October 2013

for Maria and Logan...

you need two hands, one foot.
count my years.
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, well, a century...

birthdays.

point of inflection,
point of opportunity,
presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
how I lied, how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewrit and
future foretold.

one single thought,
memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
and ask,

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you taste grief?

have you not but
one pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake maden, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be taken,
attained?

do, does, did.

let me then
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores, not drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les delicious treats,
keep theologians, logicians
on retainer, if need
explanations.

none know, can provide,
still and yet, a
priestly sacred chord,
grants relief,
absolution,
song of hallelujah
the ache of
perpetuity worry,
that ancient pain,
grows fresher daily,
the loss of one,
of my body,
my primal knot
unreasonable,
everything should be
permitted to be untied,
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
nouns of nutrients.

this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
of white blood cells
of rhyme, verse.

what if the poetry ceases?

Though the bones creak,
the body they carry. resurrect
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not currently invented....

what if the poetry ceases?

but be assured, told
scientists hard at work,
on the
forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint
trap some words,
tap some words into
your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat that
provides aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived
the muse is feted, sated,

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?
mmmmm,
could it be
Morrow?

bath drains, rosemary and mint
odors dismissed, the  Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all gone,
didn't they have birthdays too?

didn't know
the Renaissance come
and go,
and nobody
tole ya?

please recall t'is the day
after my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on Fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day + a few,
six or twenty decades ago +
a few centuries,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

always one thought recycles:

what if the poetry ceases?

(how will I breathe?)

OK Reader, I'm going to tell you a tale … with great trepidation. You see, this tale, well, it's kind of like telling someone that you've seen a UFO. They want to believe you, but … it's never really been proven scientifically. Not to mention the fact that most folks who believe in such things are often the tin-hat wearing types, written off as … lets be nice and call them “odd”. And, of course, the more you swear to it, the crazier you appear. It's an epic tale, spanning 30 years of my crazy life.

  But, It's a story I want to tell, because it happened to me. I can barely understand it myself, let alone explain it. So … I'm just going to launch into it and you take it any way you wish.

*  *  
Where Can You Be?

Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

I'll search with gazes and I'll search with cars,
I'll search the cities and I'll search the stars, well …
I'm gonna find you, oh, wherever you are,
I'm gonna find you baby …  near or far, but …

Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

I thought I'd found ya, but she wasn't you,
that girl she left alone and blue, well …
I know that's something that you'd never do,
your love has always been strong and true, but …

Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

If you must settle for some other man
and deviate from our immortal plan, well …
I hope you realize I will understand
and I'll try and do the best that I can, but …

Where will I be?
Where will I be, my love?
Hoping the next life sees …
our destiny!


Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

~Wednesday, April 1st, 1987
10:30 P.M.


  I was singing in a band back in those days and, as it happened, this was the last song I'd ever write for it. Just after this, as it does, it all came crashing down and the band was finished. But in those last days, they pondered this song, with great puzzlement. You see, it was unlike anything I'd brought them before. It wasn't rock … It wasn't a ballad … it wasn't even structured like a “normal” 80's rock song.
  
  No bridge, no solo, no loud grinding guitars, etc. It even had bits where I hummed, yes hummed, the melody, like a lullaby. As they read the lyrics and I described how it went, they all looked at me like I had three heads and asked where this had come from. It was nothing like anything I'd written before. I could only tell them when and where I'd written it, but had no explanation of what inspired it. It had just came to me, so I wrote it down. They didn't know what to make of it, or even what to do with it.

  One of them said it sounded like a late 70's or early 80's adult contemporary song or even in the vein of The Eagles. Another asked if it was about reincarnation … And I honestly, until that moment, hadn't thought of it that way, I didn't think like that at 24 … but then, one of them said it was “Haunting” …

  “Haunting”?

  “Wow”, I thought, I'd never had anything I'd written described as that before. When I asked him what he meant by that, he told me that it was haunting to think that this poor guy is desperately seeking a girl, that may or may not even know that he exists … in a world with billions of people in it. To top that off, he fears that she may off and marry someone else if he doesn't find her in time.

