Allowing him
A total stranger
Into your world
Only to have him judge it

He wasn’t right in it anyways
A dinosaur in a dollhouse.

All you’re left with
Is sheets twisted around
The end of the bed
A quiet house
Faint smell of cologne on your pillows
The kind that smells cheap and tacky
And an emptiness inside
That you’ve felt before
But now it’s inescapable.

It's quiet except for the humming
of the machines.

Do we call them machines or instruments?
Do they do or do they measure?

They're little helpers who organize
thoughts and time, blocking
hours with workers, friends and
family.

A list manager of sorts.
It's easy -- something like:
>Monday, 5:00 pm - family.Christine
or
>Tuesday, 12:00 pm - friend.Giorgia

And when we miss an appointment
our helpers are fire-walled
from disappointment, sorrow
and lost.

They stay functional.

It's easy for their electronic hands
to <strikeout>
meetings held in an hour
past.

-- something like:
>Sunday, 1:00 pm - family.Dad
to
<strikeout>Sunday, 1:00 pm - family.Dad </strikeout>

-- something like:
>Saturday, 7:00 pm - family.Aunt
to
<strikeout>Saturday, 7:00 pm - family.Aunt </strikeout>

It's done-- changed from a living one to a final zero,
binary absolution.

Our stream continues,
released from obligations
that I hold tight
still.

We're not Protocol Droids.
We feel Ghosts in the Machine.
We see Apparitions in the Rituals,
and Sprites in the Protocols
running through our network
still.

There's no clemency for us.

if I inch a little closer, it will give me
warmth

I have felt like a million pieces of a human scattered about
in several fields and bushes
like ash floating in the sky
and seashells washed up on the shore

but with warmth,
realness and a true heart is remembered
and the abundance of smeared portraits of 

that sad girl
or that stupid girl
or that crazy girl
or any identity
is nothing more than a pen's strikeout on
a word
that just doesn't belong in
a perfect sentence

Hard rubber plate there in the dust
and just beyond, a mound.
With difficulty Catfish turned
and paced the muddy ground.
Even with the walker
these few steps were hard indeed.
Shoulders weak, steps faltering
from Lou Gehrig’s sad disease.

The blue sky stretched above him
so infinite and vast.
With difficulty Catfish reached
back, deep into his past.
He did not think of trophies
or recall his perfect game.
Not at all about the millions
he once got to sign his name.

He was pitching for the Yankees
against men in Dodger Blue.
The World Series game on the line
some whispered he was through
His mind recalled each move he’d made
Each strikeout pitch he threw.
In Memory the fastball’s song
still sang out loud and true.
Like an old dog fast asleep
might dream that He’s still young.
Catfish thought about the night
His last Series ring was won


Soon, too soon, he’d be relieved
of ball, of life, of game
He’ be a plaque upon the wall
down at the hall of fame.
A few more weeks
and he’d be gone-
a casualty, nothing more.
The object now of whispered prayers,
This man fans once adored.

On the other side
of my over  
                 thinking

I’ve come to realize I still have
more questions
                         than answers

The future feels just the same as
it did ten years ago when my now
was my future
                       then

Friends are more often
thought about
                       than visited

when later today turns into tomorrow
and tomorrow turns  
                                into this weekend
and then next weekend
once a month  
                        whenever you can

because time pushes us all into
this strange thing
                            called Life

and it’s full of all kinds of *******
designed to rob you of
your money
                    your sanity
                                       your time

but don’t let this discourage you
from greeting tomorrow
                                      with open arms

and a head full of more questions
than answers

The magic doesn’t seem
to happen as often,
but on the days it does

You have a good day at work,
you pay all the monthly bills on time,
your schedule syncs with an old
college friend and you meet for
coffee, or street tacos from a
local food trailer, or you shoot
pool and whiskey at a dive bar
early Saturday evening

and it feels like the old times again,
and you learn the things you did
were your first stumblings into
adulthood and even though they
sometimes change the way you walk
forever, it’s those times you discover
again when you start your third game
and the songs you queued on the jukebox
start playing and now that you can enjoy
the taste of good whiskey more than the
quantity of well, and all the loose fragments
of the memories we carry every day, left open
on the table in a journal with more strikeout
lines than unmolested phrases all become
complete with each corner pocket called
shot, each memory recalled and retold with
language alluding Greek Epics and Shakespearean
Tragedies,

It all starts to make more sense in ways
and stops making sense in others,

and the future is the same as it always was

some things
                    you can change,
some people
                    you can keep
some days
                  turn into weeks,
                  months, and years
                  trying to make sense
of what’s coming,
of what’s gone,
of just what, exactly,
                                we have now.

Precious beautiful boy, stupid little fool boy, sakes alive, what am I to do?
You didn't realise you belonged, and I guess I waited too long to tell you all the things I never knew I had to.
A wicked world of ****** doubts, a sudden single strikeout, can't believe I'm still here and yet you're gone.
Now I guess I'll try to stick it out, but everything is so wrong and life has no business just going on.

I have never felt more sorry; but if you'll forgive me, I'll avow:
if you thought life was bad before, then you should see it now.

