Black haired silhouettes dance in recollections of August, strip naked, strike a pose-
Driving up and down Vine with a head full of acid, every passerby looks to be the death of me and the city smothers stars while they sleep,
Darkness about something on the radio, lost in hardwood floors and slanted ceilings, laying flat on my back in the depths of a Janis Joplin howl of pain,
Talking in rhythm and never rhyme, drawing inspiration from the atmosphere and picking poems from the tension, collision course ego trips clocked in at under zero revolutions per minute,
Revolutions that begin in ****** bars in the suburbs, continued into parking lots, to the front seats of cars, culminating in bedrooms the way all things do,
Fragments of lost phone numbers and sunrises on the highway, crash into me, break all my teeth, show my face to the world,
Just make sure I can still stand come morning, all tomorrow's parties won't wait for me or anybody else
And don't let me forget this, no matter how much I beg

In the mythology we will one day weave of our lives, every night is either fable or cautionary tale
We trade stories of war across tables separated only by black coffee and the depth of understanding,
In a Waffle House in Florence, or in Clifton, or off the last exit we can bear to see because we can no longer take the motion and need a moment to rest, to breathe,
We talk, as if we are each others children, starry eyed and open mouthed to let all the possibilities sit on our tongues, wait, and then dissolve into dreams,
We all have different definitions of what it means to fight, but we appreciate others scars once they are made visible,
Like the night they took Jake to the psych ward, his heart a scientist burning  hypotheses in the street while Jess wiped tears and ashes from her face and resolved to battle this thing to the death,
Or the early morning we drove Sierra to Indianapolis, and we turned the radio in the old jeep up as loud as the one blown speaker would allow and tried to sing our way out from under the burden we carried to that dying city,
Or the night Jennifer's brother put a dent in my car and I drove my fist into a wall, again and again, trying to beat an answer out of it for why the summer had gone and left us ghosts in the dawn,
I am as of yet unsure what this tapestry will look like when it is completed,
I promise a great deal, but I wouldn't dare bet on destiny
All I can be sure of, is that at the end of any highway,
There is a Waffle House,
And there will always be those,
With poet souls and hungry mouths waiting,
To turn something ordinary in to legend

Cheek to cheek
Ear to ear
Fake this smile
Hide my fear

Behind a mask
Of non-revealing
Lies a tomb
Of buried feeling

Deep within
A rotten core
The good has died
There is no more

All that's left
Is pain remaining
Hidden by
The joy I'm feigning

Empty, hopeless
Gaping hole
Wretched, worthless
Blackened soul

Longing for
Illumination
Falling for
The Dark's temptation

Mitigate
My need to die
Perpetuate
Contention's lie

Forget my face
End this charade
Remove this guise
I have portrayed

Hayley Fienne scattered herself a year ago today. A hammer. A trigger. I sent flowers to a funeral home in Chandler, OK. I called. Said, "I can't imagine what you are going through" and something about how time turns the past into a form of fiction. DeLillo wrote that, I think.

Her mom said, "That's not true. That's not true."

And I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't known Hayley like I knew Hayley. She used to do these oil paintings on the nights she knew she wasn't going to class in the morning. I've a layman's knowledge of visual art but even I could tell her work was real. As opposed to what? I don't know. You just felt it. It kicked you in the gut, left you spinning around the room, asking every ******* in tweed, "Can I get some water?"

There was one large canvas in particular that stuck out. She called it "Dissolution."

The work depicted a seemingly amorphous spiral of headlight blues and star whites against the murky black of space. In the dead center of the piece she painted the face of a young man, broken into quadrants. The face was nothing more than a faint veil. If you scanned the canvas, you'd miss it.

When she showed the piece at a gallery event, featuring the work of outgoing seniors, I asked her who the man was.

"It's Jesus."

"You gave him a shave."

"It's actual Jesus. It's 'I'm thinking of converting to Buddhism' Jesus. It's lonely, masturbatory Jesus. It's the Jesus who stares at a ceiling fan wondering why Peter won't text him back," she said. "And above all, it's the Jesus God asks a little too much of, the Jesus that calls in sick."

I said I was unaware such a Jesus existed.

"Exists. Dealing with impossible quotas, he has to shave."

"I think your Jesus looks like you."

"He is."



Now it's a year later. I find comfort in the painting, allowing the erratic brush strokes, both fleeing and advancing, to lull me to--what? Just lull, I grant, aimless and asking answerless questions.

I think about her at the end, at her end-- but not the violence of it all. No, I think of the release.

No intended romance. I simply wonder how she would have wanted that final let-go in life's calendar marked by letting-goes to wrap. I imagine her body separating from her mind, her mind separating from her memories, her memories separating from her name. I think of her matter fractured and dispersed, directed where the universe, in its imperialistic expanse, requires.

I call her mom. Say, "I can't believe it's been a year" and something about how outer space makes me think of Hayley.

Her mom says, "I don't understand."