  This, along with the suggestion of it being about reincarnation made me rethink and rewrite the song. Well, a few lines in the last verse and chorus anyways. It actually made the song flow better and seem more complete. In a way, it actually made the song make more sense … to me and them. Sadly, we never did anything with it. There wouldn't be time. Ha … Time … how ironic. Over 10 years later, came this …


For Someone I've Never Met

Please save a place for me,
deep inside your heart.
Always know that I think of you,
as we both practice our arts.

Our worlds are full of temptations,
so very hard to resist …
and the good Lord knows
we're both far from,
sixteen and never been kissed.

Wealthy men with jaws divine …
Temptresses with looks so fine …
Paths that lead our hearts away …
Paths that surely lead astray …

They'll lead us there every time.
They'll leave us there … so  unkind.
Our hearts must shine,
night and day.
Through any darkness … they'll light our way.

If you never touch my face …
If I never look into your eyes …
We'll always have the comfort of sharing
the same
big, blue sky.

If I never smell your hair …
If you never kiss my lips …
Always know the search for your smile
has launched a thousand ships.

So, I hope you save a place for me
in your heart so sweet and kind.
Please, save a place for me …
Heaven knows you've one in mine.

~Thursday, September 9th, 1999
9 A.M.


“For Someone I've Never Met ” poured out of me in the midst of another breakup from the second, and last, girl that I wanted to marry. That emotion, never found me again. I looked at it on my computer screen and smiled, seeing “Where Can You Be”, in my mind, on my tattered old note pad that I called my “Song Book”. The memory of me writing it while sitting in my Z-28, looking out over the Gulf of Mexico as a beautiful heat lighting storm sent bolts across the sky, came flooding back; as did the debate of reincarnation I'd had with my pals in the rehearsal room all those years before. Here I was, again, writing about “someone” that I sensed, for lack of a better term, was out there … somewhere.

  Well Reader, do you believe in reincarnation? I was never really certain, but, as you can see, I had twice written pieces to someone I wasn't completely sure existed. I had always “sensed” someone out there beginning with the period after I wrote “Where Can You Be?” and thereafter. So, there they were, each written after losing someone I was deeply in love with. Each came out of nowhere, as they usually do. By the time I was in my 40's, I began to think I was either imagining it all (a side effect of being a hopeless romantic) or that I had just somehow missed this person and our “moment”.

  And then …



Epiphany

There was a place.
There was a time …
There, I stood … still unknowing
and everything seemed fine.

But there in that place …
at that moment in time …
the moment I saw the eyes,
I'd never believed I'd find.

Well, what could I say?
What could I do?
In a world filled with billions …
and there … was a you.

I'd always known you were out there …
even written of something amiss.
I never, ever stopped looking for you …
because my heart always said you exist.

My breezy Fall became harshest Winter.
My crazy life left my health running out.
I'd resigned myself that our moment had passed …
but this moment … it removed all doubt.

Well, what could I say?
Tell me, what could I do?
There we stood, staring … alone … in a city of millions …
yes, there … there was a you.

Oh, that mistress fate, she is just so cruel.
Frustration, a curse to be mine.
   I'd searched for you my entire life …
but now … my clock … knows a limit of time.

You see, I would never venture a love with you,
while knowing I'd have to leave you … hurt and alone.
I could only admire from afar … stoic and aloof …
while turning my heart into stone.

Nothing I could ever say and nothing I could ever do …
But now, at long last … at least I finally knew.

There, you stood … green seas, gazing up … into skies of blue.
My long-awaited revelation … become sorrow-laced realization.
There really is … a you.

~August 12th, 2009  

  Typical of my life-long Charlie Brown syndrome … After being told in 2005 that I had “the lungs of an eighty-year-old man” and that I had “Six to Ten years” to live, I made a conscious decision in that Doctor's parking lot that I could never have another girlfriend and that I must face this alone. I don't see woman as objects. They are glorious creatures that are here to be our partners and friends and to make our lives amazing. I could never, ever knowingly let a woman fall in love with me, all the while knowing I was going to die and leave her. It's not in me to do such a thing, lonely or not.