And I have never felt more heartbreak; it reaps despite my best
efforts to rip the ******* thing the **** out of my chest
and I would tear apart my eyelids if I thought it could help me see
how these diamond eyes bring some folks high, but they just don't fly for me.

I try to consult my conscience but it speaks to me in tongues,
so I'll settle for poisoning my liver and blackening my lungs.



There's a wound in my world but I'm sadder for you for you'll never know happiness, forever uncompleted.

You wanted happiness for us, but he's gone forever and I'm sorry mommy, for I am defeated.

Three is a lonely number
it's the odd man out
the third wheel
the unreserved ticket
the strikeout

It's what happens
after two

But three is also a prime number
it's the pinnacle
the apex
the try in
the attempt

It's what happens
before

Where can I find Kali?
I have no Gold to Gamble
No body wants me
A cyclopic *******
Perhaps I can find her
In my massive consumption
of Drink<strikeout\ing\>  and Swine?

i drift these gravel roads
till i run into crossroads.

i pick each path
as if im a psychopath.

drifting my feelings away
till i lay to stay.

every road is like a coded.
everyday im reminded

day or night
im drifting without a fright

despite the midnight
i fly-by-night

i do me
carefree

before i crash
in a flash.

as im drifting
im hurting

there's only one way out
without a doubt

im going to strikeout
with a wipeout.

rided or die
it's going to be a carryout!

Don’t look
Just hide
All the lies
Overt your eyes
            from the truth

Don’t lift
The plush
Keep hush
We’re in no rush
            to see the reason for your rage

Don’t speak
The truth
Or play sleuth
What’s the use
            of cleaning up all that mess?

Don’t confront
We’ll fight
For the right
To lose sight
            of our past injustices to you

Just sweep
Get a broom
There’s more room
For the gloom
     It’ll fit under this beautiful rug

If you don’t
Or you shout
Strikeout or pout
We will cast you out
     of this web of ours

Go on
Be sincere
Face our fear
You don’t belong here
    and never will again.

I've fallen in love faster than a man falling from one hundred and seventy stories
In a way I relate every time my heart has tried to grab the last step I slip and fall below into the abyss
I am the no hitter the strikeout king
every time love comes round they shut it down
life's a funny thing maybe one day she'll come around
I won't turn sour over what's not in my power
Instead water my soul and further my growth
Such a sad soul I've become as I grow old
tired I am of that tune in my gut
where it stabs you deep and makes your heart start to rot
I lay awake in a daze my eyes are black and red
With a big grin on my face I smile for once at the thought of change
champagne rains down from the heavens as I slip out of conscious
life is but a lion testing to you tame it

No joy in Mudville
Strikeout once more

Melville prophetic
Hate like before

Oh, Canada!
Is it you we implore?

Where is Elsewhere?
Who opens the Door?

Vox Populi, Vox Dei
speak as one, unified
no matter, you say
death of a butterfly, justified
secession from Heavens, ratified

Cowering behind divine intervention
children in their towering mud creations
ever closer, mortal fingers scraping skin
just below, judged in their harmonious intentions
near enough to condemn them all under the blanket of one sin,
your Ziggurat, a layered city wrapped around a societal invention,
determined to climb, rats in a maze, all of their days
they give to meet their maker, unaware all along, what gods do to towers
a race that all understood and lived together, confounded and cast many separate ways
for the ambitions, or no reasons at all, they had to trifle with superstitious powers
humanity dreams kindling for angels at night so the sun may burn it beneath its rays
nothing admired, wanted, loved, desperately hoped for or desired really stays

Etemenanki, a place and time on earth that could not be
you have everything, everybody, do you know if you're happy?
You've never been tested and brag that you're strong-willed
you'd starve for attention before your loved ones, gilded, jaded, know your stubborn hatred can't
be
killed
are you happy, one foot in the grave and three feet from the abyss, is this what it feels like to be fulfilled?
Fried wires burning through traumatic, relapses reminding unkind synapses to ignite like wildfires
no caps, music that echoes elastically through hallowed halls, sensory demands that snap-back like they're played on rubberbands, we rise to their demands, every tower falls, electricity in the adrenal glands, eternally juggernauts on the sands, ziggurats you can hitch the Hindenburg to, Shenandoah and the Challenger too, hopes for the literal and metaphysical ascension of man, swatted bricks by the tricks of a frightened, lesser-than,
humanity is what? Being, knowing what it is to be, seeing, believing, surviving,
a brain inside a skull that can't comprehend, stones on either end of a shelf for the Encyclopedia Humanitas, Alpha and Omega, where the books begin and where it ends
without it you're nothing but a bag of meat driven solely by appetite and agenda; a toolbox full of contacts you call friends
without them you're chemical actions peeling back friction, a fraction, catching a picture of the traction that glitch in the matrix of a matchbox resurrection, strikeout, your dead son and I play pretend    

Defiance is second nature to second nature, which is science
industrialized, militarized, the taste of copper in your throat
the Titanic sailed and sank, but they can build a bigger boat
do we court disaster, titans of machines, conflict and reckless responsibility for our Mother Earth?
When the bill comes due, unless other planets have been broken in too, we pay it all back in detriment or betterment for our place of birth.