Catalina headlights crawl up the wall. You lay in bed as
Momma and her new boyfriend spill drinks on the table, Slurring of love on Sunday. I watch for headlights sliding up the street. Probably to one of
The ***** bars with the watered down 7's and no
Luck at all, and bad breaks,
Strung out sad lunches
And a whole lot of lurching
At the moon.
Down by the bog with
With willow the wisp
And old black men with half pints of whiskey fishing
Carp from the ***** river.
And I mix concoctions, libations thrown to the sun,
Blind reasons cast to the moon. As I fill these memories to a bitter cup
Filled with clown tears and
Black roots of beggars and bums.
An effigy dug to the dirt.
While you dream of painted sails and sunshine buried
Beneath the rails.
Pink moon, pink moon,
What harbinger you bring me? Dead leaves and Black beetle dirt beneath your
Pinkish light.
As I cinch my my tall boots
For a walk in the muck.
I've got to scream yet I have no mouth. Though I can't let on, it may take me to darker water, As my mind turms
To gray cinema, Shadows and streets wet in the rain.
And I worry for a moment
Of waking on the sun,
As black clouds lead you deeper in movie,
Where Starlets sail off the canyons to the California surf
As I lie on broken bedsprings
And ruminant in saucer shaped thoughts spinning
Into orbits and Black hole stars.
A thousand lights on the river, These bright and
Dark sun devils spin
The stratosphere.
Waking to shadow,
The headlights run up the wall, I follow them
To the top of the ceiling.

Never mind the silence,
Bring on The *** Pistols
With they're vitriol
And jugular vein jutting
Out when they sing
Probably spitting on the first row.
The chicks dig when the singer's spit on them.
They get quite emotional with fake anger and wild gyrations.
Captivating they're audience.
But I want to know is
When are you finished,
We got a V.A. function going on tomorrow,
And by God I see one of your band members passed out in the front with the paying customers. And your CD not selling at the door and please clean up the puke when you leave.

A silence consumes the cold depth of winter,
I wonder will death be as silent as dusk?
A cold room unlit in shadow,
Winter holds with it the small death of loss.
The cold snow comes taking birds with it,
Finchs and sparrows netted in branches,
Worry the hawks ravaging claw.
In dusk I leave no trace of shadow before me,
My spirit gone to wind by dawn.

Watch the wheels and whirs,
Long welts lines like lupus.
My God Man, I'm responsible for this mess.

I thought I'd vacuum to pass the time.
Must not have heard the phone.
My tried and true,
Welcome to the desert.

Lets get started.

The first thing you'll need
Is a well-honed upper body.
Or a shirt.
Do I **** the ending?

The familiar phrase ran up the jaded alley.
Who do you think settled the valley?
The lazy bees outside the window?

The futile logic of the exercise?

Waiting on the circadian rhythm,
Millions of years in the making.
Old Ted Kennedy died this week,
Made me what to play a dirge
To The Three Kings.

I fear the new ones ain't as friendly.
Brandishing sticks instead of branches.
Blessed be the Peacemakers,
They will be called the Children of God.

I got your back, what'd say?
I brought it chapter and verse.
The peace frog forming in
the midst
This strange August.

Switching the jeans for basic black
How urbane the lesson.
I should have turned on Randolph,
Had to wait for Ohio,
Turning on Rush to the buzzed suit
Crossing against traffic.
Two on the way, one on the way back,
Looking for the self-park.

Splendid Desolation,
Daddy done drug up the rear
Its like this from here on out.
Nothing but green along Michigan,
A right on Congress,
Two on the way,
One for the way back.
See the Glory of The Royal Scam.
                    *
         Sep 03 2009
   (For Walter Becker)

Trundling a shadowed vale
To a low stone wall
Along a sloping ridge
An Old Yankee farmer
Tended his field til he died.
Slowly overtaken by time and the wild boom of flower
The stone wall crumbles
Silent as dry passing wind.
But for the sound of a river
Washing stones
Whispering we were never really here

The insects rise with the night,
Outside, you walk the dog,

A little poodle
That hates your guts.

It snarls and snaps at you
Every chance it gets,

The little ankle biter.

But that's been your lot in life
In life,

Remembering things
From way back when.

The lesser moments
Come back the most,

It's then I embrace
All the moments.

All the moments
Leading me

To the place outside,

Where the insects
Rise with the night,

As symphonies
Smash through my head,

The oboes and cellos
Rise with the insects.