  Yes, I'm still alive, I'm stubborn like that. But, some days are better than others and my new doctors say that they don't give people “time limits” anymore … because of people like me. I can't afford the lung transplant. So, as Bono so aptly put in one of his songs: “The rich stay healthy, while the sick stay poor”. It is what it is … and like the energizer bunny, I'm still going. Good for me.

  In the moment that I met her, the morning that followed, and the amazing speed of our nexus over the next several months combined with a string of synchronicities (Coincidences? Did I mention that she too, was a poet and writer?) that not only came after I met her on the sidewalk in front of the publisher we shared, but in those pieces I had written before and in several after; I was pretty much convinced I had actually found her. I have NEVER experienced anything like this, or her, in my entire life.

  So, after all this time, here she was … and there wasn't a **** thing that I could do about it. Besides, she was much younger than I and it probably would never have worked anyways. ****, the universe is rotten sometimes, huh? Maybe, if I'm lucky, things will balance out better in the next life. I can only hope. But I'm reminded, worryingly so, of the **** The Alarm song: “Collide”:

“All of these thoughts pounding in my head …
with the words I've wrote, in the letters I've never sent.
The distance in our lives may change …
Times that you can never erase …
But will our worlds collide?
Will our worlds collide, the next time?”



  Only time will tell.



  “Colors”, and a few others, were written about/for her. But, I could never show them to her. I would never endanger my friendship with her. I just wanted to keep her in my life. That, and that alone, was the only motive I'd ever had with her. I looked forward to seeing her marry, hearing her stories of her three kid's adventures; Hubby, all greasy, working on the car in the driveway, rabbits in her garden at night, eating her precious organic veggies or even about her new curtains. Just to know that she was alive, happy and doing well. I found a solace in her voice I could never describe and I was completely content to just have her in my life and watch hers unfold. Only I could end up in this odd position.

  I feared that she might get weird-ed out because I'd never displayed any romantic inklings toward her, so, to suddenly read these might make her feel a bit, lets say: uncomfortable. Actually, I didn't write them with any romantic intentions, per se; I just did what I always do … write what comes out. Still, there's no denying that they come across romantic. Again, so, so Charlie Brown. (long sigh)
  
  It is what it is. I also have to ponder the fact that maybe all those Charlie Brown moments in my life were preparing me for this one big, painful one. That does makes sense … ******' Universe.


Colors

Well when you're Green, I'll be your Brown.
Like the earth that loves the flowers,
I'll will be your solid ground.

And I'll be your Azure, when you are Verdigris.
We'll be thee most beautiful ocean
that eyes have ever seen.

And when you're Black, I'll be your White.
Mixing all of the colors … I'll make everything alright.

Now when you're Blue, I'll be you're Red.
If something should make you wanna cry,
I will feel your pain instead.

And I'll be your Orange, whenever you are Pink.
We'll be thee most amazing sunset,
that the sky could ever ink.

And when you're Black, I'll be your White.
I'll mix all of your colors … and make everything alright.

Should you be Violet, I will be your Beige.
Like a sleepy moonlit desert,
pasteled in dunes and sage.

And when you're Grey, I will be your Rainbow.
We'll be thee most soothing rainstorm
the world has ever known.

And when you're Black, I'll be your White.
I'll mix all of your colors … yes, I'll make everything alright.

With love on my palette, painting a glorious sunrise …
I'll color all your mornings with a smile and brighten up your skies.
If you should find yourself in sorrow from someones hate or lies …
I'll take the stars down from the heavens … and paint them in your eyes.

So whenever you are Black, I will always be your White.
I'll mix all your colors with a promise … everything will be alright.

Yes, I'll mix all of your colors with a promise … Everything's gonna be alright.

~  Winter 2012


  I wrote this after she had rang me up one afternoon lamenting about her life at the moment, troubled that her latest novel hadn't done as well as she'd hoped and now she had to be waitressing to make ends meet. I tried my best to cheer her up and assured her that she was strong enough to handle anything and that she must keep chasing her dreams. I wrote it as a poem, but I can't help but notice it looks like a song, though I've never heard music for it. Those repeated verses look just like choruses to me.

