there is a vastness here

where a small breeze,

the size of a decaying sorrow

wakes the cold again

which may be all that’s left of me.

where a diamond pale haze of stars goes on eternal

like sound that has found a final silent shape

on a black sky where it means everything

It cannot speak off.

it’s empty out here, and cold.

cold enough to reconcile

the frozen cries, the kidnapped voices

and the silences that move

with certain cadaveric contractions

along the frozen emptiness

and In the morning when I look out

the previous evening remains

in its blank, cold, unforgiveness

even though I sang for them in

the eternal extensiveness of

the freezing cold, the stones

still cry with mouths opened wide

while the small icy wind and unsympathetic

moon subdue the apricot flowers,

Now the piercing cold day Is no longer enough

For all comprehension escapes me

suddenly jumps with fury hurling terrible hostilities to the sky,

as wandering ice spirits without homeland

begin to groan with a vast and vacant voice.

And frozen hearses, with muffled drums

and tragic music, slowly pass in my being

conquered, weeping, freezing

this atrocious iced and despotic place

plants its black flag in my soul

Now I do confess through boreal breath

I don’t think I will ever see the

Red Tulips again

and just how far have you gone for the sake of your "camaraderie," my friend?

their half-glow hearts and prejudiced minds could have swallowed you whole,

or abandoned you, wit be-******, and genius be-******, you
might have died a pauper—

I hear they’d **** a man much more guarded than you, they might string him up,

tie his broken body to a fencepost, leave him ******,

satisfy a tyranny under the watchful eye of a loving God,

trade a boy in Laramie for a jet-black brutal odium,

**** a kid and wonder what his mother did to steer him wrong—

but still you wrote of calamus and of holding hands and handsome lovers,

still you gave us songs to sing back to our lovers, gentle songs,

despite the shame and censorship they cursed you with, despite

the threat that everything could be undone, despite the scripture,

well I must say, dear Good Gray Poet, before I fold my hand,

thank you, Walt, for giving us what you never had.

In the backseat of two-door cars,
Cackling at the fog,
Admiring frosted trees;
The bizarre glories of the world
Lay before in stone-cold vibrations.

Go back Jack, do it again,
Watch the wheels turn round and round
To goodwill tidings on clear cut highways,
Circumventing the haze of the suburbs
In odors of gasoline and burnt wheels.

Potholes bounce under foot,
E.D billboards taunting men
On voyage to shopping malls.
Days off and lay offs,
Getting the light and stopped on red,
Gazing at the sun to let the comfort in
To infinity and be-be-beyond.

Lofty goals atop cascading mountains,
Lined with jagged rocks,
Going to **** in mighty avalanches.
Calling back to the fall back of worry,
Our troubled souls running against the wind
As we mountain-goat up cliffs
Looking pitiful bathed in
The northern lights.

Oh how the heavens opened up,
How coastline of rocky ridges
Exploded in mental ecstasy,
Perceived through sagging eyes
Damp with the excess of life.

We're back, Jack, doing it again,
Travelling down well-worn roads where
You and I, He and she and they,
And ancient enclaves of ancestors
Journeyed through joy and sorrow
And the millions of pixels of grey area in between.

We've walked, run, and drove,
Talking madly to ourselves
In the tired eyes of those who want
To do the same and with them we continue.
We live in ourselves,
In candy-coated falsehoods of our own design,
Happy with good reason and lovingness.
And at it all, in the scope of our truth,
We laugh.

I take a breath and close my eyes with pride.
His comments seek a lodging in my soul;
The hurt I feel from all he spits, I hide.
He’ll never know he’s found my numb heart’s holes.

“Forever” was his biggest lie to me,
One word, a feeble promise left unkept.
My heart should learn the way his drums beat free.
I’m captive to the trebled tears I’ve wept.

Do you recall when Whitman said “Beat! Beat! Drums!”?
Too bad the drums could always beat, beat us.
At least I got kisses ‘tween rounds of ***.
But still, to him, I’d grown superfluous.

I simply craved some adult discussion.
I guess  he preferred to play his percussion.

I am the dog, collared and chained,
deemed useless and left alone.
I am the nail in the wall left unhammered, jutting to snag at your sleeve.
I am the hole in your line through which all of your energy will be filtered or lost.
I am heavy with meaning and weightless with meaning and grounded in someone else's reality.
I am that reality, while my own remains silent and hidden and threatening.
I am a threat to some, no one to someone, and everything to one.
I am the card in play, always, even
when you leave the table and
I will be there when you get back.
Also, I am the deck and few cards are missing.
I am the mirror in which you might one day see yourself and startle your eyes into misrecognition.
I am the cup that overfloweth,
and the child guilty for wanting.
I am the season which seems like it will never let up.
I am the sun casting rays of golden relief on the faces of many lonely strangers.
I am the forgotten sun, just as well.
I am the ruin of those who came here before me and the stain they left on the white fabric of time.
I am the fabric, loose and changing
in the winds of perpetuity.
I am a glass sphere in the midst of a landscape, puzzling and divine and uncanny alike.
I am a door left unopened.
I am a line with no end and a point with no beginning and I will let it be known that I am here seeking all.