I switch off the music,
Feel the blind silence,

I strip naked,
Night ticks

In the quiet
Of clocks,

Movements of hands,
I breathe,

The end.

The rage of the lion
The dream of the lamb,
As symphonies crescendo,
And sun's blaze in ruin,
As engines sputter,
And semi's jacknife.
I am a lion among the leaves,
I am a shadow upon the ground,
As the dark machine rattles,
And broken gears grind,
And the stricken sparrow
Falls from the sky.
I'm a pale horse rising
Over the last broken hill.
And beauty is a bug
In broken roots.
And war's the final insult,
And truth it's first casualty.
And laughter God's response
To a flame of sorrow.
As I walk in solitude
Of a world Sheltered in place.
As stores lay shuttered,
And fear lines alleys,
As broken glass
Sings as stars,
And the gutter and sky
Are equal,
And the ration
Of food our portion.
And the media
Is our Bible,
And walk in suspicion
Of the sun,
And walk in suspicion
Of each other.
And question the dust,
And ask the wind,
And pore you this solace
From a broken cup.

I watch the harried blonde
Searching her car,
Opening the trunk,
Closing, getting in her *****
91 Lebaron, missing a hubcap
She drives around the corner,
Turns back down the street,
Stops, opens her door,
All legs and ***,
Slower this time.
I'm drawn to
Her pale skin,
The curve of leg,
I'm a well worn soldier,
Looking in the heart
Of darkness, Or I'm a poet
Caught up in lust.
Either way, I look up
The lane for the harried blonde with the curve
Of leg. I breath in the moment,the time invisible,
The movement of dust
Lifts sunlight through the air,
Through the cheap window,
The bowed frame,
Yet it danced around her
Like sun's in their brilliance,
And she was lit,
And I was red, and dust
Filled the space with light,
Swirling and blue,
Shimmering and red,
And I loved her essence,
Blue smoke,
Blue flame,
Sun blazing,
Motes and darkness
Filled with light,
Blue dust all around her.

I long the long sleep,
I walk the plank of shadows,
I give over
To the
Hum
Of televisions,
Cars, shouts,
Bright music
In town squares,
The drip of trees,
I ask the moving wind,
But he tells me no name
But mine.
I say my name is Nothing.
He replies in kind.
I forget myself
At this point,
Move into another
Wavering line-
This expedient,
This concurrent beast,
This dissolvable nightmare,
This summation of bones,
This heart shaped ******,
This magpie luncheon,
Dark winds of disorder
Whirl elliptical orbits,
They are what you are not.
This that turns in silence,
Giving little,
Asking less,
Yet fills hollow spaces.
Its all the realm,
This atonal search,
For coats on rusted hangers,
Dead Aunts smothered on perfume,
These red horses,
Charging up hills of desolation.
I am a shadow turning away,
I'm an orange rotting in the sun,
I'm a broken wheel in the moonlight,
I'm the jagged glass cutting your finger,
I am a nightmare you cannot wake from,
I am a lapse of memory,
The wreak on the highway,
The footsteps behind you,
The second nail in the coffin,
The symphony of glass and wire,
I can't extract myself from this.
I am barely breathing.
I've lost my shadow to the sun.
All I can do is shut down the switches,
I am not the house you live in.
But I am the color
Dripping through the spaces you cannot name.
I am wanton and I am lust,
A beggars bowl and a soup kitchen,
And violins sound like bees,
And the leaves a choir,
And pride comes before the fall

Its little, then less.
I thought I saw them through the screen, Out in the desert
With the Gila Monsters,
I should have brought my scabbard, but I brought
Jello instead. Better than
Maxing out your credit card
At the door, Then having
To ride the El back through
Bucktown to Lorgan Square.
Better to smoke out on the veranda,Ponder the winter
Moon flush full,
Cold in absolute north.
Better the ski lift to nowhere
In your mind, then the low ride to the bottom of the stairs. Almost post time
In the 9th race full
Of nags and nobodys.
Could have banked this ending to the trash heap
Of fine art.
I should have saw this coming, This blind swoon
In the dirt, kicking
Dust all around.
Sorry about your Pay Per View,
Left in lurching in the mud.
Said you lost the thread
Of it. Well I said the same
Some months back,
Now I only watch reruns
Of Wagon Train.
I didn't say it was good.
Hell, I didn't say it was
Anything at all.
I could have joined the
Union with my brother,
Stamping out uniforms for Confederates who still wear them. Instead the sell instant
Cameras to anyone who's looking.