  Earlier in the day, I had been looking at a booklet of paint swatches. I guess, up there on my roof looking at the Manhattan skyline, her sadness and me looking at all those colors melted together somehow and, as happens, out came this piece. Even this, became another synchronicity as she would name her next novel “Show Me All Your Colors”. I remember seeing it in the bookstore and looking straight up … shaking my head at the sky. Was this the universe telling me to show and tell her all this?

  Well, if it was, I stuck with my gut and kept it to myself. My God, if you only knew how many of these synchronicities there were between her and I. It simply boggles my mind. I wanted to call them “coincidences”, but there were just so **** many of them … Each so unique, they just couldn't be called that. I don't want to tell them all here, because like I said, the more you swear to it, the crazier you sound. And I'm sure your questioning my sanity by now, aren't you? (Smirk)


  OK, OK … this one is definitely romantic. I wrote it one night, drunk to the bejeezus. I'd done what we called “The Crosstown Crawl” with my pal Tristan and a gaggle of assorted waitresses we knew. This involved starting at Brass Monkey on the west side highway in the Gansevoort District and ending at my favorite hookah bar, Karma, on the Lower East Side … Drinking in, and often being “asked to leave” (Read: Kicked out of) every bar that took our interest as we walked (Read: staggered) west to east, staying below 14th St.

  On my way home from the city on the J train, I thought about all the phone conversations we'd had while I was on this train crossing the Williamsburg Bridge. Being drunk, I guess, I caught a bout of sadness that I'd never get to tell her any of this or even how I felt about it all. Before I hit my elevator, this piece was swimming in my head. It's about as mushy a piece as I've ever written … if not thee most! Not the norm for me, but this is, after all, a lot to keep pent up inside you. I wouldn't wish this predicament on anyone.


For My Little Red-Haired Girl …


You …

My Love.
My Queen.
This Shining Light in my eyes.

My Laughs.
My Dreams.
My Soft, Contented Sighs.

My *****.
My Lavender.
My Dew Covered Rose.

My Smile.
My Cinnamon.
The Joy in my heart … ever inspiring my prose.

My Best Friend.
My Co-Star.
My Fearless Partner in Crime.

My Breath.
My Cohort.
My Side-kick throughout time.

My Snow-capped Mountain.
The Wind caressing my face.
My Vast Green Field.

The Ivy Covered Wall
that harbors my soul … ever refusing to yield.

In a different time ...

You … would have been my Life.

You … would have been my World.

You … would have been my Everything

and I will always love you for my own special reasons.

It is just a shame … and I'm so, so sorry … that you … must never, ever know.

Maybe next time.


~Charlie Brown



   When I came-to in the morning and read what I had wrote, I had to laugh a bit. It is borderline corny, very beautiful, very telling and very sad … all at once. I shook my head, laughing and told myself :

  “*******, Sam … yer losin' it. Get your **** together, will ya?”

  I guess in my stupor, I was imagining what it would have been like to write something for her. I don't know … There it was and I was stuck with it. I almost deleted it, but, my finger wouldn't press the key. As I told you before … I'd NEVER show this to her. She'd probably never speak to me again.

   As a sadder epilogue, that eventually happened. I still don't know why, but we haven't spoken in years. Maybe she sensed this emotion in me and ran away. Or maybe, just maybe … she thought I'd pushed her away somehow … but for whatever reason, we drifted apart. I guess I'll never know.  As you can see by reading this, that was never my intention. But, like I keep reiterating … It is what it is.

  One day, I called her number to catch up and shoot the breeze. I hadn't spoken to her in a few months as she'd been busy promoting her new novel and I didn't want to pester her. But … it was disconnected … I checked my emails … nothing. I'd never been so confused, she just closed me out. I didn't want to bother her. I was sure she had her reasons and if she wanted to reach out to me again, she would. She had my email and my phone number. But, for now … she was gone … and that was that.

  So, what do you think, Reader? Do I get the Tin hat … or a Badge of courage? Am I bat-**** crazy … or just eccentric? I'll leave it up to you to decide, because as I said, this all happened to me and there isn't a thing I can do about any of it. I just had to get it off of my chest. Thanks for letting me vent.

  Wherever she is … she will always mean the world to me. I can see her green eyes if I close my mine and look for them. Sometimes, on occasion, her face haunts my sleep. Still, I like to picture her, kids playing in a sprinkler behind her, digging in her garden, wearing gloves too big for her hands and a smudge of fresh dirt on her cheek … it makes me smile.


