I feel apart of this hick town place
Breathing in life, through open, clean air
Trapped by my mind in a wide open space

My granddad showed me on his Gum tree
The marks left by moths and beetles alike
I went to touch them whilst he let them be

The Scribbly Gum tells the same story
Our lives intertwined in memories
The aftermath of destruction, can be beauty

My chubby hands admire what my eyes miss
like a blind man hungry for the verse
I feel the indented trails, lead me into the abyss

I envy those tiny critters, hiding away
creating art without even knowing
One day I shall  join them and there I shall stay

Dancing glimpses of times past
The smell of eucalyptus sticking to hot air
Pulling, aching strings of my childish heart

y'know,
                                                        ­             *i wanted to tell you,

i started keeping a dream journal.  it was pretty mundane at first (well, mundane for dreams).  flying through buildings, rooms melting into other rooms, people giving speeches in their underwear. i wrote it all down in my shaky, scribbly, half-awake catscratch haptic handwriting and gleamed when i filled the lines with dots and scribbles that only my mind could translate back to english, radio waves making music from garbled slush.  scribbles flooded into my mind in the days and months after, though everything was unfailingly crystal clear like diamonds pressed in forms and tucked away to giggle and fawn over later.

                                           but recently i haven't been able to write some of it down

because
you started making appearances.

at first the cameos were confusing; i ignored them and assumed your roles in my nonsensical night visions were coincidences (metaphorical you couldn't possibly hold more meaning than metaphorical math teacher or metaphorical adam from class the previous day).  and the scribbles were as detailed as before, every moment jotted down with unending diligence.

(but one night you were right
there
next to me.
as close as the last time i saw you,
your hip against mine.
i could feel you.
i couldn't see your face but i knew it was you.
i knew with the
pit
of my stomach.
i felt it in every part of me and it
hurt.)

and then the cameos came more frequently.
and then the scribbles came out a little slower.
a little more calculated.
i wondered if i wanted to remember everything i saw in those dreams,
if it was all going to be as fun as jumping from mountain to mountain.
why were you sitting next to me in the theater seat when i got called on to recite lines
that i never learned?
why were you smiling next to me like you did on those days i could do no wrong?
why
were
you
next to me when my stomach turned into a pit of rotten, nervous train wreck?
the curtains closed and the lights shattered and dimmed,
the pit became heavier than the buildings (now wrecked) that i used to leap with no fear
condensed,
******* in everything i could conceive in those slumbering hours,
swallowing the world and turning to caked ebony the world i built up as my playground.

(daniel awakes to find his playground is a sandbox no more;
he awakes with a heavier pit than he's ever known before.
today, when by passing glance his former lover he beholds,
the pit of dreams in life now endlessly unfolds.)

[ENTER PIT, SWALLOWING HIS THOUGHTS IN MURKY BLUE,
A MUFFLED SCREAM FROM BEHIND THE CURTAINS RINGS TRUE!]

f i n a l l y
i t   r e c e d e s.
but even when i see your name (with my eyes or in my mind's eye),
it explodes into being, shifting the balance of the universe onto the pit of my stomach.  i can FEEL it, pounding through every inch of me until i'm physically reeling, elbows on knees, hands on face.
and. . .
i'd carve my stomach open in between staggered, screaming heartbeats faster than the concentrated swill could spill out if i thought for a second that i could purge this pit that's plagued me for longer than
i'd ever admit.

So i drew a pile of words onto the page
and in a rage i covered them in black lines and criss crosses until a
small sad scribbly sailing ship appeared upon my page;
mooring, sinking, drinking in the brine
and choking on weeds that drift
aimlessly atop a deep engulfing sea.
Dying boat submerging to be free
Lonesome boat singing a fading melody,
Water cleans.
Moonlight streams.
Seafolk dream
and the ocean breathes in a calm that swells
into a seething, heaving storm within a sea of scribbled words
lines blurred
bone dry
sun starched
my mouth is parched
and words form salted pearls upon my lip.

