers and out to the sea
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out on the Ocean, where my soul is set free

The salt air still calls me
The wind in my sails
The sound of the rigging
Heading off to Kinsale

The coastline is empty
Where Ghost towns now stand
It used to be vibrant
But now just sea grass and sand

Oceans Away Lads, Oceans Away
On out past the breakers, and out to the see
Oceans away lads, Oceans Away
I still am a sailor, and I always will be

This town has depleted my soul
nearing the point of no return
The single remedy to redeem my spirit
is to escape what I've known for so long;
the people
the places
the persistent memories-
I'm reminded of every breath this town takes from me
Existence is monochromatic here
and I'm ready to see the spectrum,
to look through the kaleidoscope
and see what life is really like
in the new light my eyes will never forget
that this town tried to hide from me

I am not my demons
They are made entirely of me.

They are the cruelties I've suffered,
Presenting themselves like tornados through small towns.

Towns that don't seem like much at a passing glance,
But who's residents never doubt
The beauty and potential it holds
If only you stay long enough to notice it.

But how can anyone see the beauty in towns
That are forever being brought to ruins.
At the mercy of something as destructive
And unpredictable
As a **** tornado?

Small towns
pass through my vision
like slowly growing
scattered pieces of life
thrown into
a fast-paced world
of people everywhere
all the time.

these towns
I know nothing of
were almost a part
of a life of mine
I dared to nearly live

The sleet is drawing boxes 'round
our mud-and-snow sashed towns.
We'll check 'em off
                      with crunching footsteps,
slash our gallows grins through static
weather. Nervous laughter fights off winter
while somnambulist nights
                    hold the anthill days at bay.

And each repeated conversation
coats a thrumming undercurrent
echoed by the groaning rivers
in their arthritic fatigue.

     where the ice piles up
              like car wrecks.

And, out of those disastrous angles,
     jumps up and trips back down.
          Blinking eyelids, right then left.
               Sunrises. Sunsets.
Dusks and dawns in places familiar
wading through liminal space.

Circles darkened. Footprints filled in.

The heat just circles lazily.
Our flushed and clammy brows
will **** askance
               and sweat while footsteps
melt our swaying way through boiling
sidewalks. Nervous laughter dulls the impact
of seared, rapid fire nights.
             "Ha." "Ha." Shrug off another.

And all repeated reminiscence
does is hamstring overthinking
of the closing jaws of traps
in these rusting western towns.

        where winds breathe dust
                by mouthfuls

So, into our familiar mishaps,
     ***** up and falls back down
          melting into neighborhoods
               dress down, upbraid us.
'Til our feet do not walk circles
'round these wilting Western towns.