-Sam Webster
Brooklyn, New York
2013

Sit and watch
a version of a version
of self
constructed broken down
reconstructed
unstable
but I cannot change the color of my eyes
i can only shape the folds of my mind
i long to be my own god
to raise me from the cradle
to erase the lines
to write a new fable
as my story is told
so it will be
i will rewrite history

kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds

I got writers block somethin serious, like no other. But I'm ready to drown my feelings and put them down under. I just know I'm not letting my life get taken away from your conservative mother. Why can't she just take those beliefs and treat em like somethin to smother. I don't want you to leave and listen to her and go find yourself a brother. You are my calm, my rain, but all Im hearing is thunder.

Look, I was gonna go easy on you not to hurt your feelings, but I’m only going to get this one chance!
Something’s wrong… I can feel it.
Just a feeling I got, like something’s about to happen… but I don’t know what.
If that means what I think it means, we’re in trouble—big trouble—and if he’s as bananas as you say I’m not taking any chances!

(You are just what the doc ordered)

I’m beginning to feel like a write god (write god).
Can all the readers out there who think I’m right nod, right nod.
Now here I am again for another rap talk, rap talk…
They said I write like a monster, so call me scribe-star,
But for me to write like a beast means I’m a demon at least;
I got a devil kept in my pocket,
On my shoulder’s when I rock it.
Talkin’ of killin’ and of thrillin’; won’t stop it!
Write a demon doorway, now knock on it!
Ever since the dark days when I’d just lost it,
Way back when the world would pace and chant “Nutcase!”
I’m a ******, but I’m charming;
Yes, a crude, rude dude, but I’m still disarming.
Using syllables to **** ‘em all with this
empowering empire of powerful vampires.
The writer-type clackin’ back with typewriters, like way back, right?
Clackity-clack!
Rockin’ stack after stack, clackin’ out more attacks,
Ideas tacked out while hacks hack out their crap (but ******* spew **** all the time),
so I perform written parkour tricks so you’re not bored; strike a chord.
Show you Stryker’s tortured life of suicide ‘n strife turnin’
to strength and a fiery passion burnin’ while readers’ guts are churnin’—
teary eyes all burnin’.
Their fears are returnin’ from a story I turned out when I got turned on
to my own life.
Now I drop F-bombs;
exploding real-life scenes—
these ain’t your G-rated dreams, so take your outdated themes—
It’s the **** I’ve seen; don’t make me obscene.
I’m mean, I mean, it’s my means to screen a scene between a matte sheen.

‘Cause I’m beginning to feel like a write god (write god).
Can all the readers out there who think I’m right nod, right nod.
Now here I am again for another rap talk, rap talk…
They ask me to thaw out these oily blocks called ink-wads, ink-wads.
There’s a body in everybody , but not all bodies have a brain that makes them feel sane.
Like a train—just the same—
Might be runnin’ but we still cast blame,
The loading docks of our thoughts; they’re locked-up in a box,
And they’re stackin’ up like blocks
That turn the stacks to empty tracks (****!)
Trainees blame their brainees when it’s not easy training brains, see?
But the boarding isn’t boring—training brains; not trading pains—
Remember: the station’s self-exploration!
Me? I’m a hodgepodge! From train station to abandoned lodge;
Bully dodgin’, fully locked-in when I freaked out, fattened-up and then I geeked out,
Told “keep it down” but then peaked when I peeked deep down.
Creepin’ up, now, and keepin’ up (WOW!)
I swear it up and tear it up scribbled swords,
And now I wear awards for slingin’ words;
Offered praise; a chance to forget about the craze that once darkened all my days,
But I write that way—say “that’s okay ‘cuz it helps me write this way—each and every day!
And hacks think I act this way just to seem this way, ‘til come the day when the cray-cray takes the doubt away.
Demon obsessed? I’m possessed! Can’t own what you don’t possess!
“Hey, devil-lookin’ boy!”
So ***** for my honey I’m rockin’ horns, look here boy!
A Literary Dark Mass-acre,
Like the devil laid waste to a church on the page, looker boy!
They got a gold star, and a high five,
Felt so alive to see their own scribes make it to Momma’s fridge, ****** boy!
Hey, schnook-ah boy, looky here, looker boy,
I’m held up by The Legion, book-it boy!
Had to push for every word—every page—had to swallow all the rage,
Now you want out of your cage, schnook-ah boy?
I’m legendary—literary—and you’re literally just a *****, little boy!
So sell out while I’m bought out, ******-boy!

