I wanted to see you where the years were kind,
inescapably etched and displayed like
smooth stones spread out on velvet;
but I wouldn't ask. I rummaged through zippers
and heavy things.

On a cool summer night we heard a hiss of
broken stars across the desert sky
and looked up in time to see one pass over head
like a science fiction rocket ship.
It was a moment with you I will never forget.

It's funny how things are settled or settling
and divided by extremes,
jealousy   -   anger   -   hurt   -  houses  -  
etched stones  -  broken stars,
stuff  you  can't  find  words  for,  
stuff  you  wish  y­ou'd  written  down,
words  that  end  up  on  gravestones.

So leave me  with my imagination and your beauty,
maybe some nostalgia as my muse, add one more thing
for sure, make my children our children
not   half - me - half - devil - children
and maybe I wouldn't have to run,
wouldn't have to start a war.

Maybe I could be happy without
your etched stones.

Maybe all I really need is a broken star.

A raging inner surf,
I blame it on the moon.

Fat footed
two ton tessies
tattooed with
tigers, growling
under bulging hips,
bustin' out shocks
on Datsuns K cars
Le Sabres, 1998
primer gray bondo
and duct tape,
taking up two spots
with a smile.

Streaky squeaky 
automatic doors
bump your nose
to make em go
1972 linoleum
grab a cart
hope you don’t
catch death
from the handle
or worse
feces.

last weeks ads
mixed with new,
who buys 10
of anything?
except beers
and smokes
fried chicken
and maybe
frozen burritos.

“Hey why’s that chicken smell like fish?
How old is that grease anyway?
Ooh there’s a ten-fer on a two-fer pack
of coconut orange sno-*****!”

Mr. I love
Jeff Gordon
matching
mesh hat
and shirt
wants to know

“Does that ten-fer on those two-fers
mean I have to buy 20?”

I don’t know sir,
but Go! Go! Go!
Jeff Gordon #24
hours a day,
always open

“Is that the chicken-fish I smell?
Or am I smellin’ the guy in flippy flops?”

bunions and
scabby hammers
mister please
cover that **** up
asks his wife
or daughter
not sure which

“Are them white bag bar code
cheesey puffs any good? too bad
they aint got a ten-fer!”

Texarkana
back woods
Missilouis
swamp

“mama can we get ice cream?”

red neck
united nations
mullets
macaroni and
cheesey tank tops
 
“Why cain’t we go barefoots in here?”

pork rinds
stew meat
chicken parts
nothing tender
never lean and
never ever 
from New York.
 
Big beer belly
buying beer
gotta count
coin careful
cart carries
cases of Miller
not Lite
not Genuine Draft
Hi-Life and ‘Ol Roy,

“**** mister, you must have a big dog!”
 
Two tone
skunk hair
holds the Tussin
grabs a
people
mag
 
“what page is my Taurus-scope on?”

power carts
powered down

“why cain’t they keep these thangs juiced up?”
 
basket bulging
ten-fers
that’s why,
two-liter Tab
Twinkies and
tator-tots.

Time to
check out
10 items
or less
12?
don’t matter,
checker has
checked out
bagger brags
more than bags
 
“I sees you folks got a kitty cat! My kitties
just love the leftover chicken-fish!”
 
big deal lady
we have 4 cats too
my pajama bottoms
have been worn
3 times
my hair was
washed yesterday
and yes I am
wearing slippers
but at least
they are
closed- toe.
 
pay the bill
 
ring the bell

load the car

drive away

mutter under breath,

I am so much better than these people…

I envy your simple life,
excitement at the prospect of rain and unexpected mail
or the extra hour of sleep you take on Saturdays,
but these small pleasures elude me, instead my mind is tangled in thought
like 7 connected strands of 12 foot Christmas lights packed in a shoebox
while I try to find the faulty bulb that keeps the bunch from lighting.

She found me where I wouldn’t go,
hands cupped around her fragile spark,
back turned to the wind,
making my way down the path of her choosing.

I remember the slamming screen doors,
the rattle of the stained glass monster,
and the drafty shadowed nights beneath chenille bedspreads.
 
I remember the sun soaked cloak room with its reek of wet woolen mittens,
the un-impeded flight down stairs in tomato basket bobsleds,
and the bouncing at the bottom in a frenzy of strawberry carpet burns.

I remember church bingo basements smoky on Friday nights,
Saturday morning sounds from her kitchen,
and a mile of sulfur dusted sidewalk in between.
 
I remember the damp musty smell of the low lit basement,
the passing of Black Label beer through semi-circle windows,
and the nauseating hangover from Mogen David wine kept in the cellar.
 
