I wish the present was as good
as how I remember the past.
Fond memories of years gone by,
selective at best,
the worst ******* times of my life
seem comfortably nostalgic.

     I spread poison over ant hills
      by the hundreds, each a foot taller than
     the next, dispersed among the soggy eight
     inch grass, hopefully guiding them toward
     neighboring yards…It was early spring.
     Wet. Cold. Cloudy and I was tweaking like hell,
     day 4 or 5 or 6 in abstinence from
     a nasty three year addiction.

The brain simply wants to protect.
I only remember the ant hills.
the sheer size of them and
how many ants lived in each
1,000? 10,000? 100,000?
It didn’t really matter

because

the present you
won’t remember anyway,
thoughts group together like gifts
under a Christmas tree except the tree
is set up somewhere under a sheet in an attic
of a house that isn't even yours.
Pretty soon there are more gifts in place
and the new gifts cover the old gifts
and the old gifts melt into the rafters
during the heat of Texas summers.

The past can always be
what you want it to be.

No sense worrying about today...

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.

The older I get 
the less the word terminal bothers me.
I put my worries in a box called god 
and when my faith is weak 
I dump them out and burn them 
on the altar of my ego,
scraps of worded paper 
up in flames, 
legal words, ugly words, 
kindling of the heart words, 
words that wreak havoc 
on the innocent.

I burn them all 
but never learn

I put my worries in a box called god

The wind is rejection.
I live on a hill.
The night is cold lonely.
A bittersweet chill.
I wander the hillside.
I plan my demise.
Then light through the clouds
brings relief to my eyes.
The moon is a magnet.
I can feel her sharp pull.
My blood tastes like metal
whenever she’s full.
I stand still in wonder.
I look in her eyes.
My worries are scattered.
The wind slowly dies.

Like a bonfire you are
hard to look away from.
I feel your warmth
even from afar.

Get too close
and your intensity
is vaporizing.

If only you could be
a firefly in a jar,
I ‘d let you out at night
to spread your light,

and I'd bask in the burn you ignite,

but by day
I’d keep you away

in a jar on a shelf.

I've been running
through the night like
a schizophrenic ghost,
looking for the angels
that used to hang around
here, the tarnished ones,
the ones that lost their shine,

and all the while
I keep bumping into walls
that aren't even there.

It's never quite right,
the way I feel upon waking.

It's never quite right,
at night when its time to sleep.

It’s a vicious cycle of dependence on
whatever the moment requires.

10 mg of this, 20 mg of that , 
  
my see-saw bloodstream
keeps me constantly in need
of something.

     It's like having Phantom Limb Syndrome,
      except you can't figure out
      which limb is missing.

          It's like driving a car on ice,
           constantly slipping and
           over correcting.

               It's like having PTSD,
                only the triggering incident
                hasn’t happened yet.

                    It's like mixing
                     red and blue paint,
                     in the end its always purple.


What’s left is a life of constant searching and
the frustrating inability to drive between the lines.

A life filled with debilitating fear and
an ever present sense of impending doom.

A lifetime sentence

in a land of purple fog nothingness.

These are the days
when my heart can’t speak
and my days pass by in a fog.

At night I look to the sky for her flame
and she shows me, up through the pines,
she’s the burning harvest moon tonight.

Do you see how she shines like the sun?
She shines in the night just for me.
              
She leads me to the edge and
whispers like a lover in the dark,
she wants me to burn just for her.

My harvest moon she seems so close
I reach up to touch her but she’s
too far away,  she’s so far away but

Oh, how she burns so bright!

          Naivety’s gotten the better of me
          she’s not the burner she’s the “burnee”

          and if we met we’d burn white hot
          we’d melt like a ******* supernova

          but then we’d die

          My beautiful white harvest moon
          and I, we know what to do to get by

          We know what needs to be done

          Shall we close the buckle in the door?

          Shall we swallow the white gold and pearls?

          No, not likely, instead
          run to her at midnight
          in the bright white light,
          climb upon the rail between
          ocher beams on Golden Gate
          and look up.

          She seems so close.
          Look up!
          I reach for her slowly
          Look up!
          I reach for her softly
          Look up!

          slowly

          softly

          I step to the edge and fly home.

