My heart beats wildly in my chest,
Danny seems unafraid, unfazed at
the thought of getting caught.

Snow crunches underfoot as we walk
toward the rusted hanging chain,
“do not enter” like a lone tooth
hung in the middle of a sinister smile.

The sky is clear with lots of stars,
my breath trails upward into
bare limbed trees…a breeze blows,  
frozen branches click and clack as
Danny moves quickly with the crowbar,

the chain is locked, but he doesn’t notice,
he slides the crowbar through the eye
of the large bolt and after 10 or 12 spins
the chain falls to the ground with the
padlock still attached.  

Jimmy drives the Impala across the chain
and Danny re-attaches the chain,
we all climb in and coast slowly from
the main road with only the Impala's
parking lights to lead the way.

We are headed into the deepest
part of the forest. It is after midnight
and we ride in silence, Jimmy driving,
Danny in front, Jeff and I in the back.  

After a few miles we begin to relax,
we are far enough from the main road
to avoid detection. The forest Rangers
never leave the main roads in February.

Danny pulls the tab on a can of warm
Old Style beer, takes a swig and sets it down.
He opens the glove box and pulls out
the water pipe, which I can smell immediately.

A sweetly pungent aroma, he pours
the remainder of the beer into the ****,
packs the bowl with some extra sticky hash,
and lights a flame…

        A little while later, 5 minutes?  2 hours?
        Jimmy laughs his shrieking high spirited
        girly girl laugh while re-telling the story
        of Steph vomiting in the back seat of
        his dad’s LTD, crushed red velvet seats
        smeared with Cheetohs and Boones Farm
        Tickle Pink, he told his dad he stopped
        to render aid to a dog who had been hit,
        and the dog died in the back seat while
        he was speeding to the animal hospital.

        “But why does it smell like ***** Jimmy?”
        His dad naively asked,

        “It must have been a homeless dog”
        Jimmy replied,

        and the laughter takes another leap,
        hits a higher level, hysterical,

        maniacal ..

There seems to be a correlation
between the seasons and my mania.
It doesn’t take much to get me there,
back inside a relished moment brought
into view by the changing of the weather,

the Winter sound of crunching snow,
my breath in the night sky,
the smell of the woods In February.

Spring brings different events,
Summer different places,
different friends and
different years, while the Fall
gives more of the same but
also more than the rest.

There’s something about its death,
the smell of the fall and the dying
that hits me most of all.

Its all entwined tightly In the grip of my
ever present demon and the plethora
of usual ******* he parades through
my mind,

but not today.

Today he made me smile.

Tomorrow he won’t.

Its been a long time since
I had anything important to say.
Still don’t.
The focus that writing requires
is distant,
fog-like and out of reach.
I feel it misty on my skin sometimes.
I turn my hand around and its spirit
touches me softly, tenderly.
I feel it held up in silence.  
It is brief and then its gone,
or I go, or both,
and then the sun burns bright
and the clock runs fast
forward through the day
like an hourglass where
the ringing in my ears
is the roaring of the sand
through the gap,
and though it is contained,
it brings down with it everything
my mind cannot hold onto….
  
There is no focus.
Mainly guilt,
but I catch a glimpse  
once in a while in the mist,

and when the mist is on my skin
there is no roaring through the gap

rather drifting, slow,
methodical as intended…..

Just not very often

The dream I dreamt last night
will not fade, so real it must be true.

I was leaning against a tree,
near the shore of a great sea
vast and loud, dark but moonlit.

A shadow held my gaze, long
before me, like being followed
by the sun. The shadow was my own.

I watched it move out and away
from the tree, in the general direction
of the sea, and I felt its strong pull

so I followed.

I followed it to the water and
summoned the courage to take it
down to the bottom of it all

and soon my dream became
a dream within a dream,
and the then became the now.

The sea parted to the left
and the right and now
I am here, and in it,
walking down the middle

on dry ground without fear,  
I could care less
if it collapses upon me.

I look at the walls
and feel no wonder at
their verticalness.

From the left Sam Harris says
“Its all magnetic *******
emanating from the earths core”,

while Brennan Manning speaks
to me from the right and
tells me that its God.

One side chants for God,
I can see all their faces
poking through the water wall,

while the other wall
says nothing, stoic unbelievers
confident in their disbelief.

Jesus comes through
the wall of water and stands
before me, dust at his feet,  
fire in his eyes,

he puts his hands on my shoulders
and speaks:

     “My prodigal son I am here.
     I have always been here.
     Look, there, you see the result
     Of those who cease their search?
     They sit in a wall of water as if
     it is normal to do such things,
     and though you have left me
     more times than you want to be
     reminded of, your leaving has always
     resulted in your return, which
     pleases me greatly..the more times
     you doubt, and seek, and stray,
     the more you are strengthened  
     upon your return"

Then he turns from me,
steps into the water wall
and disappears

and all is silent.

The dream is over.

Conclusion

In this everyday battle for a soul
I realize my indiscretions tend
to accelerate the tic-tocs of my existence,
While on other days, the slower days,

I lie waiting in the dark like a lonely lover
listening for the key in the lock at 3am,
alone, falling asleep in tears to wake up
in sunlight and candle wax.