The wind turns northeast
The first October day,
When a squall
Blows down Erie,
Battering boats
And belting cars,
Blowing umbrellas inside out
With wind lifting skirts
As too busy people
Rush along Jackson
To whistles and hustlers
And high Commerce.
I perch like a principality
In the long avenue
Falling in shadow
From the 59th floor.
The rain blows sideways,
The lake disappears
In a wall of gray.
I'm a cat licking it's claws.
I wonder of the frivolity
Of everything else.

(A true poem of teen angst)

It's not lunch, it's my life,
Some pointed remark
In front of a friend,
And it stuck in me,
And my friend said
"Dude, what's your Ma's Problem" and I said"Me".
And he said it was weird,
And I agreed.
And I was a captive stranger
In the middle of this saga.
It was terse, this flimsy repose in this farse.
And my Dad rode her train,
And most times I got
The stiff rebuttal.
And I was 16,
And it sounded blase' to me.
But I didn't know **** either.
Mostly listen to Hendrix,
Get ****** before school,
While inside it wasn't
Like that at all.

It was more a reflection,
A stirring in a pool,
Light along the edge of waking.
Definitely Fringe Dude,
Get off the couch Son,
That's reserved for the
Big Shot of the family.

Light burning dark and glowing through my window,
I'd crawl out To the night,
Looking for love slipping away. And the rock n roll
Spiking my head.
And I'm smoking
And I'm holding.
And I'm a punk
And I know it.
And I'd slide out the door
With the LOOK from her,
And what I'd find was mostly
An even keel Of boredom,
A little pick up ball,
Maybe a joint down The woods.
Mostly stupid ****
Until I met Cathy,

And the levels changed
Red to blue.
And the feel of her skin,
Shadow and smell
Along a river of love.
500 miles long
Cresting to an Ocean.
And the Ocean Boomed,
And the crest rose
Crashing to the rocks,

And I wake to shiny pebbles
In glittering moonlight,
I'm naked and wet.
I move toward moonlight,
Following the sound,
Night opens like a flower.

Sweet gutter flower,
Blue petals above the grate,
So much beauty
In a world gone wrong.
O tepid Intelligentsia,
Vapid friend of misconception,
Rooted in all we see.
Cornflower in the grate,
Blue in the sun,
I face it's singleness,
Pure in a way we can
Never be. A blessing
In which I'm not worthy,
Yet I take anyway.
On a night when truth
Seems fleeting,
A dream at the edge of waking, I can feel
The question forming,
And the answer So far away.

Blurring the pages,
I never know where to begin.
I mean its all a process,
Lax,I'll say, not like Philly Steaks under a crimson moon
Only Cessnas hovering the airport. 5 years down the pipe, What's to show?
As the wit runs dry,
And it all feels so fake.

Its all readily super imposed,
Like the steel chips I dig
From my work boots.
Saul sold his eyesight
For a broken figure raised
To Light.
And I ponder it's meaning.
Well, I guess its all 8's
From here on out.
What a sleek subterfuge-
And I lost my train of thought.

Dreams of tavern hell,
Then you wake me once more to sweet lamplight.
There's only two ways
Out of here:
One requires gasoline,
The other skilled dexterity.
Wait for further instructions.
Perchance to dream,
She walks as a thousand moons. Where turning away
She turns toward Kodachrome. So elusive,
I mean deep in the *****,
Where they go loop de loop
All night long.
And it's so callously dropped
On this ludicrous calibration
So out of square, going nowhere
In a hurry.
You said you saw it coming.
I did too.
Not that you would care.
I did so once.

