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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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…

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-
*******

I have been to where
the lonely go, and I’ve
seen their luring towers,
A call to the hopeless, to those who come
from far away to see

if coming was a mistake.

Will we ever know
who doesn’t go?
and what of those that go
but remain unknown?
Perhaps they go at night.

The horror of it.

To not be able to see the end
but still it comes and quickly.
A silent floating moment
in a winter of regret,
a springtime of longing,
a summer of sunshine,
Or a fall to the end

of the world in 7 seconds.

A super cosmic collider of
meticulous destruction.

Whether they stay or go
its all the same,
multi-layered levels of
brokenness,
no one is immune.
No one is immune.

Some spend time putting
things back together,
the spacing between levels allows it.
Others break over and over
and over again,
not enough space for repair

while the pull of the towers,
the flaming red towers and
the fog rolling down
from the west promise silence.

When I stood at the edge and looked over,
the noise was deafening.

The ones without space
cannot hear.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

'All swim' whistle,
water sent splashing,
the chaotic entrance of youth.

Adults scramble in the melee
while a man I do not know
bumps into me,
his hand down my shorts.
Confusion.

I ride home in shame.
Silent. Burning. Shame.

I am only 10
and tend to wince
at loud voices,
and right and wrong
depend upon the
time of day and
how many beers
my father drinks.

Country roads whip by,
sweet corn in the wind,
I watch the sun set
over the hill.

Once it's gone I know.

There will be no redemption,
 no reclaiming of innocence.

That shame feels like swallowing hot coals is all too familiar.

Mother says, “You don't look sick to me",

it's her answer for everything.

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.

I never really felt as if
my mother had it all together.  
Her torch was
a brittle twig she couldn’t keep lit,
never enough stick to burn bright,
but just enough tip
for random flare-ups
violently fueled by
nobody knew what.

Her lack of light meant
she could not be trusted,
and her strained attempts at
love and affection felt like
a dream where
everyone’s speaking Japanese.

Her marriage to my father was
the modern day equivalent
of an interracial same *** marriage,
Catholics and Protestants
weren't supposed to mix,
and a toothless trumpet player
with an alcoholic bent
shouldn’t have lasted the honeymoon
with a spoiled, sheltered oldest child.

But father made it seem as if
they had it all together,
at least in public.
At home it was different,
he passed through our lives
like the winter wind,
everybody scrambling for cover
when he showed up.

He slept at odd hours
and worked and drank
and drank and worked,
blowing quickly from one
to the other, 
never standing still long enough
to notice the demons at his heals,
the demons that took forever to catch him,

but not mother.
They caught her when I was quite young.
I could see them in her eyes
from a very early age and
father could see them too,
but he did nothing
to protect her.

They’ve been together
over 60 years now, overrun by what
I would call a thick purple nothingness –
an eerie, detached existence within
the smothering cadence of monotony,
yet somehow, unbelievably,
they still have hope.

Hope for God knows what

all they have is their
unspoken hatred of each
wrapped up in a make believe
so strong and lived so long
that their demons are now
a huge white elephant
lounging about the house
loosening their bed screws,
pounding on the bed springs,
moving through the vents
and interfering with
the reception of Catholic radio.

You might call it insanity,

I say everything that
once mattered to them is lost,
yet again,
they still have hope.

Meanwhile
we overachieving children
suffer our own maladies,
a misfit bunch of
dysfunctional lovers running so fast
we’ll be 80 before the demons catch us.

But who am I kidding?
From father to mother to me,
their demons have been my closest friends
as long as I can remember,

ever since the first day
I saw them in her eyes.

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.

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

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






.

They are both gone yet my siblings
go on about how they are missed,
exaggerating their legacy
with each passing year.

I try to search my mind for happy memories
but can only conjure the demons they gave me.
How different might I be had
my parents never been tormented.

But perhaps they had no choice,
maybe the swine did not drown
what Christ intended to drown and
instead emerged from the sea of Galilee
and entered soul after soul down through
the ages, passing from one generation to
the next until they met my grandparents,

and then dished a double dose
for mother and father.

Early on my father tried to drown them out,
his favorite method Black Label,
and that’s when the spirits took him;

spirits fueled by spirits.

And what if for me
those years had been kind?
Raised on warmth and tenderness
instead of fear and loneliness?

I only know that the fear held me
back from total stupidity and
served as a great motivator.
A fearless me would have died
a thousand deaths instead of
the 2 or 3 that I endured.

So now I’m in a place where all is well.
I’m on the other side of the ****.

But without the ****, well,
I just wouldn’t be me.

How true my creator knew me then and
knows me now, weaved all the pieces
of back then into the completion of tomorrow.
He sees my life like a drone sees a vehicle on
a winding road, what’s over the hill and
from where it came all at the same time.

Today I choose to only see what is right before me,
and right now those ancient demons are silent,
softened a bit by mindfulness, therapy, love
and the passing of parents.

In this moment I have no time for
the memory of any of them.

I.

Everything meets
in the middle,

all that is
and was
and done
or said

eventually.

So they say while
the fulcrum creaks
and the lever sags.

     That’s where
     they’ve
     lost there way.

Take two magnets and
try to push them together
to meet at center, instead
they slide from side to side
and go around, no force
can bring them together.

     I say everything
     that goes around
     comes back this way,

the wrong way,
to haunt or remind us
but never to the middle,
never offering peace.

