Departures and Arrivals.
The dust hasn't yet settled on the torn up trail behind me.
Particles still linger in my hair, my teeth and in the air
around me like they own me.
I wonder, even though it seems like I've dearly departed, if it
will ever settle and  I don't necessarily expect it to because
maybe it has to sock it to me
so no sweet amnesia can shew away the memories of what it was
that got me here to this place of growing respect for all the
potholes and all the unpaved roads.

Driving in the dark tree monsters slide bye one after the other,
their silent dialogue giving me the shivers like so many other
things in the world do,
cold sweat running down my face as the  car rattles and  the
music stops and there's only the sound of dripping rain. Tears,
like rain aren't separate  from  sweat.
They're constanly recycling  and bleeding into one another like
night bleeds into day. I get that and I even love that because where
does hardship go if  not to tears?

Stuffing grief into the cracks of the bodymind is a recipe for sick. I get
that too. People may tell ya to take a pill, have a swig, do anything to
bully your discomfort away but you sense
and you know that you sense and only you can sense what it is you
have to do. So you keep on going because what has drinking  the
sweet numbing  Koolaide ever done for ya anyway?

And it's a relief to come out of the comatose to watch the rose-gold
sunrise coming up over your landscape as your gears shift on the
broken hill of this awakening;
laser sharp beams of light gutting the nonsense out of ya, your feet
touching down onto solid  ground  and you feeling shaky but all
aglow in your skin
and this departure is telling every cell in your body that you have arrived.
There will be other departures and other arrivals, other days and other
nights but for now,
in this moment you have arrived and you don't give a **** about and
you're almost grateful for the dust and the  particles and the freaky
and the the not so freaky  fallout hovering over ya like a halo

1/2020

Do ya ever feel like a shipwreck adrift in the water
Pieces of ya scattered like a lamb after the slaughter,
a mere shadow of your former sweet innocence
barely bobbing above the big sonar rinse?
Can't believe what ya read
nor believe what your supposed to believe.
Can't help wonderin' bout the agenda
Definitley can't pretend not to.
I suppose ya just have to go a bit numb
Drift on the wave and play kinda dumb.
CCTV surveillance, so called necessity,
oh **** big brother's watching ya ***.
Google is god and god is dead
Oh **** the'll crucify me for what I've just said.
Street lights ain't just street lights anymore
they're stickin' cameras in 'um expecting us to eat crow.
We'll all be robots that's the plan
punch ya in, download, scan.
Chips in your brain, chips in your nose
they'll go with us wherever we goes.
The grammar's all wrong. It's the prediction text.
No need for fingers. it's all effortless.
We're losing our common sense and our low-fi cities.
I'm losing my mind and I dont even feel ******.
They're cuttin' down trees 'cause they're blockin' our signies
and burnin' and lootin' 'cause they've got some agendies.
We're loosing our birds, they're falling out of the sky.
Would connecting the dots lead us to  the wyfry?
Losing's all right once ya get the hang of it.
Be fine in the mornin' and get back in the swing of it.
Turn on the screen, see what's new,
choke on our Krispies 'cause we forgot to chew.
Ah who cares our thoughts ain't our own.
It's all covered and programmed by our phone
Yea
It's all fun and games when there's nobody home,
dinner's sprayed and modified to the bone.
God knows what's in the water, the vaccination.
No worries we're all sci-fried and on vacation.
Ah yea they've got us all pegged and amplified,
can't sleep anymore, we're all irradiated and wyfried.
Wyfry, shake, scramble, grill an' bake
uhuh it's the burnin' down of the human race.
ah yea it's the slow fry and burn at the stake.

At The Cafe
I heard her say to the teary-eyed lady
as they sliced their custard creams,
" Move on and go find someone else"
As if suggesting to take that knife and slice
that face out of her brain and replace it with
another. As if perhaps she should cut out
her heart and separate it from the rest of
her. I suppose the thoughtless lady was only
trying to help. I suppose that's normal procedure
in such circumstances. Like quickly go find a
lollipop for god's sake.
I felt like saying to the broken woman;
wait a bit. No need to be in such a rush.
This terrible ache, this fierce wrenching
this oozing sore is love disguised.
You'll come to it. You will. No substitute
necessary.
That someone else is waiting
in the dim horizon, fresh faced and true
with eyes that pierce through
the mish mash of dough and syrup
of wounds and ruins of love and war
and sharp metal objects.
That someone else is you, whole
and undisguised.
You can't rush that.
You'll come to it
You will.