Shadow, Shadow upon my door,
What wake you bring of Evermore?
Raven,Raven, at my screen,
What tale of blood you bring?
Flesh, Flesh you curse and rhyme,
What dark clock you chime?
A graven image,
I do suspect,
A word of sorrow,
A thought neglect.
You tear and smear and pull asunder,
O what dark garden do you plunder?
You live of ash and beetle root,
And dry blood speckles
Your black suit.
You speak of death and call a ruin,
A harbinger of of malice you bring soon.
Your pale moon, your bloodless friend,
O what dark curse you descend?
You call a fate, a rusted loom,
And weave a madness I must presume.
I call, I lie, I leave a doubt,
What shall I clamor and shout about?
What tale of folly, what madness you bring,
Dead hauntings of silent spring.
In halls, In halls, I do beseech
You mock and scorn and wave and preach,
Of God's loving promise do you breach.
And footfalls, footfalls, a graven ground,
A whispered knock,an awful sound,
A dank body upon a mound,
This mound, this mound
Of mournful dirt,
A red lie, an evil smirk.
You clash and clang,
A mindless cymbal,
And fill darks cups, a ****** thimble,
You prance and wave,
You are so nimble,
You are a bug, an evil symbol,
While your odor lies
A ****** musk,
Is but a folly, a stab, a ******.
You chime the hour,
The Evening Laud,
A death mask, a witch, a fraud.
O shall I haunt and weep amok,
You are a raven, what a horror you cluck.
What stately ruin lies for me
No dark wonder of serendipity.
Shadow Bleeder, killer of dreams,
My throat be closed, a silent scream.
I shall beseech your waking hour,
I see your scrim, your blackened tower.
I see you ply this broken vase
This weeping lie, this false embrace.
How shall I sleep, how shall I tire,
This one last night, this one last hour.

The specter resides in ghost light,
A tree, a dark wind.
I saw her,My Love, My Ghost Light.
I saw her,
Over the rise of trees,
Her laughter,
I knew then the turning inward, The backing
Of the rusty ***** from the hinge.
A slapping, a screen door broken,
As the wind turns East,
Carrying you with it.

Jewel pink pony
Frozen in your scream,
Studded blue carnival Adornments, Your muted
Agony goes in forever,
Only to move in circles,
      Endless circles,
While your painted eye Stares into the blindness
Of the sun.

Chrysanthemums chatter
To a blind moon lisping
Over a city where
Junkies and lovers
Embrace they're torn Heartbeats to a night
Devoid of stars.

Is it possible
For your virginity
To grow back?
                      (yes maybe)

It it possible
To live in the past
And dream of the future?
                     ( roll again)

Is it possible
To lose yourself
Yet find yourself again?
            (anything's possible)

Is it possible
To be so full of ****
And not know it?
                  (ask later)  
                        

I crawled into the belly of the beast,
It smelled of beer and *******.
It was as empty as a billion dead suns,
Hell between the tavern walls.
Sleeping off the new job at the cleaners, or the road crew, or the factory,
Whoever was hiring.
Happy to see your sorry *** go.
Picking your friends as you picked them clean,
Or they used you,
And you all went down together.
And you meant to shine like the stars,
But you spaced out to Pink Floyd instead.
Coke and voices and beer on the table,
You rode to the sun and shivered on the moon.
The glint of the mirror, coke on the table,
And everyone babbling at once.
And the coke runs out and you look like hell,
And someone cuts you a line And your somebody again.
Opening a beer in a cheap motel,
You come down as the day comes up.
And you dare not look at yourself in the mirror.
You smell like hell and your three quarters there.
You walk out the ***** motel
And the blind eye of the sun
Draws you back inside,
Back into the belly of the beast.

Nothing left,
Spilling over into the tank,
Running on fumes since Denver.
Man, I figure it's a trick,
Some play off the light,
Like sunrays blurring off an eyelash.
And I pass endless cornfields,
Lost in the Holy Bliss of isolation, Not even a woman
Can take that from you.

None taken,
I'll let you off by the Junction,
Down by the hallows
The poor region,
Where nothin good happens for lifetimes. Thinking of
Redemption and Original Sin,
The even draw that turns
Men Saint or Sinner
Since way back when.
While Sunday evening darkens quicker in late summer. Before the
North wind rustles the dry cornstalks.

Out here, it's only crickets
And a man's thoughts.
While I dream of warm woman, all leg and blue smoke,
And the cool wind carries
The harbinger of night.
A lone set of headlights
Sweep up the highway.
And the cornstalks whisper,
Calling out a dry fate
You'd rather not hear.

And it switched my man,
Ain't one found of his bones
Creaking in the closet
                         Upstairs,
With the bare bulbs and spiders crawling the dust
Of the night show
                     *

1965- you're the protagonist with your analyst at 280 an hour,
50 minutes on the shrink watch.
Staring in the oblivion of Tuesday.
                      *
And you remember 1942, and your ****** and your scared,
And you hide in the ***** dens.
You don't smoke it, you just low,
Knowing the hopheads won't hurt you.
And the old man can't find you here.
You wait for him to leave for work.
Because you wanted to **** him.
And you swore he'd answer for those moments.

This silent pen,
This flowing aromatic
This spare confessional,
This alchemy of light.