I remember hearing how they kicked in the door while she slept and beat her
and took her things, her rings, the gifts from my grandfather,
and how she stubbornly refused to leave the home my mother was born in.

A half century book ended on one end by the great depression,
which she survived,
on the other end the kicked in door
which she did not.
 
I remember my mother’s wavering voice when she told me she was dead,
how Uncle Ed found her sitting in her chair, rosary beads wrapped
around arthritic hands.
 
I remember hot on the left and cold on the right,
the smell of her sweat,
the breeze off the lake,
the creak of the old steam radiator,
and the way she slept in her chair with her mouth wide-open.
 
The way Uncle Ed found her.

In this Cathedral you are a god,
this outdoor arena beneath a blood red sky.
You stand above a sea of melted faces
with arms outstretched and upturned
as reticent as a rood.
 
When the stage goes dark the beat begins
and you are one of us the wounded and resolute,
you lead us into songs of hope and redemption,
replacing silence with words of truth.

Truth as redolent as barb laden roses,
and just as difficult to hold.
 
A Savior that bled
the moon turning red
the darkness of night
the black of the white
the white gold and pearls
the mysterious twirls
your deepest desires  
the trip through her wires
 
A house not a home
the scars on the stones
your horses in flight
the drums in the night
the **** of a gun  
the glare of the sun
the un-deserved grace
the dust cloud erased
 
You sell what you sing like a preacher in pain

We hold on tightly until we bleed
 
In this Cathedral you are a god

Chronic disinterest
Native contempt
Velvet endeavors
Tempting regret
Instant retelling
Elephant’s hide
Plagiarized doctrine
Burning inside
Mystified longing
Questions abound
Domicile ******
Running aground
Substance ingestion
Alternate mind
Daily addiction
Hade’s defined

His nights are restless, endless dreams
of young men climbing ladders.
The ones who stop to fix their vests
are left below, row after row
there seems no end, distorted faces,
silent screams through bottle bottom glass.

Twenty winters wishing that
the dream might finally end,
he tilts his head and looks at God
above his bed, a crucifix upon the wall,
his Jesus hangs and bleeds for sins
of lesser men but for him there is no comfort,
he can't escape the scene of drifting death
and flotsam, sailors drinking blood
from swollen corpses, greedy
in the eyes like the sharks
that encircle them.

When daylight comes
still no relief, he sits among
his salty sheets and chokes
on waves of guilt. Deceit
will always be his master,
every day no different
than the rest
except,
today he’s had enough,
the dead,
they will not cease their torment.

Twenty winters waiting
but the dead won’t go away.

The boys who stopped to fix their vests
The man with gaping wound in chest
The burning wreckage going down
The screams of those who soon would drown
The oily water thick as mud
The utter chaos, flesh and blood
The rabid thirst he could not quench
afloat in pools of human stench

He goes outside and lies upon
the grass, a Navy Colt revolver
in one hand, a toy soldier in the other,
he puts the gun against his head
and pulls the trigger.

Twenty winters

Twenty winters

Rest

Her heart was beating mightily
he told her that he loved her
he loved her more than all the rest
she loved him just as deeply
she told him now her dreams had come  
he said he understood her
he felt the same, the years he threw    
away were now behind him
they walked along the rain wet street    
he held her hand so sweetly
they didn’t rush, they felt complete      
their love was all that mattered
he said the world could not destroy      
his love for her, his angel
then rain came down like corduroy    
in a straight and soft arrangement

Sometimes I notice
when flags fly half mast
and mostly ignored
by the people who pass,
but lately I wonder
about who has died,
the families who loved them
and how much they cry,
or don't cry for that matter
maybe they smile
all the while anticipating
a big fat insurance check.
Some mourn the loss,
some mourn the life,
others anticipate.

He walks across the great expanse as if a ghost.
He walks alone and out of place as two by two
the joggers pass and barely glance as if its normal

to behold a ghost.  What they don’t see defines
his life, the tortured demon voice inside his head
that taunts and teases all day long and
tells him he “ain’t spit” and “ugly is forever”.

He’d been neglected all his life but now that he’s
become a man he thought the love he sought
would save him from the way it was when he
was young. His problem now is wrapped around
his backward thought that love is his to find and take
instead of his to give and share, if only he had
learned this in his childhood.

He slowly mounts the rail between the ocher beams
on Golden Gate and looks at murky water far below.
His clothes are black, his hair is long and black,
his skin as white as snow. He stands ***** while
looking back to see if one might lend a hand but
no one does.  He smiles a smile and turns around and
then as if he’s been cut down he leans, unbending,
and falls.