Nights Are For Stuff Like This

It's 3am.
The city's sleeping and I'm not.
Lights like scattered dots burn dim outside my window.
People are dreaming and I'm awake thinking of the
life that's been passing through me like second hands-smoke
lingering in the slowed-down traffic of my DNA.
Nights are for stuff like this;

stuff like silken roads through ragged hillsides,
feelings blacker than night that disappear in the
day light, prisms  bouncing off grey ash, tiny sparks
falling through trap doors, never again to be seen
nor heard, nor taken for granted upon the long
laid train tracks of this ongoing dance.

Memory like loaded simi-trucks taking me all
the way back through corn fields and hay, through
old hard hitting rain that goes clank, clank in my brain.
Scars cutting  through my skin opening again and again
like songs that you hate but can't stop singing  on endless
streaming highways-hitching a ride inside my mind,

pitch-perfect pristine and off-key in the dark,
on a night like this blue black over amber gold.
I'm a million miles further away and one mile closer.
Signposts loud and large selling  big hopes for
happy dopes, emerging eyes now gone from me
peering through clouds because they can, because
they probably always will.

Because who knows how far they've gone and how
far I've come on this night of all nights awake in the
grid of passing stars and dividing lines, now merging into
my lane for better or for worse where gratitude needs no
promotion, because it just is or is not. Because it can't be faked.
nor pimped. Because it has no need for
patronizing nor apologizing.

Because it's outcome, a side effect of nights like this where
everything makes sense and where nothing makes any sense
at all in this gigantic freeway of time that will eventually reach
a dead end. Where sleep will come 'cause the poetry will have
run itself off the bend.
Ah yea nights are for stuff like this.

Expectation

We bow to our gods
Our demigods

Take sides
Give credit where we think
Credit's due

***** at the other

An exercise in hope
Despair, disgust

An act of rebellion
Worship, boredom

A little entertainment
Perhaps

Oh Holy Night is blasting
But it's business as usual

What did we expect?

The Donald's having another
Rad hair day

Merc is mixing up yet another shot
In the arm of the unsuspecting ignorant

Monsanto's engineering one more
Pernicious stew for dinner

World War Three pending
At Arm's Dealers Inc

A trader goes Kachung

A raven drops his doodoo

Really
What did we expect?

Shiny stilettos go clack clack

A homeless man shivers in the rain

The guy on the bike gives ya the finger

Grandma turns on and drops out
Can ya blame her?

Another heart-breaking day
For the broken

A little goodwill
For the willing

Martin Lawrence sneezes
And we can't help ourselves

Hilarious

Charley Sheen loses his knickers
In repeat spin

Another bad news nugget
For the rag-mags

What did he expect?

The jingle bells jingle

It's tinsel time again
The gift can go bye bye in the mayhem

In this the season of high expectation
It's good to have less expectation
To worry less, to feel more

Share
See what happens
Expect a miracle
or
Expect nothing

The gift
Ah the gift

The present
Presence

That is all
What did I expect?

2015 for the present

Rope
There's no point in splitting hairs
No point in pointing a finger
It's done
The pages are all torn
Trashed and scattered
And dragged through the gutter
Like yesterdays garbage
And all that rope
I supposedly gave
A phantom
There never was a rope,
A leash, nor a chain
Those things are not for sale
At the well
No there never was a rope
Except perhaps
For  the one attached
To the water bucket
From which
We still
Quietly sip
Through
The miles
Of sea
And storm
And time
As long as we stay
This way
This well
Will never dry up

2016-2017 for the attempt to make unconditional, the conditional.

Can't

I can't kiss ***
Must be something i ate in class
Or was it mother's scalding tongue
That'd scorch ya just for fun
Or maybe brother's saucy mouth
That'd shake ya 'til all the loot fell out
No I can't kiss ****
Can't figure out this stuff
You might call me a brat
Say I'm a loud whiskered alley cat
But it could be that bull in ****
Dying for just another hit
Whatever it is
I can't seem to kiss ***
And if I did now I'm done
Maybe it sounds crass
But god help me
I'm no good at kissin' ***
I might get hell for this
An
You might think I'm takin' the ****
But I just don't have that kinda class
I just can't
I  can't kiss ****