during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
******
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

meaning of wishtastes
desires drive delusion
devils delve deepening
seeds to root loathsome leaves
smelt cinders graying goals
craving strangled contentment
under backalley blackness
beats heart sneeze two
cavalcade blue
cacophony in fast dreams

reseized by letting go of circus surlplus
reassurance of real love is real gone
gone is the relooped sad troupe armies of needinesses
truth proofed ****! the magician disappeared
withdrew tears,fears, smears, and leers
now amongst new artful peers
The lions tail was a cobra coming with teeth under the door
awoke then broke my dreams end and don't hafta go back again
ego sinning by ego being a sin says ego
leggo my ego waffle a proper prophet
the jewels three sweet gleams eaten
gifts even the ego cant teacher the reached rifts
sewn up all dischordian accordian polka poked out eyes
belief swam away to the island of surprises
can I ? I can will it . Will then be faithful to real action.
kung fooled schools chop trees sticks
paper stones throw away
I can walk 6 feet on airs invisilbe stairs
ears heard alistening stream just the branch that froots
Shotgun riding to the holy holy holy
Dee vine

And so the song flows -
a messy trace of barbiturate haze,
the song flows,
tinged with a red-eyed, cathartic
sort of sparkle about it in the dark,
like the backalley streetlamps by my window
at one in the morning.

July 1st-
I take a step outside, climb to the roof.
My eyes swell from the sunlight,
glasses steam up from the heat.
I have no need for lifting my *** off these sheets anymore but to write.
Manhattan rooftop, why did you have to betray me?
There was a time when
you were the glistening silvertoned backdrop to all of my surreptitious loves
as I sat on you,
idly humming jazz,
peacefully watch the go-and-come
of the synagogue pouring into the
streets below,
pitifully bemused
at the concept of dejection.
You once gave me a view of opportunity,
and ever-alert, always-foreseeing eyes that could have seen all the way to the buildings of Stamford.
Now I'm eighteen and terribly myopic.

What at all at this point is to exist
with implacable certainty?

Manhattan rooftop,
Tell me that
solipsism is the universal truth,
then I will not feel as alone.

Intoxicated waves of insanity drive the rage
The crave to dull the blade is no longer a phase

Miniscule minds never mind and
It's a living hell giving everything away just to disengage
I blow off watching the sunset **** near every day and
The only thing I have left to give away
Is a little piece of myself  

******* and Death threats, backalley beatings become my epithets
Every day is exactly the same
Wandering through graveyards trying to find my name
I Wonder, have I ever lived a life at all?  
In and out of cornfields in the fall to
The Iron Bars of last call
Fading into the background like I never even cared at all

She lays with some other guy  '
And He probably asks her why
It could never be her and I
A spark that couldn't wait to die
That was me
A man without a family