Empty church chairs
Keep the light on upstairs
You said You had a plan
But here's the moving van
And I wonder why I ever cried
To leave these halls and whitewashed walls
And learn to be.

Woodgrain runs through the patterns of my youth
And I keep running from the truth
Those hundred and eighty eyes were blind
To what they put me through
The truth, the truth
I just keep running from You.

Dewy morning haze
Lazy pajama days
We just need perspective
To find our real objective
And I wonder why I ever tried
To fit myself into that shell
They made of me.

Woodgrain runs through the patterns of my youth
And I keep running from the truth
Those hundred and eighty eyes were blind
To what they put me through
The truth, the truth
I just keep running from You.

I can play the victim well
Walking on the line between Heaven and Hell
We're living in this great divide
Of time and space and sin and pride
To take a stand you will need nerve
So choose today who you will serve.

Woodgrain runs through the patterns of my youth
And I keep running from the truth
Those hundred and eighty eyes were blind
To what they put me through
The truth, the truth
The truth
The truth is that
I can't stop running from You.

Chop. Chop. Chop.
The colors of the pepper
scatter on woodgrain.
They sit next to the diced onion
that I cut blind-
Chop
with my face turned to the door.
Those are next to the once big trees of broccoli-
Chop
now small flowers,
and there's a potent pile of garlic-
Chop
ready to be thrown into a shallow pit of heat-
the olive oil is sizzling.
Stop.
Listen to sound of produce.
Go!
Don't let the smoke rise too far-
the noses will come visit
and take your dinner away.
That's okay...
**I wasn't hungry anyway.

I'll see you around, but
                                    not again on this empty floor,

the two of us in blankets, slept on our clothes,
woodgrain just out of reach.

Waiting at the station,
the 5 a.m. trolley home,
hands wrapped around my fare,

There's some memory of a dingy lastnight bar
where we chain-smoked through
the muted stop-motion of late-night,
whiskey breath and fingertips,
tracing the side of a face, the ends of nerves,

lost

in the traffic river crowd footfall,
at some patio latenight coffeehouse,
we were cinematic, mysterious under
the mercury lights that lit the sidewalk, that staged us

full, small, like hands wrapped around a cup with our name on it.

phloem in your veins;
your tongue curls around
the syllables of my name
erotically, and I'm
daydreaming about
your tongue curling around
my ******* while you talk circles about
calculus and chemistry.
woodgrain and
blood veins and
gun-splattered gore-brains,
the kitchen counter
saturated in sherbet and
awash in girl-***
while you writhe next to the
fruit bowl, in flagrante delicto.
we conquered the universe with a
steady stream of xenon ions, probing
deep into the velvety wet folds
of the galaxy, *******
to the laws of physics, *******
stretching you out.

I am a torso,
With the heart exposed.
Given a single morsel,
That shrieks and floats.

"This place is dark, "
Says my flying eye.
"Did My head go to the park? "
Responded I.

The woodgrain tables,
Coated in dust.
Homestead cables,
Plagued in rust.

The ghosts are sick,
And cannot move.
The air is thick,
Within each room.

No one lived here for years,
No windows in it's place.
The home sat empty with fear,
As apparitions pace.

Screams echo through the night,
As the front sorry creaks.
The brave cry with fright,
As the walls speak.

The boards rot away,
The clocks all stopped.
The curtains away,
Occasionally a head pops.

I roll into my place of death,
In hopes yo find my skull.
I got myself into this mess,
As I couldn't pay the toll.

Carpet Diem.

I want a Monte Carlo
with woodgrain
that drips
lacquer
like liquid
metal.

How sweet is the sound
of droplets
of wetted desire
and my chucks
dotted
by the bark
of a melted,
condensed,
glossed
and
digital
earth.

My Alpine's
make bus-drivers nervous,
with their hallways
full of a thousand faces,
staring down
at me
as I crack holes
in the concrete
big enough
for a squadron of buses
to fall into.

My Carlo
should have two things
in bunches,
it should have
the smell of a woman.

The smell of her
stale mouth
that lets loose fumes
in grated vents.

The Carlo's
smell should rattle me
like fences
that jingle when I brush against them.

Secondly,
my Carlo
should
be serious
and black.

All black.

I want my Carlo to have
opals for headlights
like the smeared *** of a firefly
or the eyes
of a panther.

My Carlo should be so beautiful
that it takes me back to the forest,
to the forge,
to the hotel,
to the hospital,
to the altar,
to a place of peace so loud
that I could take it between my fingertips
only to break it in a purr.

ROOM. 148
(Benjamin.)

This morning,
as I showered.
I saw the face of
Genghis Khan
appear,
just fleetingly
in the suds,
as the swirled at the drainpipe
he brandished,  a grinning leer
and then was gone.

This morning,
in my coffee,
institution brewed.
There he was Van Gogh,
Vincent,  from when,
he still had an ear.
Today, blue paint,
smudged his nose.