‘Cause I’m beginning to feel like a write god (write god).
Can all the readers out there who think I’m right nod, right nod.
The way I’m burnin’ through these pages, call me Dark Lord, Dark Lord!
But they’d rather burn my books, so start a fire war, fire war!
Can’t get it through your head? Words are more than Edward! He’s dead! WORD!
Let me drag you off to meet Dracula; take you back to the dawn of the dark lord, yea?
Fast forward to the foreword where the F-word’s “fangs” (you’re welcome);
This is my Hell, come! Be free!
Part Morningstar; part Morpheus! I throw up a kiss and jot down the kills like they’re red-apple pills.
Go ask Alice back at my palace what you should read to feed your head.
Sentence structure so smooth they call me FE-line, and my cat’s got better plot lines,
That the hacks will all call “sublime” (it’s “sub-fine”)
But me?
My **** scenes are brutal,
And my romance? Not frugal. I don’t saturate—I arrogate—
But I don’t condemn my characters to *******!
I wanna make readers care—if readers dare—
To connect and feel and follow where they can find some hope and power there.
While also giving them a place somewhere that isn’t here—though filled with fear—
A place where they don’t feel jeered or feel weird.
Horror ain’t just movie monsters, or gore-****** scopin’ sponsors!
You speak French? C’est de la merde, monsieur!
You look unsure! But I have the cure in the written word!
And though you once were achin’ for a rockstar author cravin’ bacon,
The role has since been taken by your man, Squiers.
And like a pair of pliers, I can reach into readers’ brains and cross all sorts of wires!
I’m settin’ cranial fires behind the eyes of all my buyers!
And while I’m growing Ghost Riders—ridin’ shotgun on the bullet-train ‘tween the pages—
There’s a horde of haters harboring growing rages
With a narrow gaze of who scribes pages.
They say I can’t write ‘cuz of my tattoos or my gauges
So allow me to assuage this: y’all can’t cage this!
If you don’t like it, let me show you where the grave is!
You’re well-aged, but I’m ageless!
Like the undead through the ages!
And like Shakespeare took to stages you can find me where the page is:
I’m hip to a script, I’m at home with a poem and feeling groovy writin’ movies; and I’ll be EZ on your TV.
You write normal? **** being normal!
What a novel theory! So very dreary!
Why the **** are they so leery, they say “Writing fear? We don’t want to hurt no feelings.”
Feelings? Setting up ceilings! Just more limits! It’s life! Live it!
Set the roof on fire!
Plot is getting hotter than a 24/7 squatter on a ***** channel!
So what if some **** gets a hair up ‘er ****? Don’t make it ****!
They wanna say “Hey you, we’re here to stifle!”
‘Cuz I mentioned rifles? Do they really want to trifle?
So I say:
“Better bring a sweater ‘cuz this thriller’s gonna chill ya—sure hope it doesn’t **** ya—and ya gonna get’a fill o’ all the ***** that I don’t give, ‘cuz I don’t live to let ******* quip or give me lip about my lit.
I’m entertaining and elating and also demonstrating how devastating a stream of escalating scenes can be so penetrating—although frustrating—to a mind that’s celebrating what it means to be vacationing between the pages; wading through the stages of a war that forever wages; meditating through the escalations now that they know what TRUE rage is!
“Oh, he’s too ******!”
That’s right! Ain’t right. That’s life: not nice; it’s strife.
It’s not just me; it’s we.
I just found a better way to show it:
Monsters that aren’t monsters;
Abuse put to good use; bred virtues!
“I don’t know how to plot plots like that;
I don’t know what words to use.”
Did it really never occur to them that to read a book—just to take a look—and THEN take up the pen?
You read King if you want to be king, strictly speaking.
A writing mind that isn’t a reading mind is a weakling; a weak link.
I’m a scholar—not a bawler—so I’m a flyer where there’s fallers;
Raised on Goosebumps and Creepy Crawlers so I’d Stine while others whined.
Got a dark side, but that’s The Dark Side on my side; counter haters with my Vader:
“I would be your father… but your dog beat me over the fence.”
No offense. Pretense: incorporate comedy and film; common sense.
Suicide pushed aside, though I still burn inside. **** myself on
the page each day so my readers can feel what it’s like to be alive.
It’s okay to hide.
Only your own devil knows what’s inside.
I own mine; he’s my co-pilot when I write. My demonic side; my demonic scribe.
Flipping my words to the birds—‘cuz, you see, that’s how I wing it—and flipping the bird while I throw down and sing it:
“Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
My words are my roar and tonight I write!”
The fights are in your sights like you were seated inside a movie theater;
You’d see Xander and Estella—wouldn’t you want to meet her—
Have a front row to the creatures in a feature presentation…
But ‘til then
Eat some Rice An’ read a piece by a man who
Had an “Interview with a Vampire”—
I’m a fiction author, why would I lie to ya?
Prince of lies? I ain’t Satan!
Close friends, but I’m Nathan.
Judged for appraisal—I’m priceless—I’m  nice: no; charming: yes.
Got a razor-sharp and Shining wit like a crown left
on a King… but not.
Why be a left king, when I’m a write god.

