What's in a man
My mother always said to me that the day I was born my father ran home and changed into his finest suit.
In his words "I am a man now".
I do not remember the time but I know she described it like the sun hung on to the sky like a bright yellow lantern trying not to fall.
Everyday I wake up, my goal is finding that suit, something to say "I am a man now". Some fabric made of second hand wool and words and actions, all trying to fit into the same seam.
I was three the first time my father called me the man of the house, I was five the first time he meant it. Since then he has been more sky than earth and I have been the bright yellow lantern of a sun hanging on, trying not to set. Trying not to dip behind the clouds because I know better than most that the shadows of fathers are long and dark.
It's been over two decades and I still don't know the recipe for a day, I still count my steps between sunrise and sunset and believe life is everything that happens between a day dream and a night mare. I still describe life between the shades of grey as if Sophia's eyes have ever been ash, as if my mother's smile has ever been anything but an upside down rainbow trying to catch rain.
But today I a become old enough to know I am not old enough to know what makes a man
But I know that each day demands a different recipe.
Some days I am simply my brother's keeper
On other days I am the last straw on the camels back trying to balance.
My mother always told me that faith is showing your belief in the sky by planting yourself deep in the earth.
And that is why we bury.
So today maybe all I need to do is just be.
A pigment of dirt and air and a spirit that has pretended long enough till practice makes perfect.
Maybe real men don't exist, and we all just have faith.
My mother still tells me about my father's favourite suit.
She's said he carried me with pride and I was his glow of fabric and wool.
So Maybe that's all a man is,
The chin that holds heads up,
The lazy sun catwalking across the sky that keeps the darkness at bay.
And this is the man I choose to be
A sacrifice to the world.
A cemetery for your bones.

The thinking of Darwin...
Whirls man's ego like a maze.
Maybe... *****, not tadpoles began his chain,
Or, from what 'pole' evolve apples, grapes and maize?

The definitions from his brain,
Shortens so many hopefuls' of their might,
Dazzling damsels catwalking with minds load of pain,
For soon, beauty might evolve to piggy, monkey or kite.

Why he posits such live ******* drainage,
As man's origin is a misty cloud,
Like a blow of breath on mirror's image,
Which by heat vaporizes and reality dawn as cold.

this night deserves me to sleep,
no: this night requires me to sleep -
this night defines me as
being asleep -
there's hardly a lesson -
should i also be bound to shackles
of a dream -
this night deserves that i be asleep -
and write no more...
but what the hell am i doing?
reading a kenneth koch poem from
1975...
i want to be kissed by the moon
goodnight...
i want to find the bed and precursor
grave -
i want to find pillows made from
gently catwalking clouds -
with paparazzi stars flickering
rather than suggesting epileptic fits
of insanity on ol' cardinal...
i was to find the bedsheets -
not with some necrophilic metaphor
of a lazy wife...
or an overtly-demanding girlfriend...
i want to find bedsheets as night itself...
i hardly think i could share
a bed with someone, these days...
i tried once... sleeping with a cat proved
to be too demanding...
i can't imagine woman:
being my siamese thanatos...
just the right sort of music...
some cenobite chants...
prior to a poultry schnitzel eaten like
a hog might grovel and usurp some
earth to find a truffle...
a truffle is not a trifle is not a chocolate
truffle...
but i digress...
what i should have been watching
is some proper english soap opera...
come sunday and the omnibus of eastenders...
beside this soap opera yuo-tue.. b'eh-b'eh;
i wish it was a 20th century "welcome"...
dream, fall asleep...
be kissed by hitchcock's valkyrie:
ingrid bergman, tippi hedren,
madeleine carroll, kim novak, eva marie saint;
grace kelly...
did doris day make it?! "make it"?
i can't imagine falling asleep with someone...
i like my bed to be the best and only imitation
of a coffin: i will probably not own...
i'll probably become cremated...
ergo? i'm getting used to the bed...
since i will not own a coffin...
no mortgage on being dead...
son of the earth: but no epitaph...
the wind can speak for me...
no next-of-kin...
sycophants of the dead might arrive
like hyenas or vultures at a killing spree
of one lion's harem...
******* bonsai tigers: cats...
if i didn't... no...
if my mother didn't own any...
i wouldn't be the one... vacuuming
the house every, single, day...
to keep her o.c.d. at bay...
but sure as **** the house is pwetty pwetty
clean...
it's clean: and lived in...
up to the point where life...
doesn't involve having to entertain
other people...
solispsism via a **** on a sardine crammed
tram or train...
invasion of privacy: somel would cite...
this night deserves that i sleep...
i should be asleep: i'm already having
to waste an hour of excesses...
tomorrow i think i will make a purchase...
i was hesitant about buying...
a louis zukofsky...
as i was hesitant about buying a philip lamantia
oeuvre...

i try to fathom finding sleep in death...
i perhaps want to find the death within death -
a cushioned sensation of a body -
but a body somewhat without limbs
or internal organs -
a body that desires sleep -
but does not desire dreams -
i always found dreams to be a circus -
elevated meanings of the already
at hand corruption of people
who settled for luxury having lost
all their avenues for adventure...
minor escapism...
pathological excuse making -
less towing shawl and frivolous:
thrown toward the wind as a greeting!

this is a night i better sleep...
never mind dreaming...
i am not expected to write...
i am not bound by soap opera insomnia...
or tabloid press smear campaigns of:
what telephone have "they" not yet
hacked?!

may god or whatever will:
preserve us all - within the empathy of:
goodnight, goodnight; goodnight.