            A hundred miles away a mother knows her child
is dead.  She bows her head in shame and cries,
the why at war with guilt. A part of her is gone,
a part she can’t deny or blame as someone else's fault
instead she hates herself for never having loved the boy,
but even more she hates the hurt.  If only she had
fought the urge to drink, if only she had loved him half
as much as that crazy **** she used to smoke, the ****
she called her ‘crystal blue persuasion’. If only she
could turn the hands of time and rearrange the things
that mattered most.

A flare is dropped to mark the spot where he went in,
the flaming red a beacon on a bay of mother’s tears.
Another soul engulfed in grief is gone, the deed is done.
A crowd is gathered at the rail to point and stare
as boats approach the flare where men with hooks
will pull him out while mother drinks 100 miles away.

The skeletons my father keeps in his closet
are not my own,
those bones would be far too obvious.
The demons he fought I've put in the ground,
the bones his daddy gave him,
the ones I said would not be mine.

But dead bones don’t die,
at least the bones that pass from fathers to sons,
instead they fester and stew
and boil below the surface
where barely a sound is heard.
Meanwhile my boys are busy digging them up.

Its true
boys tend to dig and get *****;
my boys dig up bones
and drum them on my door.

I worked so hard to break the cycle,
to raise my boys without the pain,
to protect their fragile hearts from heartache,

I kept telling myself to keep the dead dead,
but its hard to do when the dead don't really die,
instead they lie about the absence of pain,
the pain I knew so well,
the fear that motivated me to be something more,
to push myself beyond
what I thought I could be,
to a place where I might be a man.

But here at the end
my boys are still boys drumming up bones,
no fear, they expect the world to be easy.

I have learned that fear can be a great motivator.
It worked for me
but not my boys
I never gave them anything to fear.
I gave them boats with oars
and straw to make brick
and lots of love and plenty of hugs
and always told them I was proud of them

but I never gave them fear.

Now my boys fear nothing
but expect everything

dead bones don't die

they just look different

I continue in darkness while
supposed light shines in the distance;

distant and unattainable
beyond a purple fog on its hands and knees
feeling its way through the night
like an angel of death.

Where is the light so many refer to?

I’ve died a thousand deaths but only seen
the purple fog nothingness creeping like
a rising river

tumbling over sand bags.

I have not seen light.

I cannot contain darkness when
the sun doesn’t shine.
I can barely contain it while it does.

Like a coward he will not fight me.
Instead he’s in the brush
and firing rounds from fifty yards away
while I stand here alone,
an easy target on a **** line
watching, waiting, weary of
the fire he brings yet
I never see his face.

the day will come
when I will be consumed,
the veil will fall
and what I hide will bleed,

reveal the angst beneath the guise like
a ***** king behind a mask of gold;
his kingdom knows the truth
but looks away.

A thousand masks cannot contain his pain.

How difficult it is to pretend
to have it all together,

even harder
to fight an enemy not seen.

Your overabundance of meaningless words
are scattered around me like fluttering bugs,
they're wearing me out with their badgering buzz
and making me sick of forever with you.

My heart is like a great lung
breathing in and out, fulfilled
in the filling yet lost in release.
In and out all day long,
even in my sleep
euphoria and anguish dance
a metered dance of
dizzying steps I call delusion.

You spew words without thought,
I swallow pellets of denial
choking down so many I no longer
see the white elephant stomp
around the room,
only the ever present doom
and endless bouts of nausea.

I ***** entitlement on the undeserving
they accept it without consideration.

like a drug mule who swallows a thousand pellets
before eventually succumbing to one,
I return again and again and again
to a dream that will not satisfy.

this insane **** would make a martyr proud.

Mother thunders toward the bedroom door;
a great steam locomotive huffing and
puffing on piston churning hips,
head of steam and flashing lights
sweep a red warning.
I heed
but she jumps the track,
and suddenly I am beneath
the cold wheels of her wrath,
flailing away,
flesh and bone grinding in the dust,
                               
while her shrill whistle blows.

She placed a scarf in my hand
on a cold and rainy day,
lavender lace
laden with the scent
of Oscar de la Renta.
That would be
the last of us,
I lost her on that day.

She always had a penchant
for fine fragrances,
I always had a penchant
for elusion.

I ran to hide my secrets
in a place I couldn’t be loved
and zombied along for
two decades and then some.

Occasionally
when women pass in
crowded halls or shopping malls
their trailing wake radiates
a breezy scent,

a swirling memory
of what's been lost,

a stinging pain
for that which
slipped away.