In the carpet, after
the cleaning lady had
come.
Amy Whitehouse
visited n'said,
"Rehab might have been
useful afterall."

They the faces, concerned,
and attached to bodies,
encumbered by white cloth.
Tell me, this is non-classic
pariedolia, a symptom of a larger syndrome.

And  if I wanted, to improve
my state of well being,  
that I should not
have any further....hmm
conversations...huhuh,
with the people.

I see in,
the woodgrain of the  
dining  table,
or the man in the
light's moonlike  cover,
or the chap in the door,
of the communal bathroom's
stall wall.

Yet I won't listen,
I don't trust them.

And besides, my buddy Freud
who pops up with the toast.
Told me today,  
"They don't know,
what they are,
talking about.
Not at all, not at all."
In any case,
my muses pariedoliac,
are far better
conversationalists.

With them, I have a ball!!!


ROOM 212
(Gwendolin.)

Today, I am good!

But some days.

My mind, is a battlefield
and I the maniac,
with the finger.
Hovering over the big red button.
So wanting to:
slam my hand down and end it, all.

On other days,
I barely have the energy within,
to lift my head from the
grey, black sludge,
I am drowning in.
On those days,
breathing is sisyphean task and the world is a *******
ball.
Balanced precariously,
on a weary and depressed Atlean hand,
as he drops defeated to the sand.

Then, there are the days I am so up and bright and bubbly
I am appalled and I exhuast myself with my happiness.


But truly, the worst days are,
when,
I am all this and more.
Those are the days,
that my mind becomes,
a feudal state.
Where I am foresaken
to the rage of mutiple realities, engaged in battles for prime position.
I struggle valiantly,
to hold, the bastion of sanity,  painstakenly created and found, in the smallest corner,
of my brainspace,
But they rage and rant
and roil and take,
my precious sanity,
and soil it,
in their mindless games.

And at the end,
of those days.
I am left to pick up
what is left of me
All the tattered pieces
and start all over again.

But the medication helps
smooth me out a lot, it does.

ROOM 179
(Bob.)

"Hello, do you have
a word for me?"

"Blatherskite, oh
you beautiful thing"

"Wordscore 21"

We can begin now,
I know I am not normal.
That I think differently to most.
My mind, is a mendicant,
beggarly thing.
Sitting in library corners.
It's arms held up in supplication, palms outstretched
begging alms, of dictation.
And slathering like a dog,
at a feasting table
snatching at syllables
and sentences.

I sit for hours engrossed
in thesuari
and would gleefully
stab your back multiple times
if you  carried a rare dictionare.

I am a wordaholic
words they are my
sorrowing addiction.

My scrabble tiles,
runic of my affliction.

When stressed the
smoothness
of a spelling bee
is my only solace.

I want to be very clear
I do not see my
addiction
as a affliction
adversely
affecting,
autonomy
but, the
surgeons
of the
psyche
differ,
in their
extrapolation,
of my
lexigraghical
pre occupation
apropos,
vis a vi,
my life
and functionary
state, therewith.
So my tiles and I,
stationarilary
codepend
in this spatial
reality,
until my
mind can find
a state
of equilibrium.

And to be brutally honest
with you.
I don't think that will be
soon,sooner, soonest.

the forest beckons, eddies of
wind rustling leaves, whispering
"welcome, welcome."
(a kilometre away,
there's a lumber yard)
the branches are blown about by
the wind, a come-hither
I am loathe to resist,
and I am struck with memory:
you,
naked,
standing shyly at the foot of your bed
one hand upon your
thigh, the other
crooking a solitary
finger, allowing me approach
as you look at the floor, hair
burqaing your face.

I am watching trees
blur by train windows,
and I'm reminded of
the green of your eyes,
and the woodgrain veins just
barely visible on your arms.

carving names into the woodgrain in old El Salvador. set the scene in your head: open air cafe, smiles and bad checks, squandering morale. vagrancy helps us hold our grudges. we are the greatest of all time, only we missed our mark and trailed off somewhere into a whisper. they always said our eyes gave us away, but i never really got that until now. it's inevitable that our eyelids will drift back and forth between sleep hemispheres until we accept the dormant fate of three twenty four AM. "you could be the death of me," you said, eyes fixated on the door, burnt out cigarette hanging from your cracked bottom lip.

i'm eighteen and
my mind is running away

you're screaming
ranting and raving
but don't know you're
doing it and don't know
that i'm crawling
inside a cave where
nothing can touch me
except wanting to die

you were grumbling after
dinner that i don't talk
to anybody anymore
but you don't know that i'm
not lacking words i'm just
lacking the energy
that it would take to
use any of them

(flashbacks to all the times recently
you've complained i don't love you
anymore. to my whole lifetime of
wondering if you loved me at all)

i'm thirteen and
unaware of my anxiety
associated with existence
usually put in in writing as
"pressure". but you don't think
there's anyone pressuring me

i talk too much to too
many people and have
been hurt before. but
never in that abject
way of it being because
i set myself up for it

