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 ****

Blubber
Sometimes I get tired
Of all the blubber
The grinding of systems
The metal to the rubber

The pushing of points
The singing to the choir
Pickaxe in place of featherc
Look there's a bird upon the wire

Maybe potions going dry
No thank you please
And fingers going all stiff
While here awaits the feast

And vases laying all smashed
Words sitting there all torn
Lets gather the broken scraps
Rearrange them and be reborn

Maybe it's me and only me
Closing an old and tattered page
Maybe I've overstayed my welcome
On an old and creaky stage

Ah the sticks an stones are smiling now
The crows I think they've left
But the cinders upon ash
Still burn bright upon this hearth

Out into the clearing
See it twinkling up ahead
An inkling of some something
Some of us have thought of and said

Merlin's done it agian
Con-Ed's shut down
Tesla's come into power
And White Bear gets his crown
Oh
And
George Carlin is pope
Shakespeare is president
They both know the ropes
And you what ya think?
Wink, wink

If you ask me how I am I just might tell you. If I feel like it.
I might tell you that there are weeds growing willful up
around the old shed, that the creepers are out of control,
that there are multi-coloured ladybirds ******* at old wounds
in the hollow of my heart, that acres of wild white daisies
are mad with Spring in the fields but that soon they shall wilt
because that's how it goes. If you ask I may tell you how
I drew blood from a prickly rose I couldn't stop myself from
touching and that it still hurts years later,
that some short-sighted clever creatures devoured too much
honey from the beehive in my back yard and died there fat and over-fed.
If you ask me how I feel I might say 'fine' but don't believe a word.
Fine!!
If you ask me how I am, and you really want to know, then search
my eyes for the spark that links souls and breathes new life
into old secret hiding places we didn't know existed, down there
in the gully where maggots love to linger and make silage, where
tombs are built to keep dead things buried and comatose.
if you ask me and I'm not saying you will, then be prepared to
drop down to where lifeless things may want to come back to life.
If you ask me who I am, I may say that I'm a cosmic river of luminous
liquid that spares no gellyfish from their own refection, where
dolphins stare speechless into the lost Polynesian deep blue of rusting
wreckage. If you ask me how I am, be sure you really want to know cause if
I'm in the mood, it may be a long trip and you may need a toothbrush.
So if you ask me and you probably won't now, but if you do we shall
sip wine of a kind for drunken lovers lush with the alchemy of bitter
grapes aged and morphed into the sweet drippings of reckless
angels ready to yank off another lid.

If George Clooney were a fisherman
would Amal have taken the bait?
If Angelina had been a char
Brad would have given her a tip
or maybe the slip
and that would'a been it.
If Montgomery were disguised as a ***
Alice would go home when her shift was done.
If your boyfriend worked down the sewer
would you go all the way down for the cure?

Do ya think Melania would'a said I Do
if he couldn't afford his daily hair-do?
Set for life or a set up for a life of strife
at the house of white?
Would Tiger be putting more *****
if Wood's be zipping it all the way up?

How many wolves in sheep's attire
get through the BS detection without
as much as an ounce of rejection?
How many I Love Yous slip down the loo
only to end up at the other end of the grand sue?

How many roses does it take to say it
when you no longer can locate it?
Makes ya yawn doesn't it!

Still we're all chomping at the bit.
Would risk it all for just one more hit,
a total hissin' fit
of the I Love Yous.

for now I don't want to know where I just came from
nor how long it's been
I don't want to picture the blisters nor the bleeding
nor smell the fumes
I don't want to remember the flood nor how the leak
was sprung
I don't want to hear about who perished and who survived
nor think about who might still be threading water
for now
the dead will have to bury the dead
the sick will have to tend the sick
the broken will have to help mend the broken
and themselves
as we do, as we must do
for now
I don't want to know about who fired the first shot
nor whether or not I'm going to drown in this life raft
for now
the foghorn, the light house, the shore
the lapping of water beneath me
for now
the foghorn
the light house
the shore
the lapping
the shore
the light house
the foghorn
the lapping
the water

bury her
the imposter
posing as you
bury the actors
posing as your friends
bury the rules
that left you for dead
unscrew the hooks
put them in the ground too
and what the hell
bury the hatchet