And you light a cigarette,
Prowl the room like a leopard.
And the trains run east to west,
And somehow this comforts you
On the way to your other gig.
And the sun roars against the window,
Your face,
Gliding up the road.
And you think of Yeats,
Shelly, the Shaw Of Iran,
Perestroika, Persian rugs,
Brahms And bikinis,
And you know your friends,
Watch your enemies,
Keep a checklist,
Forget the checklist
As the woman with the legs
Crosses against the light.

And the lights come up,
The movie's ended.
The streetlights shine in the mist.
You walk to your car,
And rain dots the windshield
As cars hiss up the street.

I have broken cups to bring to the rummage sale,
They come cheap off the highway.
Their chipped and worn clear through
Like the thin veneer I wear.
But their good for holding it all in.
I've dug holes filled with regret,
Misunderstanding,
All those sorry trips.
Soon it fades like a slippery dream.
Never blinking back the oncoming darkness.
Fathoming this wake
In the last of the flood.

Fill They may, fill the fulcrum,
Fill the feather dream.
And my bane is my doom,
And my dream is the desert,
And the horses blaze beyond
El Dorado,
13 months revolve in the moment,
And the moment is calculated
In that thereof.
As bees circle flowers
Erupting the earth,
I fall into a new type
Of madness,
Drawn in spires and suns
And dark whirring clock towers.
Ghost ships in fog dream the doldrums,
They creak and yaw
Their dead sailors inside.
And the moon never shines
In the blackness of noon.
Corolla, Corolla,
What do you bring?
Candy dirt, black lillies
And bugs in the sun,
A relish, a treat for boweevles to sup.
A stir of leaves,
A wish of wind,
One house below,
One house above.
What dark matter,
What sensuous core,
Red dreams of roses
Spread on the floor.
Alone at last, my name the dust,
I construct this tower,
A tower of rust.
Here I burrow among
The twigs,
A being asleep in the fulcrum of dusk.

Jewel pink pony
Frozen in your scream
Studded blue carnival Adornments,
Your muted agony
Goes on forever
Only to move in circles
     Endless circles,
While your painted eye
Stares into the blindness
Of the sun.

The insects rise with night,
Outside, you walk the dog,

A little poodle
That hates your guts.

It snarls and snaps at you
Every chance it gets.

The little ankle biter.

But that's been you lot
In life,

Remembering things
From way back when.

The least moments
Come back the most.

It's then I embrace
All the moments,

All of them
Lead me

To a place outside,

Where the insects
Rise with the night,

And symphonies
Smash through my brain.

The oboes and cello
Rise with the insects.

I switch of the music,
Feel the blind silence,

I strip naked,
Night ticks

In the quiet
Of clocks.

Movements of hands,
I breath,

The end.

Now splashing through fire,
Now burning in water,
Night all drunk up and moonlit.
Now I'm insane and stare at wallpaper
The way one looks at a Piccaso.
And the worms sing my bones.
Birds fly fire roses open like smoke,
And words thread hot needles like wire.
I pray for California,
I pray for rain,
I pray a quick death
As a spider crawls up the wall.
And all the tunnels go down in the dark,
As we go down in the dark.
And I ask for a cup of myrrh,
And I'm handed a snake instead.
I dream like London
And blue carbon gas.
I float through alleyways of wine soaked fights.
Ravens cluck the hour,
The bottom of my soles.
Jesus sleeps in Nebraska tonight.
Adam and I both fall to dust.
There's a stone in my heart,
A fly in a frenzy
There's Tulsa and crab cakes
And 3 for a dollar,
And something for the little lady.
Watch a drunk slam into 7 parked cars
As the world go as mad as a roach.
While old St Benedect dreams in his shoes of endless
Bikinis and bottles of beer.
And my bottle goes Blam,
And I pick up another,
And I go with it.
My mind is a symphony now
Of wire and spit spray
And I go with it,
I go with it,
Into it now, Into the terror,
Roaring, Roaring, Roaring.

My, what a radish rose,
I must say.
I'll trade in Poe for this Zen.
I imagine it's all zithers
And strings.
I'll play you a melody
On my lute,
Most minors and fifths.
I can't explain the number
Or pattern,
Bells or Pennywhistles,
What can I say,
Losing 17 seconds on the reentry. Where the grainy
Black and write
Finally wears you out
While I wait on 65.
What a pleasure
As half the family dies off.
And what, with no kids and all.
And it all goes 180,
Even if you find a woman
To go Karma Sutra,
Its too little too late.
I'll cartoon this ending.
All blue and humming.
And hey, What's a guy
Gotta do to get a drink
Around here anyway?

