There is a
buzzing to my
busyness.
My mind refuses
to be at ease.
It happens when I
try to
read or sleep.

Doing Always.

Where did the
playground go?
I think it split for
Brazil with the
squirrels.
We are all nuts.

There is a beauty that
comes from walking a
clover laden field, or a
path in the woods and feeling
the autumn breeze and
smelling the wildflowers.
You are so alive.
There is an aching pain
as sharp and vivid as the
beauty, some knowledge in the
fiber of your spirit, that you
won't hold it forever.

Death walks with you silently.
It bides the times...so patient.

You are aware, so keen to
the fact that if you could
consume the beauty, the
honeysuckle, clover and brilliant
orange and pink of the sunset,
you might put death off for a while.
You do it in the heartbeat of your
sweet green youth, and you
keep walking, eyes wide open.

Listen here, miss crazy,
Every Breath I Take, my soul
screams, Don't Stand so Close
to Me.  I want to escape.
Maybe to an Island, where
the only contact with your
madness will be by a
Message in a Bottle.

So please, Roxanne, for the
last time, there was no
Synchronicity between us.
Haunt someone else with
your, Ghost in the Machine
the mumbo jumbo and your
Do Do Do, Da Da Da.
no longer works.

As a child, the backyard was
my sanctuary and my
playground.
I climbed the soft
pine tree and crawled to
the top of the garage.
I stood and gazed at all the
houses and streets.
I felt rich.

My mom had a brown
jewelry box shaped like
a treasure chest.
It reminded me of
pirates and adventure.
I filled it with
football cards
gum
candy bars
family pictures, and a few
coins.

I found a small shovel
and buried it in the
backyard close to the
pine tree.
I pretended to forget
where it was.
A week or so later, I
suggested to my best friend,
Wally, that we should
search my yard for buried treasure.

Of course, we found it.
I acted surprised.
We celebrated.
All these years later,
I realize that my treasure,
then and now, is imagination.
I'm a wealthy man.

We lived for the
next drink; the elixir to
erase the memories of
a thousand cruel dawns.
It took work when we
were broken and bedraggled.
Creativity and thirst drove
us through the day.

"Do you have anything to pawn?"

"Hey, why don't we stop by the
old carnival guy's place, he's
always good for a belt."

"Big Brenda will you give you a
10 spot to go down on her,
are you
up for it?"

The **** we did to stay liquid smooth.
We redeemed cans for nickels, It took
hundreds to get a bottle.
In and out of dumpsters filled with
the most vile trash imaginable.
Me and those aluminum cowboys,
knee-deep in the filth just to
get a drink.

Winter was bad, frostbitten hands and
hearts, but summer was worse.
Something about the way the sun
cooked the trash had a hellish putrid
effect on the soul.
That smell was the seed of my
sobriety.

Writing is my lighthouse when
I'm lost at sea in the
dark fog
among the sirens singing their
seductive songs.
It is my net
that catches fish to feed
me when I'm starving and afraid.
An albatross silently looms, while
waves swell and break against my
raft.

The kraken yawns and waits,
but the words and lines tow
me safely to shore.