I read enough to know that
a life of balance is ideal,
far removed from deprivation,
equally distant from excess.

Atheism is excess.

So is Theism.

But if you said you were agnostic
it would be easier for me
to swallow...

    I thought about a pink sky tonight
when the mystery of ancient man
didn't move me but
         the light from a dead star did,
and I realized in an instant why
your sky isn't pink.
Your sky isn't pink because
           following the crowd
is not your style, and
what they see you see right through
to depths a bit deeper and
          more complex.

                If I were a god
I would show myself pink
by painting the sky for the masses

                     but not for you.

For you I would do more because
I know you would need more,
and because I    (as a god)
would know you more than
        you know yourself.

I would meet you where you are
      because I know who you are.

You are the one
who walks into a room
full of strangers at a party
and in very short order
the world slows down
and almost stops
and you ask yourself
why am I the only person
conscious at this very moment?
and while laughter and gaiety
surround you, closes in on you,
the only way to survive it is
to escape it,
escape the constant chatter
of dysfunctional consciousness,
the volatile shifting from
yes to no,
simple things that should
be known you don’t know
because your boundaries are
un-defined.
You may very easily know
that her dress is out of season
and his Affliction shirt
screams *****, or that she
shouldn’t wear white
before Easter and for sure
he’d be smart to shave the
back of his neck,
while on a deeper level
you recognize every fear
and every failure in the lives
of these party goers,
you know who is hurting
and you know which ones cheat
and you know the good lovers
and the fathers and mothers,
you can pick out the sinners by
the look in their eye
and all of this is easy until
the spotlight shines on you
and It always shines on you
eventually,
and when it does
your fears and frauds
will be revealed
and the only way
to make it all go away
is to run,
run to the bottom of a bottle,
run to the white gold and pearls,
run to where the numbness sets in
and maybe you'll fit in for a bit,
but you know it never lasts,
and you curse yourself
and you look to the sky for
the pink(like everyone else)
but it never works
and why should it?

Its easy for them
to see the sky as pink.....

Its easy to admit it
because they want to fit in..

for you I would jump in
      and read your mind
and give your secrets to
a fellow poet who might tell you
           what I told him so
you might struggle with
the recollection of never
having told anyone.

Next I would show you
how I listen to your heart
by writing pink words like these
but I would make sure that
there was no other explanation
                      and there isn’t.

Or maybe, just maybe, less subtle,
I'd reveal myself through
another troubled soul singing
                  “Down in a Hole”
I was right there with him
     but he didn't see me
          and now he's gone,
but you didn't see me either
    because maybe
              I was too easy to see,
look again and see me now

youtube.com/watch?v=D-uN22sI4JM

                       I am
the pink hair on top of his head.

I have been there for you to see
                        so many times
I will be there for you
so many more

You have seen me in
the wrinkled pink palm
of Frank's hand,

you have seen me in flamingos
back dropped by a blue sky,

you have seen me in
grilled cheese sandwiches
and pink dandelions,
(yes there are pink dandelions,
you just never noticed)

you have seen me in
pink guardrails,

you have seen me in
the pink morning of
the day after you didn't
**** yourself,

you have seen me in the
pink and narrow edges
around the musts,

and how about your
estranged husband
touching the pink of
your bare knee?

Yep, that was me too.

I could go on and on
       but this must end
so I leave you with words
you’ve likely read before,

“If then, I were asked for the most
important advice I could give,
that which I considered to be the
most useful to the men of our
century, I should simply say: In the
name of God, stop a moment,
cease your work, look around you”

-Leo Tolstoy
Essays, Letters and Miscellanies


In other words,

Look for the pink in everything.

My wife often says to me,

“It takes a good man to be a good woman”

and there was a time
when I wondered what she meant,
but not anymore.
When she says it now I
take it as a compliment because
she is quite extraordinary,

and I'd say that's better than good.

There is a certain misery bred
into children of the night,
most notably the 20,000 a month
born under a full moon,
a rare combination of being born
in the dark of night, yet under
bright white moonlight,
a mere 1/100th of the total born
each month.

If you are one of us you know it.