Maybe that's why
some say suicide
is a valid option,
as if to trick
the sacred balance,
sneak up on
magnetic rejection
and force your way
to center.

     Sometimes I dwell
     on the mystery of
     Golden Gate.

Such a sacred place,
the breeze, the sun,
her hypnotic beauty
and the fact that
no one jumps at
night.


II.

Nero:    "Jax, do you believe in Karma?"
Jax:       "Not today"
  
     But I believe.
     I believe because
     I have lived it.

     My Karma is Grace
     and I can’t tell you
     how many times she
     has found me,

always where I didn’t go willingly,
dragged by a massive darkness
and held up high while the weight
of death sat across the divide
on the other end of the teeter-totter.

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.

I.

She’ll drive through the parking lot
at quarter past eight tonight;
but first she’ll put up the gravy
and throw away salad.

There is something amiss with the sun.
The angle through the window,
she’s never noticed it on
her plate before

because by now
they were usually seated in the den
where the sun would greet them there,
not here.

It’s not like him to be late.
She worries while she sits,
waits a little longer,
watches the sun slide over
the edge of the table
and drift toward the empty den.

She feels as if she’s
stepped off a spaceship
after landing on a different planet
and the simple act of breathing
requires exaggerated effort.

She looks around at nothing that’s familiar.

She gets up and clears the plates,
feeds the dog, loads the wash
then heads for the door.

Its no surprise
she finds his car parked
in space 138.
The same place he always parks
when he goes for a run.

She shakes her head  
and checks her watch,
confused by the clock
on the dash, 8:31 pm.

It doesn’t make sense.

25 years of routine behavior
makes her think that it is morning.
He parks in space 138
in the morning.

Troubled by her fractured norm
she calls 911 and waits for
the police to arrive.
They tell her that they found a man
and ask her to go with them but
she cannot, or will not go with them
to identify a dead man,

lifeless on a concrete slab
in a cold city basement
under blue neon buzz
above refrigerated drawers.

They will need to find another way
to break her heart tonight.

She refuses to hear what happened,
how a mental patient ran from
behind a tree and hacked him
with a rusty machete.

She will not go with them,
she will not listen to their story,
she will not turn on the television,
she will not speak to anyone but

she will hang on to routine.

She will hold it tightly
for as long as she can.

II.

On a random Saturday at 5:15
she rushes to prepare dinner by 5:30.
At 5:35 she stares at the kitchen clock,
the one they calibrate with Greenwich
once a month.

At 5:36 she takes off her apron,
folds it carefully so as not to wrinkle it,
wipes a bead of sweat from her upper lip
and wonders if its menopause.

Her heart is racing as
she jumps at the sound of the telephone.
  
When she hangs up she is calm.

The coroner has confirmed.

She heads toward the back door,
spots her keys on the left hook while
the right hook sits empty
and she begins to cry.
    
She takes her keys into the garage
but leaves her purse behind.
She won’t be driving anywhere tonight.
She starts the car,
    
leaves it running and gets out,
lies down on the cold cement floor,
curls into a fetal position and
slowly drifts toward sleep.

She finally admits the truth.

He sleeps on cold cement as well.

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

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.

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 end is never the end and steps become stages.
Neuro-transmissions engineered at birth are
erroneous pathways deepened over time.

Retrain the brain they say, neuroplasticity
a new age of hope, but pathways are abyssal
and unscalable, and time is running out..  

And what is life's purpose
When your deepest chasm is fear?

Therapy teaches to live in the moment
Experience keeps me seeking atonement

Those places to go to for calming the mind
Are fleeting, elusive and redundantly non effective,
Losing their ability to heal, so few to rely on!

Like a tiny window in a prison cell,
Only a little light is let in but not too often, transient,  
Crossing your face for a moment but then gone.

More so a reminder
Of what might have been
Or may never be.

Mountains can't be climbed with moments.

Dreams dissolve quickly upon waking,
The harder you try to hold them
The quicker they are gone.

I wonder if they are real at all.

Small victories in a multi-faceted war
Do not define sobriety.

More demons to conquer

The worst for last perhaps unbeatable.

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.

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  think  he  likes  to sit out back
                             where he once sat
with all his yard in view
  his chair is gone but he is there
                                    he sits in mine
                                   I saw him once
                      while pacing through
the house at 3 am
                       I stopped and stared
                       and rapped the glass
to see if he’d respond
                                                  instead­              
he looked away..
                
      he must have heard novenas
for the dead..
      
                         I saw his tired stare
                                        the thin hair
                         on his balding head
wispy with static electricity
  the liver spots across his brow
                       a prominent display
of reckless living                    
                                 his body lay flat
against the chair
               like a life-sized playing card
                         with hands and feet
from Alice in Wonderland

                                             I wonder
does he miss the rabbits?

                  I looked for him again
                                             last night
                            at quarter after 2
           I wanted to tell him its ok
   to use my chair to reminisce..
  
               nostalgia tends to look
                                             like love
to those who are without..

                 perhaps another night
                            I’ll see him there
                              within my chair
and maybe we can talk
I’d do my best to comfort him
             and put his mind at ease
                             about the things
he’s now without
        like this old house he built
                                        I’d tell him
I will be there soon
                                    soon enough
from his perspective
                                            by grace
50 years from mine                
                we’ll sit and talk about
                  the days we lived and
loved here..

                              *I am not naïve
                    I know he is a ghost
but I am not afraid

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.

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 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.

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.

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