Fight,*
Fight with all your might,
As you can be your own brave knight.
So take a big bite,
Of this new rewrite,
The damsels are about to alight,
From their high plight.

We were a strange kind
your mind ignited mine
we grew on eachother like a fertilized vine
& crashed and burned before our time

ours is a tale I long to rewrite
let ink spill out, 7 chapters in a night
regretting words I hissed in spite
forgiving ourselves for ending the fight

I'd start back before I knew your name
slip into to a less polluted time
before I cried after drinking red wine
back when our souls were intertwined

before contracts of our destiny were signed  
before my heart was forced to resign
once upon a time,
I was yours and you were mine

October 2023, ten years later…dedicated to all my dear friends here,
some who may be reading this for the tenth time!

<|>

you need two hands, one foot.
counting my years.
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, well, a century...

birthdays.

point of inflection,
point of opportunity,
presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
how I lied, how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody else created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewrites and
future versions three and more
foretold.

one single thought,
memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
when I ask,

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you tasted grief?

have you not but
one pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake made, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be taken,
attained?

do, does, did.

let me then
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores, not drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les delicious treats,
keep theologians, logicians
on retainer, if needed for
explanations.

none know, or can provide,
still and yet,
a priestly sacred chord,
grants relief,
absolution,
a song of hallelujah
the ache of
perpetuity worry,
an ancient pain,
grows fresher daily,
the loss of one,
of my body,
my primal knot
unreasonable,
everything should be
permitted to be untied,
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
nouns of nutrients.

this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
by white blood cells ,
champions of rhyme, verse.

what if the poetry ceases?

Though the bones creak,
the body they carry. resurrected
once more,
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not yet currently invented....

what if the poetry ceases?

but be assured, told
scientists hard at work,
on the
forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint
trap some words,
tap some words into
your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat that
provides aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived
the muse is feted, sated,

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?

mmmmm,
could it be
Morrow?

bath drains, rosemary and mint odors dismissed,
the Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all gone,
didn't they have birthdays too?

Michelangelo didn't know
the Renaissance come
and gone,
and nobody
tole ya?

please recall t'is the day
after my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on Fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day +/- a few,
seven or twenty decades ago +
a few centuries,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

always one thought recycles:

what if the poetry ceases?

(how will I breathe?)

I'm anti-attachment
and I cant help that
I'm a hardback book bound tight-
Always on the rewrite
every word placed right
because it's so important;
that you read me right;
that you see things right;
undress your mind for me
under the right light
because
God above
I don't want tears tonight
if I tell you it's not serious
or when I make you work or wait
it's obviously worth the work
and even more than worth your wait.
I don't like games
I play it straight;
you're either with it
or you ain't.
So if you do not like the blurb
don't bother reading my first page.