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.

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

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.

When the blue green summers
of youth give way
to the golden falls of the aged and grey
its understood that death will call

but no one cares
no one at all

When sacred lives have slipped away
in morning's paper deaths displayed
as obits breathing final breaths
of those who left this world in death

Their storied bones are buried behind
the other news and hard to find
a legacy of 50 words
or less if less in life occurred

Like the simple things they did unheard

The times they stopped to lend a hand
The little things in life they planned
The times for Christ they took a stand
The only footprints in the sand

and no one noticed

no one at all

except God

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.

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

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.

In the summer when I was 10
I won my first trophy,
a time when kids earned them
and others went without.

I cradled it in my hands like
the corpse of a baby rabbit,
my sweaty palms staining
the corrugated copper torso.

Father drove us home
in an overwhelming silence
while I sat in the back
with my trophy,
thinking about how
Paul's father twirled
him about in celebration.

I'd never seen a father
hug a son before,
it was strange and alien
in the world I knew,

hell I'd never seen
a mother hug a son,
or even a father hug
a mother for that matter.

The years would bring
many more trophies
and much more silence,

all of which now fills
a worn and tattered
box in my garage,

but leaves me with a
smothering emptiness
whenever I wonder why
I'm so terrified of
being loved.

Despondency
like a vampire
thrives on the night.
Pale as death
he never dies,
only sleeps
and wakes
to quench his thirst.

His chaos is
my redemption,
his constant roar
the blood
upon my brain,
he’s the only way
I know to feel alive
in a world full
of puppets.

Those who fear him
hang by string,
they stiffly dance
like living dead
with eyes wide
and unblinking,
wooden smiles painted
over worried frowns.

I have learned to
dance without string,
to stand strong
and wait for him
with arms upturned,
veins to the sky,
silent and still,
as reticent as a rood.

let him come to me
this night, there is
no fear, let him in.

The rest are all puppets.

Puppets on strings.

Puppets without a maker
to wish on falling stars.

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.

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-
*******

A painter's wooden palette
is used to blend color,
if it isn’t quite right 
no problem,
just wash it and start over.

A clean slate with  
no layers beneath,
no previous unused batches
or miss- matches.

A fresh start without guilt
and the constant reminder
of mistaken color.

If my brain were this simple
I'd be soggy from starts over.

Instead,

my palette is thick and
crusty with mistaken color
and every new mix
blends the old with the new.

These multi-layer batches
will never dry out or wash off
so I’ve stopped trying.

I'm tired of all this
mixing and matching
where no matter how bright
the color I add,

it always ends up storm gray..

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.

(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.

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 I push will win.

To find myself, to lose my soul,
To lose my pain to find control,
To find the norm, to lose my peace,
To lose it all I’ll find release.

The mad deny, the sane enjoy,
The sane build up what mad destroy.
The mad in me, the sane in you,
The sane believe what mad pursue.

To stay in love, to go alone,
To go with you and stay unknown.
To stay within, to go without,
To go to where I stay in doubt.

To give in love, to take in lust,
To take it all to give my trust.
To give to you, to take as wife,
To take your hand I’d give my life.

The day is here, the night is done.
The night was long but day has won.
The daylight comes, the nighttime brings,
The night in love; The day with wings.

To feel the chill of nothingness again
  as aching cold of callous winter days
    and be alone without your tender touch
        or live again without your fire’s blaze

I’d rather die behind a frozen wall
   of crystal river rising toward the sky
      a fall of hopes and dreams in solid state
         a waterfall of ice before my eyes

Than live another day without you near
   confined by winter's grip of idle wait
     or spring to blossom where the dying sleep
         in petrified attachment to their fate

Our spring has sprung the time to melt is now
  if only ‘cause  we choose to face our fears
    the icy walls that numb the days that were

      ….let’s take this chance to fight those frozen years

This years winner is portulaca.
She has overrun the competition.
I pronounce her pour – chew - laka,
as if her presence isn’t already
pronounced enough.

A watery **** in disguise,
she slips beneath a bed of color
when the sun comes out.
Hundreds of little umbrellas
protecting her from the heat,
or rather gathering it.
Like those big dishes in
the Arizona desert
that listen to outer space,
she sways and moves toward
the voice of the sun.

Three colors dominate.
Neon pink,
not glow in the dark pink
but glow in the day pink.

Red,
a red as red as
“B” horror movie blood,

and lemony yellow.

In the afternoon they hide.
Delicate brushes dipped in color,
their daily quota of light fulfilled.

Those not in direct light
still fight,
open and searching,
leaning and bending toward
leftover patches of day..

I see one standing alone,
upright and outstretched,
tall and wiry.
A netted wing dragonfly
hovers nearby.

The dianthus lie
silent among the portulaca.
Like gored runners at Pamplona
they have been trampled and overrun,
their white garment petals
splattered in red.

The roses fade in the August heat,
tired of continuous expectation
they don’t even try anymore.
They will be pruned for their indolence.

Near the garage,
The Mexican heather sways
in the intermittent shade of fountain grass,
Running this way and that,
trying to catch a random ray of light
between the blades of taller grass.