Aurora, leave the crystal
Beneath the leaven bread.
Shine the last light on the
Tabernacle rising in the desert as the blood red sun
Lays darkening shadows
Upon the wall.
3000 birds rise with night,

I lift among them,
I am among the stars.
Aurora, I love your countenance spilling across the stars,
As we lapse into pink clouds
Rising in the East.

I lift the Chalice to the sky.
I follow the river rising,
Silken, it shines darkly
Among the ruins.
The river is the water and the way.
I run with it faster, faster,
I rise above it, among them.

Aurora, I see you in the granary, Rising with the barn swallow. The white sunlight
Lifting wheat and chaff,
Catching the sun between the slats.
Aurora, take me with you
To the place I cannot go,
The place behind the sun,
              The moon, The stars.

I don't like it,
I don't like it a bit,
The way night sneaks up on you as you have your back
To the threshing floor.

I've studied the tapestry,
The patterns draw in blood,
You stand back
Ponder its meaning,
It's diminishing shadow
Brushed on the floor.
You know It can get worse,
It usually does.
Yet you rise like a broken bird, Reaching for the sky.

Welcome to our show:
We have dyslexic jugglers,
**** retentive housewives,
Over retentive fathers,
The dark smiling stranger
Holding eyes of silver
In his sleek fingers.

You wake In this haze
Of a blue room,
The bebop tapping of raindrops running down the window. I look out,
A lion upon the night,
Running the veldt,
Feeling the power surging inside, running the page.
I eat it it up,
Filling the white noise
With sound and fury.

Its not exactly philosophy,
Just better than the low down
Fuckery that passes
As a way to live.
Underneath, the gears get out
Of alignment, as all the underlying muck gets
Brought to the surface.
And big events turn in small
Hinges, every now and again
Something works lose from
The fabric tying it all together.
Put on the flood boots,
Get ready for the **** storm,
Lay up and lay low,
As it builds out at sea.

Yet this roadside excursion
Draws long shadows.
Seeing her face at that angle,
Her aqualine figure,
I lied beside her,
I felt like a hoodlum,
I was a hoodlum,
Not of theft or drugs or violence,
But a thief of days.
I stole them from us both,
Never sure who I sold them to. But trying to buy them back in the end.

Burning with what's left,
******* every moment
Like a pimento.
You run, a lion through the
Veldt, as the words
Come rushing from the pen.

Ain't this the s*!t.
Burning reruns come Sunday
Better round out the order
Of sad days and glad rags.
****** Tonk dreams
Busted down in doldrums.
Zithers and atonal strings.
And here I am.
More auto focus tied to repeats, said contract
Available upon request.
Such vegetable starlight,
Passing on the false bravado,
Burning out the backside,
Ready to blow out the wick,
Ready for one more lap
Around the track.
I've got a silhouette to write
Out the business end
Of this badass pencil.
And I'm spitting hellcat North,
Crunching these work boots
Worn in the heels.
Each day a death,
But one at a time.
I light 'em up, hope they don't
Fizzle out halfway down the line. Its all suffragette,
And it out poops Dresden
On a black night of bombing.

Moving away from center,
You spy an ending to this letdown. O well, what did
You expect? High priced
Prose from some well heeled snob? But I've got alot of
Postage stamps. I'll send
This drivel to anyone who has a pulse.
See, I've got to shut it down.
I don't need the neighbors yapping after ten. As you see,
I've got one foot tripping
Over the other.
And sometimes Sunday slaps
Me back to coherency.
As I dream of a sojourn back
To the seventies.
Now I see it so darkly,
As I try to shed some light
On this dark matter moving
Elusively through the microscope. If you find
This terse drama enchanting,
I'll send you these sad remains of this little endeavor gone to wind
By morning.

You find a shinny penny
In the alleyway with the
Broken light. You swing
The blinds back,
Picking up the parking lot in all it's glory.
Inept, disheveled,
He can barely find his way home, Until an Angel
Picks him up, brushes him off, Drops him off safe and sound.
Leaves without a trumpet,
Says something to the wind
He hears only in a dream.

I spray saline in my nose,
Calamine on my foot,
While I fumble for words,
And the window's stained with seven years of cigarette
Smoke.

And you wonder if it's all
An experience?
Pinache and Chinese mustard
On the rug.
Its all so transcendental,
Reality in all it's vibrant montony. As a lace curtain
Lifts without a care,
And I ponder for words in the night breeze.