The moon is alive and effeminate,
pulls on us, pushes on us,
at least on us who call her mother,
and though she shines her sweet shine
her soul is as cold and indifferent as
the belly of a black hole,
and we will war with her influence
all the days of our life.

Chaos,
compulsions,
sorrows and sins
our constant companions.

For she alone
knows the effort it takes
for us to live ...

          The anxious tide within my head
           was put there by the moon,
           the ocean too, its waves of blue,
           respond to what she says

All our days a high wire act
where everyone looks on with
eyes wide and mouths agape,

and when the night comes
we are alone,
and in fear,
and the end of us is always near,
and our numbers will not cease,
her bright light will grant no peace.

she is a GRAND MULTIPARA

and INFINITUS GRAVIDA

while we are beggars and thieves,
tired as hell, asleep when awake
and awake when asleep,
swimming in brain matter
madness
and churning recollections
like a duck on a lake,
calm on the surface,
fast as hell underneath.

In the end
it’s the crazy debate
that brings us down,

          To find ourselves we lose our souls,
           to lose our pain we lose control
           to find the norm there is no peace,
           to lose it all she will not cease

The pendulum swings back and forth  
and there is no rest,

The ***** is out for blood,

and she pulls on us
and she pushes on us

          The push of truth, the pull of lies,
           the pull of hell that push denies.
           the push of God, the pull of sin,
           the pull of what we push will win

unless of course we break
and bleed out,

but she does not care,

there are many more
to take our place
and they like us
will find no rest.

The world may end tomorrow  but  tonight will  not
you keep shifting and kicking and snorting and  if  I
could see  in  the dark I might confirm it  is you  and
not  that  thing in the attic that  I saw earlier  the one
of the three lying flat on its belly with the elongated
snout and tusks,  I know I don’t see very well  and I
need to be  fitted  for  glasses   so  I  tell  myself  that
what I see is bigger  than what you see  I  believe its
called an  “Ames  Room”  an   optical   illusion   that
makes a big person small  and a small person big its
just the  angle  of the view  so maybe  what  I  see  is
what  you see  just bigger  and in fact your view just
recently   changed    when    you     started   wearing
prescription  glasses  remember  the day you picked
them  up   you  backed   your  car   into  another  car
another  trick  of  "angulated" vision  I  suppose  but
vision  isn’t  my  main  concern  right  now   I  mean
partially  but  more  important  I  wish  your  noises
would  cease  being   noises   and  sound  more   like
breathing so I might see that you are still you  in the
creeping light of dawn and smile and close my eyes
and rest for maybe 30 minutes more before  its  time
to rise and make the coffee.

Noonday demon
crescent sun sundown
sleep

soon come slippery slant of moon
spreads its light across the room

the night is nearly gone

gone to where the wind goes
gone to where the tall trees stand

gone gives way to daybreak
creeping daylight

rise

wait

repeat

(Or Bi-Polar Disorder)

I. Depressive phase- 
   
I love you for your kindness first,
then for the peace in your eyes.
How could anyone as sure as you
not be the one sent to save me?
But save me from what?  
From doubt?  From myself?
You are God’s gift to me yet
I can't help it sometimes
I picture myself ten years down
the line with you not caring
and me destitute and homeless,
living on the streets, alone.

           When the transition comes
            I see it come and embrace it,
            picking up speed it screams over me
            like a snow white avalanche,
           a huge chemical ****** in my brain
           that cannot be stopped.

II. Manic phase-

Here I like to entertain myself
with vain fantasies of sainthood.
I’m standing and waving
to the faithful in Piazza San Pietro,
doing what’s necessary to secure
my martyr’s destiny in the after life
where I’ll have a place of honor
in the great hall of God, and through
a window in the floor I’ll be able
to see my mourners
filing past my gaudy reliquary,
crossing themselves as they gaze through
the philatory glass at the peaceful repose
of my sequin studded bones.

           *I have come to understand that
           this matter may never be settled.  
           I’d truly give anything for you
           to have  power enough to hold me
           in the middle, to hold me in
           the purple fog nothingness
           but I believe it tires you
           to prop up a puppet all day.
           You’d rather love me in each moment
           which is the truest love there is
           and that makes me the luckiest
           man on the face of the Earth.