In the corner of the yard
the fountain sits bleached and tired,
weathered by a season of sun.

It bubbles in slow motion,

the mossy birds lie down in its flow,
too tired to stand anymore.

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.

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.

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.

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 blue is the middle.
The battle.
The anti coherent existence.

I’m supposed to watch it from a distance,
separate myself through persistence.

I am unable.

The Blue is my watershed, and loud,
Red left and Green right war at the peak
while the pull from the left is strong.
A rolling storm cloud thick from behind,
I look toward the Green, for the light,
to your face, and the reflection in
your eyes tells me what I already know.

It is gaining.
I cannot escape it.

A tidal wave,
an avalanche,
the day before the flu.
The first pang of a kidney stone.
That moment between banging
your knee on a desk and the arrival
of the pain.

A slight delay but
most definitely inevitable.

I am not supposed to be IT.

The darkness is its own entity.

IT
is of itself and not me,

But it tells me it is me
and it is quite convincing.

Without further progress
I am convinced I'll need an exorcism.

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

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

In those first years
we spent a lot of time
in red corduroy chairs,
the ones that came with
the house on Turner Terrace.

I would sit and watch you
when you didn’t know
I was watching, constantly
looking for a crack in
your armor,
for a little snippet of the
***** you might become,

but I never found it
and it never happened.

Your little girl wonder
had me convinced that
the world in your hands
would be safe,

no death blows,
no mean streaks,
love's foundation set deep
never to be undone by
head games or hidden agendas,

and now all these years later
I am still transfixed by
your clarity,
your complete “sheerness”.

You are my priceless
dividend of peace finally paid
from a lifetime investment
in Faith,

you came to me
when Hope had gone
and Grace was silent,

and you love me
when you don’t even know it.

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.

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...

Nothing short of
being loved as a child
would ever give me the
ability to make different
decisions than the ones
that led me to today.

Given a redo
with no change
I might have made
worse decisions.

With that in mind
I am inclined to
stop despising
the little puppy of regret
that follows me
wherever I go,

empowered
to bend over
and pick it up

and allow myself
to love it
for what it is.

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

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

Let’s go to hell
and pretend
to be wearing
disguises.

Wade across
the chasm of
darkness
into a place
of utter despair….
Oh wait,
we’re already
there….

And he’s
already here,
always is,

kept in check
by Benedict
and crucifix.

Prancing
to and fro
looking for
weakness in
my defenses
like a
velociraptor.

Usually its
short barks
and snorts,
And the
clicking
of
nails,

but today
he’s in disguise,

Satan
in sludge state,

a black liquid
shadow
wherever
I go.

Standing still
would be the
end of me,

Yet all
that is
within
me
wants
to dive
right in

like the town idiot,
succumb to the lure and
come forth covered
in feather.

he brings
much pleasure
at first
everything
is well
yet fleeting,

have some more
soon the sludge
will take you,
its inside of you,
swallowed you,
you of it and
it of you,

wake
and choke
and spit
in fear

this time
May be
the last

Don't stuff it
Back down

don’t look
in the mirror

Only God can
pull it out
but you have
to ask,

you have
to believe,
the key?

Don’t ask
too late.

Why do we Hallmark our holidays and fabricate ceremonies?

We guilty non-obligators celebrate all things that can't be true,
forcing smiles in rooms full of elephants yet no one’s a candidate for sainthood.

I tell myself I’ll do better than they did, but doing better than they did
still leaves roles un-played and dreams unfulfilled.

I may understand life from the top to the bottom but I live in the dash between the hair of the dog and last call.

While people without broken bones wander around on crutches,
we who were broken as children walk on feet-less legs,
a trail of pain follows wherever we go.

Its inevitable for us to get stuck between bitterness and agony while all the while we fail to make sense of what it is we're living for.

I don’t want to be celebrated I’d rather be understood, so maybe then the searing heat of loneliness we never speak of might die a slow death.

I only wanted for you what was better than what I had
not knowing that without the bad there is never any good.

Every left hand turn leads to something right eventually
and when we exist for only ourselves the world is not round rather flat and we tend to fall off the edges into pandemonium and unhappiness.

Its not what we have it’s the pursuit that keeps us going but I need to not want in order to feel what I feel.

To sit still is more consuming than any long term project.

When I have it all I have nothing,

an uneasiness with the easiness of stress free living,

a simmering flame of doubt about all that's gone wrong in my life while things that happened 30 years ago feel as fresh as tomorrow.

I read an article today that said the drug ecstasy can take away depression but we all know lots of pills can do that.

The bottom line in all of this, I wish I had a reset button, a restart after false start, a wake up to reality call, I'd throw away the wigs I wear, powder coated cover ups,  and let my hair grow long,

get back to the basics,

maybe start with Bukowski,

celebrate the simple things in life.

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

We were dying that year,
the year they fell,
and when they fell I felt nothing;
but I heard them hit the ground.

Amazed by her nonchalance
I sat the children down, the sound
of fighter jets outside the window,
to talk about the day’s events.