After I hang up I look at the painting. I look at Hayley's Jesus. And I think in memories, memories that may or may not have happened, I think of them in my chest--not my head. I think about mercy. I think about the infinite. And is there a place where they intersect?

My search for God has not led me far,
just into a bed with a man
Who spoke from scripture.

His holy spirit spat at me,
taking advantage to persecute my ignorance.
I thought God was there, his name came up,
The man believed, I am certain of this.

I spent small moments sitting in pews, listening,
Watching the moment of transfiguration.
A glistening, a subtle odor of Christ, I swear.

Wanting to believe so I might receive the sacraments,
Baptism, Holy Communion, Marriage.
I walked near, then turned down a stumbling road,
Never finishing, never marrying.

Still walking to God, in search of God,
Wanting to find him holding
A palm leaf, an olive branch, and a man.

Still walking, I'll plan a pilgrimage,
walk to a monastery,
Eat dry bread dipped in hot salted broth,
Walk until my soles tear,
My clothes dissolve into rags.

Walking,
I will walk to God
Until the end,
Even if a man denies my effort,
My head is down.

the church pew thrasher
I'm stuck somewhere between what they say and what they do
communion cups and inner church affairs
painted faces and sanctified stairs
and though I once was blind I now can never unsee
this place has been a heaven for the rivers of hell that abides in in me
and I crossed all of my fingers
knocked my white knuckles on those pews of holy wood
but I found all was lost that kept me young, kind, and good
I learned quick that things never turn out just like they should
and still I cling to hands raised and a few honest bars
the musing of the man on the microphone and my quiet life on mars
If there were any walls they met my fists
if there were any rough edges they all met my wrists
drunk on the blood of my saviors fallen from grace
unable to understand but still a need to see the savior's face
there is no other explanation
there is no other reason

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

and I'll never understand how much death I lived through
in a place that boasted life for the pure, holy and true
milk and honey met blood and abomination
innocent eyes and tiny hands lead to the greatest devastation
the betrayal of trust
the bread and the cup tarnished with rust
I'll never understand
but still I reach for the Hand

If there were any walls they met my fists
if there were any rough edges they all met my wrists
drunk on the blood of my saviors fallen from grace
unable to understand but still a want to see the savior's face
there is no other explanation
there is no other reason

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

So I sing to the kid in me that never grew up
the once who's still tripping under the weight of that cup
be still
be still
be still
it was never his will
be still
be still
be still
it isn't your fault, it isn't your crime
don't let it consume you
don't let it poison your mind
just
be still

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

Once it was strong and full of life
Now it's a mismash of signs and rails
Place of the working man and his wife
Abandoned wood and left over tales
Now its dead with a forgotten past
Deserted on the beach as the birds fly
They soar upwards wild and fast
Up and up into the sun drenched sky
The wood is rotten and the metal rust
Waves swim through legs that are dead
A decaying image of grime and dust
As it eerily hangs out over the sea bed
I see the people take their snaps
Wondering how it might have been
For a minute of two longer perhaps
When it was alive, when it was clean
The beach is deserted apart from a few
Wandering in a sweet summers sun
Shame they can't enjoy it too
The pier that once breathed out fun
Where's the money, where's the care
Why has it been left to go
People loved to walk along there
To see the cabaret or the puppet show

When you write a poem
What do you tell them?
Are you honest with them?
Do you tell them that you believe in God
That, though you are not Catholic, you believe in holy saints in plain clothes
Saints that don't know they are saints
No one can tell until they speak holy words of compassion
Do you tell them you think there is a bigger plan?
A greater purpose outside of passing off genetic material to another generation
Would they ask you what it means to you when someone says born again?
Would you tell them that you feel born again most Sundays but let yourself slip back into comfortable death the next morning?
Do you tell them about your job?
(Do they care?)
Do you tell them about your dreams?
(Do they listen to that either?)
Do you tell them that lately your dreams have been faint and you are afraid that one day you are going to wake up and not recognize the pieces that are left on the floor?
Do you tell them when you are down and out?
That you prefer using the term "melancholy"
Because it sounds a lot more artistic than "like ****"
Do you tell them that you think you sometimes swear a little too much?
That it makes you seem unapproachable
Do you tell them about your struggle to decide whether or not you want to make yourself approachable for love?
Do you tell them that maybe you saying "I don't have the energy to invest in a relationship" also means "I don't have the energy to invest in a heartbreak"
Do you tell them you have never been that great at love and you are afraid you missed every chance you had
Do you tell them you would rather dig the world
(As your heroes say)
Do you ask them if you talk about your heroes too much?
Do you tell them about the tears shed for Johnny Cash that night after you finished his memoir?
Do you tell them where you where when you heard the news of Pete Seeger's death and wished you would have learned it later?
Do you tell them about all the times you look in the mirror and tell yourself "Joe Strummer lived with such power that his heart gave out, how dare you be so apathetic, with such self pity"
Do you tell them that you love them?
Even if you don't know them that well and don't understand exactly what they are going through
That deep deep down you do secretly understand
What should you tell them when you write your poems?
You should tell them that