There once was a man whose last name was the name of an animal
and the animal was a symbol of everything the man believed in
and it just so happened that the animal was also a symbol of
many a man's beliefs

and so it was that the man worked very hard
and became very wealthy so that in his great success
he wanted everyone to know his name
and see it on display

so he commissioned a statue by the finest sculptor in the world
to create a huge sculpture of a particular animal
that had the same name as his last name
a sculpture of crystal with many facets
for which he paid dearly

and when he put it on display in the foyer of his beautiful mansion
where everyone could see it
they loved it
and in so loving the sculpture they were loving the man
and all those that saw the sculpture were bent to covet the sculpture
and wished to be successful like the man who had commissioned it
so they came in droves to see it
and left with fantasies of their own
about creating art resembling their names
but mostly their names were too normal
like Smith or Jones or Sarsaparilla
(and although Sarsaparilla isn't normal
it hardly deserves a sculpture)

then one day an unspeakable horror
put an end to the covetous visitors  
you see it was on that day everything changed
when his children were playing in the foyer
running and laughing like children do
they were happy children
happy because they had it all
and never wanted for anything

when one boy pushed the other and
the sculpture came crashing down upon the smallest boy
sitting on his trike
and crushed the boy to death

and the great man with the name of the important animal
wept        
and cursed the day
that he had wished for more
and had so foolishly believed that more was the answer
because now if he could
he would give it all back

if only he could hold the boy one more time
his tiny son crushed by the commissioned crystal sculpture of the animal
resembling his name that was accidentally knocked over by those who
had everything and wanted for nothing because their father had worked
so hard in order for them to have it all

but worse than all of that
and worse than anything else

was that his great name once a symbol of freedom and strength
would forevermore be a symbol of pain and sorrow

and there's nothing worse than having everything you believe in
thrown upside down in the form of ultimate mockery

the realization that the pain will never go away

or be forgotten

a pain that is forever

a nail driven through his heart every  time  he  signs  his  name


                             ­                                         Signed _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
                                                                ­                                   John R. Eagle

I wish I was addicted to
alcohol but I'm not, I'm an
otherholic with too many
“others” to count.

My old man had a shot
and a beer at the counter,
then ordered a six-pack
to take back home.

I do the same sometimes
with tacos.

It was simple at first
I did it on a dare

There's a certain easiness
to difficult dares
when senses are dulled
by alcohol and fame

show me how
that color tastes

It was like
biting into the sun
it burned my tongue
and nothing else
would ever taste the same
or be the same
it calmed the storm
of daddy leaving
it was as if my
new found Catholicism
was a purgatory from where
I could see the bright white
pearly gates of heaven
and feel the chill
of their snow clad bars

colder than
the coldest winter chill

one night in a dream
my father told me
to meet him at the gates
and from that point
I went every night
but he never came
instead he died
and when he died
my dreams died
with him.

bury me softly
in this tomb

I continued to go there
night after night
I desperately wanted
to believe the gates
would lead to heaven
because in hell there's heat
and this place was cold
so cold with no sound
and no light only darkness

I would sit in the cold
for hours, losing all sense
of time, obligations
responsibilities, shivering
and sweating at the foot of
the gates, obsessed with the
furry luster of frozen pearls
the sound of silence and
the subtle shifting of
the weather

holding rare
flowers in bloom

a week, a month
a year would pass
the snow began to slip
in clumps and tumble
to the ground again
and again and again
and then
all hell broke loose
the heat was hot
the gates were gone
and I began to run
but

every path
led me to nowhere

the blue cold went red hot
and then turned black
I tried to leave that place
13 times I left and
13 times returned
there was nowhere else to go
no place to call home
I burned within my sick head

I wanted to peel
the skin from my face

so hot
I was bleeding for you
soaked in sweat
my calloused heart
would not ask for help

serenity
was far away

my hands were bruised
from breaking rocks all day
far from the chill
I couldn't remember
anymore anyway
so desperate
for a glimpse of snow
it all came down
to this