I’d spend the next ten years
studying the art of empathy,
pushed along by the shame of
standing zombie-like and unaffected

while others wailed in horror at
the collapsing twin towers, and now,
the haunting realization that so many
had to die in order that I might learn to feel.

The ones that jumped live with me still.
More real today than when they leapt.

     We define our lives by brick and plaster,
     row after row of rooftop satellites staring southwest,
     straining for a glimpse of God while
     our garbage appears at the curb before morning.

     There is no talk behind dark shades, no debate,
     only flickering lights of transmission
     and lives backed into corners, swept up in
     a dustpan of mindless television.

     The fighter jets brought me back to life,
     my neighbors stay mostly out of sight,

     until one of them encounters
     their own catastrophic collapse,
     then the others congregate curbside
     in the flashing red light

     to watch men stretch yellow tape
     around a scene that looks familiar
     and wonder why they cannot feel;

     like the day they fell when I felt nothing.

Perhaps I should blame
my inner demon for how
complicated my mind has become

this uneasiness with the easiness
of stress free living

and maybe I've lived in the present
long enough to know what is to come

living in the present is like
sailing on the bright blue ocean,
the beauty is everywhere,
surrounds you, wind in your face,
the sun on your skin,
cool spray across the deck
while the boat gently rocks

yet an uneasiness calls from below,
a black bilge pump and drain with
leaky seals, and deeper still
the ocean depths, cold, dark,
and suffocating

that which lurks below is more
real than whats above

I'm taking on water,  
its only a matter of time before
the boat goes down

I'm acutely aware of what
it feels like to drown

The past encroaches on the present,
fills it with painful regret

while the beautiful bright
blue slips away

I wish I could explain it better

I'm in a vicious cycle
of contradicting regret

there's a storm on the horizon

a leak in the boat

everything that exists below
is darkness come upon me,

I feel it in my gut at
this very moment,
right now, right here,
an impending doom,
my own little apocalypse

retrospect and regret
they never go away

today is nothing more than
tomorrow's yesterday and
I am continually being shamed by
that which I am already ashamed of

I'm in a vicious cycle
of contradicting regret

and I embrace it

because its the only thing I know to do






.

Your middle name is Beautiful.
Mine’s a bit more complicated,
like bitter on the lips
leaves you thirsty in the sun.

I’d hope in time your love
might make it different,
it already has to a degree,
but for now
my best advice for you?

Attend to your own miracle,

release your pent up energy
while I entertain you from below,
I’ll shine a single beam on
what might fuel desire

and watch you take my light in,
see you from the outside
blink slowly,
each shut a deposit,
a snapshot,

a field of vision for future use,
for future reference.

They say the eyes are
a gateway to the soul,
painting pictures behind eyelids
there forever to recall,

While the moon shines red,

on me but not you.

As soft as the smooth direction
of velvet both ways.

We live in a house
without ghosts or
previous tenants.
No one has died
or sold their soul
here,

and no one has done
unspeakable things
behind closed doors
here.

No one has endured
flaming words,
burning skin,
kicks and shoves
or broken bones
here.

There are no
spun dust dead cells
come alive as
night prowl swirlings
here,

and no manifestations
of such.

No leftover lives
here,
nothing left behind
here.

only peace
and quiet
here.

But not back
there
when I lived with her
before I lived
here
with you.

Back
there
she said I went crazy
when the neighbors asked
why I slept on the porch
there.

It would have been crazier
had I slept inside the house
there.

What happened
there
was worse than
the worst thing imaginable.
I would forever be changed
by what happened
there.

She let evil enter
there
from across the globe when
mother Russia sent it in
the suitcase of a boy.


When I met you
I knew
my porch sleeping days
were over,
whether
here
or
there,
quite frankly anywhere.

Our first house
was 50 years old
yet we were only
the second owners.

Family must have mattered
there.

The ghost was different
there,

not frightening, not angry,
more nostalgic,
he used to sit out
there
on the porch
in my chair at night,
sit
there
looking sad,
like he missed the place.

He didn’t mind us being
there
and I never felt threatened
there.

On many occasions
he knew that I knew
he was
there,
but he wouldn’t engage.
I felt sorry for him,
sitting out
there
all alone.

For a short while
we lived in a house
north of town.
We lived
there
before we lived
here.

The ghosts
there
were more like what
you’d expect from ghosts.

First it was
the hogs in the attic
followed by
the children in the night,
it wasn’t unsafe
it just didn’t feel right
there.

Someone wasn’t happy
there,

so we left
there
and came
here
and built this house of love.

Now we live where
there
are no ghosts,
at least not in the house.

Instead
the history in my head
is what haunts me.

To move it out,
to delete it
would mean to be dead
or maybe lobotomized,
so no thank you
I think I’ll learn to live with
these
ghosts.

These
that aren’t
there,
or
here,

they still are.

My father is 85 and tells me
that they prey on your weakness
when you get older.
He cannot even speak of them
for fear of being institutionalized
or put away, or deemed insane,
but I believe him when he tells me
that they come to him at night,
and although he cannot see them
they sit on his bed and remind him
of all the mistakes he has made
in his lifetime.

I look at him
and I can see his pain.

My ghosts tell me its what
I have to look forward to.