So i drew a pile of words onto the page
and in a rage i covered them in black lines and criss crosses until a
small sad scribbly sailing ship appeared upon the scarred bark white sheets;
mooring, sinking, drinking in the brine
and choking on weeds that drift
aimlessly atop a deep engulfing sea.
Dying boat submerging to be free
Lonesome boat singing a fading melody,
Water cleans.
Moonlight streams.
Seafolk dream
and the ocean breathes in a calm that swells
into a seething, heaving storm within a sea of scribbled words
lines blurred
bone dry
sun starched
my mouth is parched
and words form salted pearls upon my lip.

When I was 8
I would draw
stick figures of black and white
standing alone next to a forest
green trees, dandelions, and carnations pink,
swaying in the wind amongst a sunset
orange and bittersweet.

When I was 10
I would draw
twinkling outer space purple mountains
majesty still as midnight
blue bell rings, encompassing all things atomic
tangerine planets and occasionally a piercing laser
lemon electric lime stars streaking through the sky.

When I was 17
I would draw
scribbly doodles run wild
strawberry heart screaming tickle me
pink blush on its face, waiting
for its cadet blush crush
to save it from dreaming in history of jazz
berry jam scents lingering on its lips.

We fall
We rise
and yet I don't really know
Is it best to stay down,
                                        or to swallow the world?
Is it best to say yes
                to say no
                to die loud
                to lay low
I can't smile if it's sunny
I can't cry if it rains
That's a lie!
We are robots, we don't think
We just do
It's a life- no, existance!
It's everything scribbly and color by gods
Making us equal, while drawing a blank
Don't tell us creative, or different
unique
It's making us filled in with "pretty," all neat
To hell with the ones who cannot oblige
For using their beauty,
not staying in line

THE FLIGHT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT
( for my little brother Brian )

Ahhhh....here you
are again.

You who
are here and yet not

here
a shadow tossed aside

a breeze stalking
the shrubberies

the ghost of leaves
foliage on the move

that then: stops

silence solidified
...or did it?

The flight of darkness
into light

suddenly a paw
tentatively becomes a snout

then the all of you
"Friend fox. . !"

I call to you
mind to mind

you looking
as if you've heard

stare at my silent
voice

both of us amazed
you ever so

red before becoming
a shadow tossed aside

a here not here
the flight of darkness into light

a  breeze
stalking the shrubberies

the ghost of leaves.

*

One of my last conversations with my brother( conversations could be 3 hours on the phone )and he told me of a fox he had seen. He asked me why I had never written a poem for him and would I write his experience for him. I did so and it lay there in my scribbly hieroglyph until I managed to decipher my own writing( this is easier said than done). I was going to read it to him at the next phone call but there never was another phone call. The fox and my brother now merging into one in the here/not here.

My brother said that the next time I came over he would bring me to Glendalough and Newgrange was to planed for a later next time. Little did I know that the next time would be for his funeral.

So I was thinking of going on pilgrimage to here so I could place the spirit of him there. Then my friend said out of the blue and not knowing any of this: "I'm going to bring you to Glendalough!" And he did!

So I was able to place my brother here amongst the silence and the beauty. In the little museum they have there....there was a stuffed fox who looked back into the soul  of me. One of the last things Brian and I spoke of was a fox that came to his window and he asked me to write the poem of that. I had written the poem but he never got to hear it. The poem now exists tied to the picture off this fox.

I felt nearer my brother here than at a lonely graveside.

in the bottoms
the lowest points
tesseract echos
of clicking jaws
clamping down
clacking shut
with voices
murmuring in between
the soft augur
exfoliating down
a sandpaper of teeth
garrote out
in such
kind supply
and velvet layers
fluttering through
so soft
this psyche
crash pad
a spiral
funneled down
or out?
dunno but
scribbly sounds
reverb around
greatful dead
demonic retiree
homely calling
there there
even evil
gives a break
just be
all ideas
struggle to
swim so
float a spell