     *I have come to the conclusion that
     I believe what I have always believed
     because I have seen too much
     to not believe it.

Soon it will snow where she is
but here it never snows only sleets,
and ***** little ice pellets
on the streets.

Winter days remind me
how I miss the moon,
how far it is between
autumn and forever,

And how close it is
between you and I,
Proximity-wise,
compared to the unreachable
emotional chasms we create.

Slippery chasms of
sleet and snow…….

                        …..alone..

          and when I finally went home

          she didn't even know
          I was gone,
    
          I slid right past her silent sighs
          as if being loved was
          an inconvenience.

(Discovering my Quad-polar compartments)

But sleep never satisfies
for long. I find myself
dreaming more and more,
vivid, frightful dreams
as real as being awake
but with less control,

movies play through my mind
mirroring the day In some
****** up way,

and just like that,
Like a drug,
sleep loses its ability
to provide escape
because of tolerance.

I watch a snail move slowly
across the flagstone.
I lose track of how long
I've been watching.
Only the thin line of spit
beneath my pillow
lets me know it was
a dream.

Without escape
There is no reward,
No rejuvenation
only confusion,
and that which is
easy is not.

But this quest has
opened my eyes in more ways
than just lack of sleep.

My quad-polar discovery
has helped me identify
these quadrants of my mind.

     God.            Beast.

     ***.              Love.

My quad-polar compartments.
Confused and bewildered
they will not be merged.

The god in me thinks the beast needs to be loved.
The beast in me thinks that *** is a god.
The *** in me thinks that love kills the beast.
The love in me thinks the beast is just ***.

It’s the love I am most afraid of,
At least during those times when
there is a me,
a me that looks down on the quads,
but mostly that’s rare because
I never know who’s
in charge anymore.

It's such a difficult existence
when what’s theoretically
my greatest need is also
my greatest fear.

If I consider this logically
then the conclusion is clear,

that is,
my dedicated inlets
and my spiritual outlets
cannot get along.

*** and love do not co-exist.

At least not in me.

I’m either penetrating inlets
and ignoring outlets
or
seeking mysticism while
the inlets go on wanting.

I have known this for
a very long time.

Maybe if I find
a new island
I could find
a new inlet,

open the outlet
back up.

(A castaway on Linen Island)

I have concerns
I may be quad-polar,
at least that’s what
it feels like yesterday
while I was thinking
about tomorrow
which turned out
to be today.

I'm just trying to
keep it all together
out here, lost at sea,
a castaway
on Linen Island.

Its strange here with
my head above the clouds.

Piles of books
floating all around me,
stacks upon stacks
as far as the eye can see,
I see a sea of books
that hold a billion
trillion words,
none of which
quench my thirst,
its the irony of the sea,
to be surrounded by
that which cannot
sustain.

I’ve been cast off the grid
in uncharted waters,
lost in Book Sea,
I rest my head on
the clouds in confusion.

This quadrant
is kicking my ***
and all I want to do
is sleep but its difficult
to sleep when there's a
thirst that needs
quenching.

I wonder if reverse osmosis
is something I can create
with the power of my mind
to make this sea less lethal?

Or maybe a little bump
into quadrant 3 or 4
but who am I kidding,
a little bump
is never a little bump,
and the next quadrant
is most likely
unexplored universe
where if I scream
it wont be heard.

I'd settle for
a little sleep right now,
with hopes of gaining
strength to fight
the wars I wanted back.

Bump me just enough
to visit Dreamland,
but not enough
to go to Hell,
let me rest my head upon
these puffy white clouds,
and sleep.

maybe sleep will fix it all

maybe sleep will not

I’m stuck on Linen Island

a castaway off the grid

somewhere in the Book Sea

(the reconvening of my mind)

It's always the extremes
that bring me back to center,
but it's the trips I take on purpose
that remind me its time to go home.

Today it was the thought of blood.
I cannot stand the sight of it,
and neither would I brave a plunge
in icy depths this time of year.
I’d rather gather sunlight
and convince myself there are
no ghost revivals,
only blood reprisals from
daddy's DNA.

I tell myself
I need to get away
to where I can pray
again, to quit giving in,
to stay and fight wars,
the black, the white,

the gray fluttering darkness that
comes out of nowhere swooping
past my ear, scaring the **** out of me
as if it never happened before
but it has, its just been a while.

So I call for a council of angels,
then prepare for the riptide
of demons that join the fun when
my cranial convention convenes.

The left against the right,
The east against the west,
The pros against the cons,
all the ups and downs,

I don’t give a **** what it is
just give me back my wars.
Give me back my reasons to live.

Give me Nietzsche
Give me Brennan Manning
Give me Sam Harris
Give me Frederick Buechner
Give me Bertrand Russell
Give me Henri Nouwen
Give me Daniel Dennett
Give me Gerald May
Give me M Scott Peck
Give me Pia Mellody
Give me Dante
Give me Jane Kenyon
Give me the Marquis de Sade
Give me Dostoyevsky
and that should just about do it.

Within these names exist
enough controversy,
enough conflicting views
on life, on love, on God,
enough heresy,
enough truth,
enough lies,
enough knowledge,
enough beauty
to keep me waging wars
inside my head until the day I die.

Give me back my wars.