I live in my skin
acutely aware
and suffer a voice in my brain,
a demon or such
who’s there to deceive,
his goal is to make me insane.
He leaves those alone
who don’t seem to feel,
those zombies who live in a dream,
He mocks their dull lives
and simple retreats
while I bear the weight of his beam.
His whispering thoughts
are constantly there,
they haunt and they curse late at night,
while zombies asleep
on opposite sides
of chasms are dreaming they’re right.
To narrow the gap
of this great divide
I must find a place in-between,
to build me a room
with comfortable chairs
and settle my soul with routine,
The problem it seems
is “see-saw syndrome”,
there’s no stopping once in the air,
I get to the point
where I might find rest
then freefall back down to despair.

To simply say in words
     I love you more today
     cannot express the truth
     of how far I have come

there are only these extremes

Under the universe of forever
     the many ways I love you are
     like stars that can’t be counted,
     a black velvet sky
     scattered with diamond light
     as far as the eye can see

Into the depths of eternity
     the many ways I love you are
     like ocean floors uncharted,
     a vast unknown world
     dark and mysterious
     as much as the mind can believe

Over the surface of infinity
     the many ways I love you are
     like care-free country roads,
     a safe pathway home
     breezy with summer scents
     as near to my heart as the wind

Within the confines of my soul
     the many ways I love you are
     like an innocent child at play,
     a pure joy of life
     lost within a fantasy
     as free as the Grace he receives

I don’t intend to die
before my time
but often
feel the sting
of dead intentions

Old men in dresses wave hands across baskets
casting magic spells on sausage and oranges
then hocus pocus over horseradish root as
thick as a forearm, potato-peeled later
we'll garnish meats with mystical power.

They expect us to kiss the ****** feet of
a God immortalized in plaster while granite
saints stand watching a procession of misty-eyed
martyrs shuffling down the aisle like sheep,
and all the while the bells are ringing.

Always the ringing of bells.

Bells rung by boys standing still
ring like angels.

The old men hold crackers up to the light,
then more bells and drinking of blood
and finally its done. They waddle down
the nave casting incense in a metronome spray.

The boys follow behind the hypnotic smoke,
their bells have been put away,
pall bearers of the crucified Christ
they lead us not into temptation,
rather deliver us out the doors
and into the street,
redeemed and safe behind
the hedge of numbing ritual.

I.

I sometimes dream I’m burning down
the bridges I have crossed,
the ones I’ve built
with words and deeds
that haunt me for no reason,
where paranoia rages
to the point of desperation,
and in my dream I’m wiring up
the bridges for destruction.

I strap them tight with dynamite
then light the wick,
the sizzle’s quick,
ka-boom! And they're exploding.
I sit and smoke a cigarette
and watch them fall completely
while listening to the music of
my past mistakes dispersing.
The sound is heavenly.

I close my eyes
and tilt my head
to take it in,
I feel at peace,
I fall asleep
or so I think,
instead I find I’m wide awake
and standing on the other side;
I haven’t crossed at all.
I’m still parading guilt around my head.

II.

I sometimes see beyond my view
and catch a glimpse of spirits,
its usually when I least expect
they cross my field of vision.
A peaceful ghost,
an evil ghost,
they both exist,
I’ve seen them come
from places where we’d not survive
and minds could not conceive.

I’ve witnessed them in houses through the years,
in houses seized by hell
where every corner walked around
a chill ran down my spine
and creaking walls
and darkened halls
would prompt a quicker step,
those houses where
the shadow beasts and dancing trees
once filled my heart with fright.

III.

But not this house,
I have to say the spirits here are kind.
I cannot lie
I’ve often tried
to find them here,
in sleepless nights,
in midnight gloom,
in shadows cast
across the rooms and porch and yard,
surprisingly they can’t be found,
at least the ones who seek to strip the soul,
they seem to stick to houses
that are far removed from me,
those evil houses without love                                                             ­                                                                 ­                
      
and far away across the fields of dreaming-
on other sides of bridges.

The roads I drive to work
are scarred -  all of them
like the people who pass me,
they think themselves important
they all lie
these roads
are patched and worn
and trying to look whole
the lines  scraped away, replaced by
intermittent ******* painted over scars,
mistakes that can’t be hidden
but I feel them
when I cross their grooves and ridges
like malice and envy -
open your eyes dipshits!
don’t be afraid - hell
my whole life is a mistake
without which I wouldn’t have words
slow down and feel the roads you’re living on
or at least look at them-
*******