I could not live apart
from that place
and I could not live
within it

so tonight

I will marry the two
the here and the now with
the there and the then

mix the snow with the fire
mix the snow add the fire
mix   snow  with    fire
mix   snow  add    fire

snowfire
      
snowfire
      
snowfire

momma
I am burning
momma I am cold
mother please save me
don't leave me alone
I see you but
you've come too late
can you hold me anyway?
whisper in my ear
I'm so sorry mother
I haven't bathed in 2 weeks
momma come hold me please

I'm down in a hole mother
feeling so low mother

I'm so cold mother
come save me
take me home
mother
I am dying

mommy
I am dead
sit with me
in silence
sit with me
I am dead

mommy I'm scared

black is all I feel
so this must be how it feels
to be free

mother
I am dead

I stare at the wall
while you breathe in the dark
and together we wait
for our un-ripened fruit to ripen,

wait for that tiny window
of fruity perfection where
one of us will be compelled
to speak,

      “let's share this peach”
(or possibly a banana)

you see,
I do not worry about
what you are thinking

we are one with our fruit
and with not speaking

there is nothing to say
  -  so it isn't said

No chaos to spoil  
our ripening fruit

We have a cat named Ben who doesn’t wear a collar.
I know a saint named Ben whose picture's on a medal.


I wear it for safety, a bigger one we hang above the door for
superstitious reasons like a black cat that isn't ours
walking across our path, Ben is ours but Ben is brown not black
and Ben won't wear a collar so he stays indoors.

     St Benedict of Nursia the patron saint of lots of things,
     of remedies for poisoning, of evil witchcraft,  suffering,
     a patron saint of lots of things, of aggies, engineers,
     spelunkers and those with fever near the gates of death.

     He is the patron saint of gall stones but not kidney stones
     if so his medal would have saved me from significant pain,
     but still I wear his medal when I go out to keep myself
     protected from whatever it is he protects us against.

     before he became a good luck charm, before he was a medal
     he lived in a cave in Italy in the year 400 a.d. where for
     three years the townsfolk brought him food to eat and finally
     talked him into coming out. No, not that kind of coming out
     he wasn’t gay, he was a priestly hermit who was celibate.

     They put him in charge of a monastery when no one else
     wanted the job, but when he made the rules that still stick today
     they didn’t want to listen so they tried to poison him twice
     both unsuccessful. This is where he gets the nod for sainthood.

     Divine intervention saved the day, a raven stole the
     poisoned bread and a spasm smashed the poisoned cup.
     if they wanted him to go away they could have asked him  
     but I guess they needed a saint, someone to martyr, so
     he went back to his cave and was promptly forgotten

     until the Connecticut witch trials of 1647 when a captured
     witch confessed that her powers were contained by a
     conspicuous medal that she’d never seen before mounted
     over doorways, and she heard the whispers of the townsfolk say
     the medal was the medal of a saint they called St. Benedict.

I can personally attest that the medal is quite unique with
Latin inscriptions on both the front and the back. On one side
of the medal he stands and holds the holy rules, at his feet
a raven and a broken cup. An inscription on the medal reads:

            “May we at our death be fortified by his presence”

Flip it over and you’ll see:

               C
          C  S   S
       N D S M D
          P  M   B
               L

“May the holy cross be my light”
          “Let not the dragon be my overlord”
                      “This is the cross of Father Benedict”
                             “yadda   yadda   yadda”

Along the outer edge it looks like this, strangely similar
to a Ouija board.

                             PAX
                    B                    V
                V ­                           R
               I                    ­             S
                L                             N
                 Q                          S  
                     M                 V  


PAX  for Peace

The rest is this:
“Begone Satan yadda yadda yadda
          for evil is what you prefer yadda yadda
              so drink your own poison yadda”

350 some years since its inception and the medals popularity
still flourishes.  I reach down and finger the medal beneath
my t-shirt and I realize what the strangeness feels like.

It feels like witchcraft.

I guess I’ll wait and see if anything happens
before I pass judgment.

I hang it near our bed at night and while
we sleep

our brown cat Ben likes to bat it around.