And my third toe hurts,
And it matters little To the surroundings, Except for the
Slick salesman heading up the walk with his wares
And a shark tooth smile.
While I dream Mozart
In 3 stanzas.

As the neighbors begin arguing in Spanish,
And doors slam and Voices
In the street.
The moon sets to the west,
And my third toe still hurts,
And the ache reminds me to
Be still. And I sit listening
To Brahms, Breathing in the
Shadow you create,
And the silence of a refrigerator running, the
Settling of time in a hazy window On a Friday and my
Toe hurts as a car peels
From the lot, As I strain
On the 4th stanza.

And my 600 pound neighbor
Above me settles in for the night, And I wonder of
Load bearing floors,
And overcooked dinners,
And how did I ever survive
My misspent youth,
As I dream of new ways
To wax electric.
I've since sold the copyright,
Discussed over drinks
In the terrace...

And I wait on the words,
And the beer settles my toe,
And I wait on the words,
And at last they come-
But my pen's out of ink
And the pizza's done.
So I guess I'll listen to my Neighbors argue in Spanish instead.

First it's a fish,
Then it's a rock,
Then it's an island,
Then its a play
For all the neighbors to see.
Then it's ready for the plucking,
Then it goes down easy,
Then you know your ready.
I let in the sun,
It died in the lawn,
Then I drug it out
To the frozen ground.
First its a dog,
Then it's an elephant,
Then its a cobra
Asleep in the sun.
First it's a lesson,
This is the sum
Of every blazing summer
And every wicked winter,
A blue orb circling
The last lonely sun.
This is my weapon,
This is my tool,
This is the place
Where my Mother lies
And does not complain
Of wind or weather,
Or rain or sun
Or the change of season,
Or sun or moon or lack thereof.
Its a fact born of fiction,
The truth and the lie,
Its glass in the alley
And chains gone to rust.
It's the last dream of childhood,
A dream of witches,
And a dream of earth,
It's ice cream stands
And cold shakes,
Its a dream of my Father
In 1967,
Its downtown
And cops and taxis,
Whistles and buildings,
Ice and slush
And black and white
Photographs of sad smiling children.
It's a moonrise
Orange and ominous,
A double locked door
And voices in the hallway,
Police and sirens
And blood at the scene.
This is me on my deathbed,
This is you sleeping,
This is the hour
That becomes you,
The minute that
Becomes me,
This is the second we share.
This is time moving backward,
This is a speck
On the sun,
This is an island,
A rock,
A fish,
Nowhere,
Nothing.

See the sleeping dogs
And sea captains
With a pipe in the heavens
Out the back window
Of a 63 Oldsmobile,
As a storm front builds
Over the desert
On the drive back from Phoenix, As Grandma
Hums to the radio.
I watch horses jumping
Over pillows, Smiling
As their snouts draw
Into spinning wheels
Turning dark in the clouds
Building over the mountains

Dear Desire,
          Waiting on the muse,
Even money she shows.
I mean the more I want her,
The less likely she'll come.
She's probably at a gathering.
Perhaps some Uptown artist,
Turning clay into vision
Of a man's soul through his hands, while I wait like
Some **** fool
Who's the last to know.
Well, she phoned from the
Hills- I've got some food chilling,
She should never have promised. I could read it on her voice, saying a bad signal
A tenuous connection at best.
Tonight, soon I say to the empty reciever.
Ah- what are ya gunna do?
Cut off at the knees,
I prepare the meal.
I see black and white fencing
Blurring before the snow
On 45, an hour plus
Off the highway, before
I met the likes of her.
She said maybe,
I even brought chocolate.
I hear the silent hallway,
Listening for light movements, the sound of
Her keys in the door.
I dream she's here,
Stretching her legs as
She kicks off her shoes.
I look for the falling of pages,
Whisper the dreams of children,
Fall back to obscurity.
Another poet waiting for light in the lamp stand,
Shining across the wall
Deep into Sunday,
When its quiets,
In the first cool
At the end of summer.
And I'll keep the light on.
You can let yourself in.
Check the pilot on the stove,
Would you Sweet?
If not, see you Friday.
              Yours Affectionately,
                   Bubbles.