you choose them
own that
now disown them
disown them all
they were never yours
anyway
they served you once
now you're done
go ahead
bury the dead

pile in the dirt
shovel by blessed shovel
pack it tight
dance on their grave
howl, spit, laugh, cry
go on
bury them

from now on
celebrate what remains
that's your ticket
take flowers
take a limo
whatever
but take yourself back
just do it
go on
bury her

birth comes slowly
with slow peeling of caterpillar skin
tough and thick
butterfly waits beneath
with iridescent wings
ready for the get-away
this death *****
but it has to happen

shine storm shadow heave sordid sky
beat your diamond rain and milk sweet
delirious black blue moaned symphony
drive woman drive rough skin delicate
run spring drunk light panting velvet
watch you play your sea on raw bed
live rust sun mad rose-tinted like moon
over lake
you have chocolate drool ache
mother I never did like those sad
arms all dressed in red and furious
but see no wild woman feels less
sit or go but let what is be is
eat one picture a day, smear languid
love with finger
flick you kind wand kazzoo away
and please whisper smooth scream
through apparatus from forest
lather you life white bubble like
snow
use all ugly love as fertilizer then cry
bitterly and pour frantic sleep into
lazy garden moss soft as a pillow
upon sacrilegious world thought
swim water through silken sheets
and rock it fluff puppy
you are an enormous exquisite honey ship
lick it fresh juice sweet cream
rip your winter above want
and rave on brave pilgrim
rave on

some of us are bog people
we live with the snails and the maggots
making bacteria
we're suckers for substance
the dirt speaks to us
some of us are bog people
we hang with the microorganisms
making pilgrimages
we're slimey silt and silage
full-tilt and raw
the dirt wants us

dig it or dig it not
we can't help it
some of us are just bog people

the ****** grieves ******
for the feeling of total abandonment
before discovering how not
to abandon herself
the alcoholic  grieves Burbon
for the bitter sweet
for how it made him feel
before the hangover
the gout,  sclerosis
the love ****** grieves the innocence
the dream, fairy tales, the endorphins
before enough was never enough
the *** addict grieves for another
and another
before the clap, syphilis, despair
before too little became too much
the gambler grieves the green
the shiny stuff at the slot machine
before the house was gone
woman gone, reason gone
smug gone
the crone grieves for youthful ignorance
awe, suspense, naivety, anticipation
before the burn, betrayal, fact
wisdom
the dying grieve for life
energy, breath, the past
before the unknown, surrender
the letting go
the letting go
that's how it goes

One keeps the home fires burning
The other
Sets the spark for a blazing inferno
One is practical
The other?
What to do?
He wants his cake
And wants to eat it too
All three
Have cake
Lying around here
Some probably
going stale
Some
Probably
Mighty sweet

gaga and gall are walking down the street
gaga sees some bling, gall goes in and steals
they end up in the slammer and gansta's
there to greet
gall punches gangsta and naturally gore appeals
gaga wakes from the dream, guts tries to console
he offers her an option and they both get outa' da hole

now gall, gangsta and gore while in solitary
meet with goner and good ol' grouch
glory hallelujah comes up with the key
all escaping sideways from sleeping gangeree
they keep running into gutter, introduced to giddy
all on this gollywoggle jolly hallow night
all whipped up and painted by yours truly
gimmicky.
(halloween 2016)

There's instant soup
Instant milk
Blogs full'a goop
Bugs in your blink

Instant coffee
Instagram
Love like toffee
Stuck in your spam

Instant high
Instant fluff
Wherever you look
There's bang for your buck

God forbid
Delete it all
Switch it off
Feel the mad withdrawal

And go back to the land
Grow your own
Get a cow or a goat
Forget your phone

Finish the weeding
Chat with a rose
Stand in a summer shower
Smell the smells in your nose

Listen to the night
Owls, foxes, wrens
Watch the slow boiling
Smoke dancing in little rings

I want to write a poem that smells like perfume
that flits and that flips through a rose-tinted room
all wispy and wet and cosmic and cool

I want to write a poem that omits all the grease
the fierce firing squad, pimps, perverts, police
to tickle your fancy and make you go guuguu

I want to write a poem that moves through your veins
like sweet fairy dust not shackles and chains
be part of the pop cult, feel the pulse, feel the pulse

