He tells everyone his life is perfect.
Riding the gravy train.
On Easy Street.
Sleeping 16 hours a day.
On average.

a mute wednesday
reading Peter Orner
in the warm bed
curtains pulled open
everything out the window
morning already passed

stacks of refuse beside steel poles
bronze-legged girl walking close by
acid reflection within her green eyes
molten sun edged around thin white clouds
a smothering layer of heat upon her
her mind filled with dreams without dialogue
music shaped by melancholy concealed nearby
an expanse of fragility linked through the city
the sudden stir of tv voices as a door opens
light denied as dusty shutters descend into a void
the quick flare of food smells along the etched sidewalk
her stride unbroken as she slowly diminishes
another unemployed thursday afternoon upon the horizon

it is not the stars
but the spaces
between the stars
that matters,
the unaltered blackness
that draws in breath
on a frozen winter night
the accepting anxiety
of what remains unseen
between the orbs
of failing or dead light
their extinguished gases
someday arranging the night
into another vista
of unknowable darkness.

i have kept nothing
but the memories
of all the things
i haven't done

lights at length dull,
the power, perhaps low, failing,
someone coughing out of sight,
the mutterings of rolling leaves
a loneliness now commonplace,
a scrawny yellow cat rubbing
against your exposed calves
in this season of dying,
infertile shadows across the burn
of your wordless face
somehow endless in the advancing night,
your gentle hand suddenly within mine
all the pleasure I have ever known
through the birth of blossoming desire

all my hallucinations
have the mysterious
ring of truth to them

i hear nothing
over the roar
of intense silence

no words fill my mouth
or cross my naked tongue
weaving wiles upon my
                                            burnished lips;
no,
         i am not eyes seeking
         the unseen without the herald
         of fire or grace

i am more than the sum
of flesh with blood,
the bridge of thought

i shall traverse
the straits of morpheus,
the furrowed path to
the singularity
                            of doom,
alone,
            unbowed
                               and unburdened

I asked my younger self,
"Where am I?"
He shook his head,
sighed deep and loud,
then walked away.

It's an empty
Saturday night here,
light thrown off
pocked, wet streets
a lonely trembling blue,
the city seized
by shameful cold,
the visions of
my sorrowful heart
just languid dreams
falling farther behind.
I drive alone again
under the dwindling pour
of a thousand
hymnal arc lamps
while the radio
feeds me Coltrane,
fighting off a jagged
glow of electric sleep
while a perilous
night sky
releases snow
like a soft design.
Along the outskirts
of the city,
in the reflection
of my dim
upraised headlights,
I think I see,
in the ruptured
distance ahead,
factory ruins
that once spat
unending white hot
flames into the
night-in-day skies
like a chemical chimera,
their hulking remains
a metallic fossil
slowly falling apart
one deteriorating
bone at a time.
Growing weary
with every tire roll
I pull into
the decrepit
parking lot
of a diner
I've visited
many times
that prays time
has forgotten it.
It's the same
scene here
every time,
I think,  
as I pull open
the glass door
stained with faint
greasy hand prints,
glass ashtrays
on the counter
overflowing with
lipstick-kissed
cigarettes and
brown mugs
half-empty
with chilling coffee
as old women
with over-painted faces
push bland food
around on chipped
porcelain plates
and tired men
in red flannel
with dark-circled eyes
chew soft food
without teeth,
their humble lives
now forfeit
beneath the
cobwebbed fan's
irregular hum.
Only you,
by yourself
in the front
corner booth
sit uninvolved
with the tacit grief
of this melancholy place,
your flawless face
downcast into an
old library book,
your beauty
engaging those
around you
whose dreams
are filled
with loss.
Taking a routine
cheap order
from another
vague, rough face,
the coltish waitress,
gladly hiding behind
thick, dark glasses,
delivers up
the thrum of her
delicate heart
behind pearl
black eyes
as she delicately fills
my deep, empty cup
with steaming coffee
that tastes of
white noise.
Does all memory
finally bleed
through the boredom?
One final time
this unexpected night
my bloodshot eyes
circle the gray interior
of the diner,
finally settling
on you again
through the haze
of my own
broken down life
and I decide
to finally confess:
I will always love
whoever you are
for the gentle swell
you reached within
my burdensome heart
this typical night,
the world filled
with promises
but also all of us.

on the street corner
open a door
a window
step through

follow the music
the girl's
sultry voice
the thread
that winds
through us all

the solitude
of the nothingness
on the polished
metallic bench
and the sobering thought
no sounds to waste

it was the wrong rain,
the wrong kind of rain,
I was hoping for a deluge,
a cacophonous, overwhelming rain,
something to recall later,
"remember when he died?"
"oh man, the rain that day."

with little to do
i sat waiting to go

sleep
abstract enticement
                                    at mid-day
the crutch
                   holding up dreams
the sweet foment
                                of time
a quarter moon
                             distant and silent
                              ingesting twilight

sometimes at midnight
she would cook eggs,
strange to think now
how satisfying it was,
the aroma slowly circulating
through the sparse apartment,
our clothes greedily abandoned
hours earlier for ***
and then a warm bath,
candles our only light
in the self-imposed blackout,
the only sound remaining
between our whispered voices
the drip of the spigot
in the used-up kitchen,
our lithe bodies entwined again
but this time for sleep,
the remaining minutes left
for our diminishing breath
upon each other's flesh

the bus bears us away
with a chalky cough
and a quick stutter
the criss-crossed lines
we carelessly roll over
looped in the rearview mirror
like an endless movie matinee

outside the bedroom window
speckles of white clouds
upon the ending sky
the vanity of my blue eyes
along her dark naked flesh
the sounds of late summer echoing
through our candled rooms
the curtains parted
the air heavy with moisture
our clothes strewn about
the hardwood floor again
a sheen of sweat
traced upon our entwined bodies
our souls abraded with
the delirium of love

the endless,
sweetened by fire
and a mist of stars,
the collapse of fear
beyond a windowpane,
and the eternal loneliness
of a little voice
in the subterranean
of my staggered consciousness

It was only after Father left us
that we understood what he had never told us.