Leading the page like a drunken sailor, Dreaming
Of blue sea taking it all.
Washing to sea and sky.
Best sit up straight,
Buckle the gallows and eves,
Rushing this long song.
We have a thousand sunlit mornings, until one morning we don't. Our name tied to our toes. When the first blue day goes on with you.
Like a Saturday drunk on the avenue, stumbling through the thickets of his life: Perchance a gamble, A dream
Of Sunday asleep on the couch, while the world hums
All around you.
And it's become your scarlet letter, A threshold of sun and moon. Care for another? I've
Knocked myself silly on this one, What should I call you
When you come knocking?
cont. tommorow-

First it got real,
Then so deep I couldn't
Get out.
So I just hunker down.
Here comes the cold rain,
I'll walk the pond before
The storm,
Watch the windshield steam
Before breaking into sobs
In the lining of a dark coat,
Alone on a lunch break
In the same afternoons for months. How does one
Ponder such felicity?
Do I pander such sellout?
I think not.
Only the bird man,
Feeding the flock
One eye out for the hawk,
A Sage, and slightly mad,
Pondering the downside of
Everything else.
Who lost the sun one summer,
Down in the crucible
Waiting on the acid test,
Sure in its measure

Shadow, Shadow upon my door,
What wake you bring of Evermore?
Raven,Raven upon my screen,
What tale of blood you bring?
Flesh, Flesh you curse and rhyme,
What dark clock you chime,?
A graven image,
I do expect,
A word of sorrow,
A thought neglect.
You tear and smear and pull asunder,
O what dark garden do you plunder?
You live of ash and beetle root,
And dry blood speckles Your black suit,
You speak of death and call of ruin,
What harbinger of malice you bring soon,
You're pale moon,
You're bloodless friend,
O what curse you soon descend?
You call a fate, A rusted loom,
And weave this madness I must presume.
I call, I lie, I leave a doubt,
What shall I clamor and shout about?
What tale of folly,
What madness you bring,
Dead hauntings of silent spring.
In dark halls I do beseech,
You mock and scorn and wave and preach,
Of God's loving promise do you breach.
Footfalls, footfalls, of graven ground,
A clanging knock, an awful sound,
A dank body upon the ground,
This mound, this mound
Of mournful dirt,
Your ****** lie, your evil smirk.
You clash and clang,
A mindless cymbal,
You fill dark cups, a ****** thimble.
You prance and wave,
You are so nimble,
You are a bug, an evil symbol
What odor lies, A ****** musk,
It's but a folly, a stab, a ******
You chime the hour,
An Evening Laud,
You are a death mask,
A witch, a fraud.
O shall I haunt and weep amok,
You are a raven, what horror you cluck.
What stately ruin waits for me,
No shining hour, no serendipity.
Shadow Bleeder, killer of dreams,
My throat is closed,
A silent scream.
I shall beseech your waking hour,
And see your scrim,
Your blackened tower.
O how you ply this broken vase,
This weeping lie, this false embrace.
How shall I sleep,
How shall I tire,
This one last night,
This one last hour.?

I bury myself to this rusted root,
The sum of the sun and moon
And the synchronicity
Of car horns and bleeding streetlights.
And you *****,
And it gets no better.
And you **** down A celery stick,
And the cops turn down the street,
And I put on Coltrane,
Rue the Muse from his slumber.
I knock,
But not too hard,
Shuffles papers,
Invites me in.
The ancient fan whirs slowly,
And you reach
For a switch, you ***** blindly,
He leads you
To the place of water
Where fish cry,
And I drink in night,
And I take by no right
What is mine,
All this monochrome reflections,
As you dwell
On playwrights,
Editors,
Poets,
Symphonies,
A hulking Brahma
Raises on his quarters,
You steady him For the charge,
And he breaks the gate,
Terrorizing the clouds,
And he runs burning the sun
And your racing with fire,
And it's rawness burns your belly,
And he snorts the red dirt,
And your carried in his madness,
And his name is thunder,
And you Boom the heavens,
And you crash like an ocean,
And his madness is your own,
And I rise in the fury,
And I sleep in the pages,
And a rush of wind building,
Taking my words with them.

Spector, Sphere, haughty
Get togethers,
Passe receptors, holding twilight's canon to fraying
Possibility. Distant islands,
Dreams of dust, dirt and sand
Wind blown wandering,
Structures rotting in the sun,
Elusive direction,
Shapeless forms,
Dead ancestors,
Monsters hidden within the well.
Form, Formation, I draw
Nothing in the sand of time.
Only dead dreams, bad blood,
And family ties, broken
On the dark wheel
Of yesterday.