The autumn sun slides low
against the hours,
peaking over the day
as if barely begun
and almost finished.
There is something familiar
here in the half light,
not quite vertical yet
bright enough to see
the path I ride is not as rough,
the wind is not as strong
and my heart is not as hard
nor encumbered
as days since passed
where in hind-sight
I peddled for sanctuary;
sanctuary from
a morbid kind of half-sight
held tight by a half-life of
loneliness and lies
now long lost
and finally made right.

You and I are not dead yet,
I think I know it,
I know you do.
I see you in the minutiae
of the stars.

its all the same
from way down here,
a grand perception, a vision
of you at sunset flickering
without your flame.

Your call to arms is
a boy cries wolf.
I mold you into art
from nuts and bolts.

In conflict
you catch my eye
and then you’re gone.
Your coming is inconsistent,
different colors, different shades,
you're more than one.

I cannot ascertain the
direction from which they come,
left or right, above, below, I don't know
I only know when they come
when all of them come

all of you

you are more than one when all of you come

all of you

I have come to believe
this world can never be understood,

but what of  clarity?      It's a joke,

and those who say they have it are delusional
while the rest of us are mystics and dreamers
round tripping through hell
the going much quicker
than the coming

My love for you is far beyond
the love that I have shown.
Its otherworldly, unexpected,
and when I die you will finally see
the all of it in many things.  
It will be with you, flourishing
in your everyday existence,
in little ways, in music, in flowers,
in sunsets,  in a wind chime,
in the sunshine,  in suffering,
in visions, in visits from the local ghosts
and Christ who knows your name,  
he'll never let you down,
through him you'll hear my voice,  
I will be with you in all of these things
and you will know my love in
a hundred ways.

Like a toothache its always there
that little bit of doubt that ***** with me.
I forget about it once in a while
on busy days, on days I spend fixing things
but on other days I can hardly breathe,
the weight of my existence oppressive,
the fear that letting go might overwhelm me
or you --or us --or create an awkward angle,
a weapon to wield in future wars.

I know you wonder where I go
and if I knew
I would have already shown you
instead I frown
to hide the fact that I am happy.

You are everything I’ve always wanted,
your vulnerability sincere
of course you know I’d never hurt you
but how can you tell
through the fog of my hiding?
You say you know me like no other,
you see behind my eyes,
you see my inner workings,
you hold my heart in your hands
and still I pretend to be in control,
invincible, invulnerable.
 
l rely on music too much to touch my soul
And I sense you sometimes wish you were
the music so you could touch my soul
but you already are and you already do.

I’d give you my soul but honestly
I’d rather you take it by force,
tie me down and **** me, but time
the great teacher tells you that
in that watershed moment
an awful lot could go wrong.
I want to promise you it would be fine
but I can’t. I want to give in and
let you overtake me passionately,
overrun me sexually, I can feel
the blood flow, I imagine your soft lips,
your eagerness, don’t ever let me
discourage that part of you.

But isn't it selfish that I would ask you to carry on at
the peak of the universe with one foot in heaven
and one foot in hell with no guarantees either way?

Like a spark to dynamite my fuse when lit might run
or walk, take its time, fizzle out, rush to finish
no one knows, least of all me.

You only want what is yours by right

I want you to want it as well

My forte has never been          chemistry
especially              in matters of the brain
that delicate science                 eludes me
but give me a knife            and I’m a pro
a      butcher      in      a     cesspool       of
a        drowning         stagnant            me
where   the   water   under   my   bridge
does               not             flow              out
but backs up tighter than
                                a meat packer’s drain
overflowing with            ****** blobs of
broken   promises  and good  intentions

when it was over
I was lost........ again
inbetween right and wrong
sanity       senility
day       and      night

here you are

finally

but where am I?
somewhere between me
and what others want from me
I've proven to be capable of stupidity
and ignorant enough to tease
irreversible territory

don’t take me to where this started

          Through the window I see her rubbing his back in the
          flickering light of late night TV . Something is wrong.
          It isn't quite right, he's only 17.  she swears
          it isn't what it seems

my eyes are closed and yet I see with
a heightened sense of taste, the bitterness of
that hot September night across the screen of my mind

I taste it again

I taste it again

I taste it

I taste

and you lose

on another screen
I'm standing on a railroad track
a train approaches
I move to the left
a parallel track
a parallel train
I move again
another track
another train
It starts to rain

and my world closes in
like a zipper of cold teeth

closing off escape

closing off escape

closing off

closing

lost

A shadow on the upper right lobe,
its probably nothing*

Its close to Christmas,
I think about our first
and how purple it was,
sunflower medallions
and George Winston.
I grew my hair long
and wore camouflage.