I want to write a poem that travels lit-up highways
with no broken bulbs, no sirens nor slipped gears
without red-danger zones nor emergency phones

I want to write a poem with soft cuddly toys
and trinkets and things that make no loud noise
to nibble your chin and that sort of thing

I want to write a poem with an innocent face
that softens your edges and slows down your pace
'til you're won and you're one and you purr and you hum

I wanted to I really did
2015

There's a certain kind
That holds you hostage
Way up there in the bleachers
In a red-light district
Cold and cheap
It lures you because you're lurable
Attach and you're stuck up there
In a certain kind
Of dilapidated ivory tower

It's only later on
When you're broken
When the nights have woven
Their history and the light
Has drained
Only when you're pushed out
Only when you're shoved off
Only then does the truth
Begin to talk

Until then it's been silent
Though gradually loosing appetite
For despair, denial, dilemma
Only when unhooked
Does that fierce, quite dismissal
Begin to beg for something else
Only then does
A certain other kind
Begin to go wild for itself

You wonder how yourself
Moldy and molting
And mad with lies
Had so deceived its own
You wonder how
If there is a god
S'he coulda watched you bleed
With self-betrayal
And sat there idle
While you slowly crumbled

But admit it
You were terribly cocky up there
In the pink and belly-full
***** and hookered
If G O D woulda spoken
You woulda spit in the face of divinity
And you probably did

So that certain kind
Watched and waiting
For another
Certain kind
To choke the bejasus outa ya
'til you slowly faded to full stop
And dropped to your knees
To a certain other kind

There are those you meet
You've never laid eyes on them before
But you feel that  you've always
Been listening to their song
Their banter
Hearts that split you open
And throw you off your own
Imprint
And you start to wonder
If from now on
This ink is permanent
And when you start
To fall into their eyes
You feel like you could
Trust your life to them
You don't know why
It's not logical
And your mind starts;

"This isn't real
They're just like everyone else"

Still you feel their feet tapping
Inside your skin
And their hands brushing away
Your issues
And your tissues tingle
And don't give a ****
Because it's such a perfect
Moment
Where the air is thin
And cool and sharp
And cuts like a laser
Right to where there's
Nothing but this
And you find yourself
Wanting to be everything
That they are
Whilst at the same time
Knowing you already are
And you can't decide
Which is more beautiful
Their bone structure
Or
Their quirky knee-hopping
And you know for now
It's a perfect, transparent
Irreplaceable moment
When you want for nothing more.

Do not be disturbed
If I lack the ability
To sugar-coat
The beautifully human
The tragically human
Or
If I refuse to try rewrite
The book of life

Do not be disturbed
By us
Mad mischief-makers
Us
Multi colored misfits
Who wander the market place
All dressed up
With nowhere to go
But here

Do not be disturbed
By us frenetically tainted
Us
Silly sprouted beings
Who speed the highways
On a wild goose chase
To wherever


Dearest do not be disturbed
If I regurgitate
Some heavenly-scented hairball
From some holy rap sheet
From some wasted wobbling wino
Do not be disturbed
If I smell a rat and show my teeth

Do not be disturbed
By the impending days ahead
When some grizzly goon
Some long-clawed nimbat
Some long-forgotten ghost
Coughs  up and spits in your face

Of course be disturbed if you must
But the days are short and the hour is nigh
The time for braggards and barbies
Monsters and missionaries
For mystery and myth
Will soon quietly pass away
And you wont be able
To hear a pin drop
Dearest
Do not be disturbed.

When you start to dig beneath the surface things begin to show
Things you never thought of nor ever seen before
Big things, little things, questionable things
Like placid smiles that you've been pushed beyond
An agreeable Yes that life has ripped you from
A loving touch you once embraced
Now sliced and shaved all the way down
To where the Ahhas lay

Childish trust, blind faith now blown asunder
For something more urgent as you dig further under
Layers of fluff and squiggly stuff
Unfashionable stuff, freaky stuff, fabulous stuff
More mystery undone, more digging to come
Is it ever done?
There is no final word, no failure, no success
No chisel that can carve away what's etched
Deeper than your flesh
Another winter's here and stubborn leaves
Still linger
The apple crumble's ready
And for now it shall appease your hunger
You bow your head and say
Namaste
A thousand times
Namaste
Namaste