We ought to run a few more tests

My guilt was more than
I could carry back then,
gallons in half gallon buckets,
blood splashing onto
white carpet.

We'll get a little more blood on
Tuesday

The waiting game was nearly terminal,
the kids and I exchanged gifts in the Sears
parking lot. When I got home you held me.

We need to talk in my office for a minute

I cried about the choices they made.
You were never unkind. The rosaries I
made were hung on our bedposts,
they hang there still.

The shadow on your lung is a tumor

Its been five years.  They're adults now
and old enough to hear about death.

I'll schedule a biopsy for after Christmas

I don't think I'll tell them.
I don't think I'll tell you either..

maybe just once we'll have a peaceful holiday.

to beware of what you spend for love

a woman’s devotion should never cost more
than what your sanity is willing to pay

But you wouldn’t listen
or couldn’t listen

either way you're now a slave
a victim of your purple head’s desires

Ironic since the passions dead and gone
replaced by numbing hatred ten feet tall

If only when your primal urges swelled
you would have satisfied yourself

and spent your time attending nobler things
the arts, your education, -anything productive

then maybe what you spent would not be gone
and maybe who you are would still be you

but how could I expect you to not
make the same mistakes that i made?

I wish I could have spared you this hell
 
Dad

When I get lost I depend on you
to help me find my way but lately
I can't see because of the weight
of what I'm missing.
Will it ever cease?
For a while your love was enough;
****, it should still be enough but
my brain’s imbalance
is ******* me over with
constant neediness of something,
like a craving for citrus or salt…
I’ll try anything to make
the need go away
and I already have.

Many work well but not for long,
others work fast but aren't as strong,
The best work fast and leave no trace,
but ask for more, and more,
and more until without
you just might die,
and with,  
you're just getting by,
the deceptive little *******
will eat you up in the end,
while you chase the need  
and wish you could go back
to where you didn't know
what you know now.
but would it matter?

They say to be partial to only one
is fortunate. I don’t buy it.
I try to replace the one with
combinations of 3 or 4
but ****, they will never do
for me what one did.
I won’t say what one is for me
but you know what one is for you,
and if by chance
your one is more than one
I pray God have mercy on you
because fighting one battle
is battle enough.

Have you ever considered that
to be clean means to live
every day for the rest of your life
with complete knowledge that
you will never, ever, as long as you live
feel as good as you did the first time?

I give in once in a while,
then go cold and sweat for a week.

You know you’re ******
When the suffering is worth it.

If I were only me I would drive to San Francisco
and jump off the big orange bridge.

I might do it if I knew it
wouldn’t hurt them,
but I can't because it would
so I keep fighting all
this **** that haunts me.

I have eleven reasons not to do it,
eleven people I will not name,
eleven reasons

not to hit the water at 86 mph,
eleven reasons to avoid massive internal bleeding,
to avoid broken ribs and punctured lungs,
to avoid …telescoping fractures……
asphyxiation by blood and……
….telescoping fractures……..
Eleven reasons to avoid 4 seconds
of second guessing.....and telescoping fractures…..
 
Eleven reasons…… …....................OK twelve.
 
Eleven people in my life I couldn’t do it to.
Twelve including me because I know I won’t like
the sound of what it might sound like,
the difference in my mind between the sound
of fractures and the sound of telescoping fractures,
a terrifying sound, enough to keep me away from
San Francisco, not to mention the big orange bridge.

I lie awake at night with numbers racing around inside
my head, 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour,
4 seconds from rail to water, 220 feet to fall,
24 hours in a day, 86 miles per hour at impact.

I keep counting and sleeping fitful frightening sleep,
endure nightmares of falling, flying off the big orange bridge,
reaching upward, the bridge getting smaller and smaller,

and every morning I wake before impact still a martyr

for all of us.