(emotions so haywire that i end
up hospitalized over a box of
broken cd cases. now that i
remember it i was rage cleaning
and would unquestionably have
an even worse reaction today)

i'm seven and
having another ocular
migraine even though
i don't know it

(the past as as brittle as the
uncooked spaghetti filched
from the box and wedging
between my crooked teeth)

my memory fails me
whether you steamed
your way through preparing
dinner in the kitchen of faded
herbal wallpaper with words
and woodgrain. if i've been
tuning it out all this time
only to notice recently

("you're just like me" you said today
my seven-year old self thinks that's cool
while my current self is wishing to
deck someone while saying nothing)

today and tonight when intrusive
memories keep coming back is when i
remember that if i don't automatically
see things from your side there will
be a row. despite the fact you have
never investigated my perspective

(you're complaining about how
badly you sleep and how it's my
fault for waking you up at
four a.m. but did you ever stop
to ask why the ******* your
daughter is awake at four a.m.)

"my whole body hurts" you said
having taken some chronic
illnesses for some light grocery
shopping and attend a reception
"so does mine" i said
having taken a dark cloud
with me to work and
a panic attack to the library
"mine hurts worse" you replied
"and how do you know that" i demanded
sweeping my sadness off the kitchen table
"because i just do"

i guess your problem is that you
don't know how to be in pain without
minimizing mine but how hypocritical
when i'm over here minimizing
your pain to justify the fact that
my brain is trying to **** my body

(one of these days i fear what
i don't say will get the best
of me and i will crack clean
in two. start screaming
through doors death threats
ending in quadruple homicide
accompanied by my own
swinging body. it's not that
i hate everyone i just hate
feeling like i hate everyone)

but for now i'm investigating the perspective
so startlingly clear that you never loved me
just did what was required of you and so by that
standard i never would have loved you either

Spat out from the maw of carnage
slick with the battle's bile:
a coat of blood, black and foul
for war is hell and
hell the churning
chastening
chilling
gut
of a beast beyond reproach.

Yes, I was there...
I fought
for you
for your freedom
I fought so you could sin another
day
I fought so you could curse my
name
I fought so you could scorn your
savior
and wonder why it is I love,
you.
Tell me:
who is it that suffers greater?

The toil, is heavy
I lumber forward,
scars, like woodgrain, nest my body
I am born of battle
in my chest
my heart does rattle
empty
for there is no room for weakness.

I form pillars of truth and justice
I forge the righteous from
weakness, purpose
and all the
while
they grow
stronger conviction
in the unyielding dreams
that bolster all men from breaking.

Yet you lob laughter at my prophets
and greed is your only profit.
**** my champions
**** my children: men and women,
with your lust and lustre,
no matter,
for in recompense
for all your thoughtless vengeance,
I pay in kind...
Soon, you will envy,
the blind.

Another familiar night passes by as I sit by the open window.
My eyes overlooking the window pane, past the open glass.
Deep into the night I stare and ponder, far and wide my eyes scan.
They see only what the moonlight reveals, what will it reveal to me?
I've say and wondered about this life, this night seems stuck on repeat.
As I find myself here constantly, here in this sturdy old and creaky woodgrain chair.
Looking up I close my eyes and pray to any higher deity willing to help.
Quietly I let out my faint whispers, my words travel from mouth to midnight sky.
Hoping my prayers are heard, I sit awaiting for a sign...nothing..just a Howl from the wind.
I should know how it works by now, allow me to rephrase my cry for help.
Please whoever may hear me, I ask not that you do my work, but show me what my work is.
In a bright flash of burning white, as if God himself came into my waking dreams.
There in his words he showed me the entire scheme, " do as you will" he said to me.
This was the night I learned I wasn't worthless, I was meant for so much more.
Not for people to chant my fame or even fear the sounds of my name.
Slowly my core starts to boil, hope and passion rising, coursing through my blood.
I am here to be nothing short of great, and great is what I'll be.
To keep my blood line going, growing, and ever evolving.
Adapting is what I know, instinctive to the core, forever embedded inside of me.
Continuing to grow further more, adapting from mediocre to great.
I shall do what I must to keep pride inside my name.
Just like the indelible words of Poe, I'll never stop growing, "forever more"
For no one will stop me and take what's mine as their claim.
No power can stop the growth and evolution of my blood line.
Even long after I've left this world all will know of my generations to come.
Because just as he late great Bruce Lee said " live a life worth remembering. "
That is exactly what I'm doing "living a life worth remembering"
My legacy will be carried by future blood lines and they will flourish.
So always remember...

Give me amber warm
And woodgrain soft as sandstone
To meet with pressure
Over time and many miles
My hands will lead you homeward

Theres black filth congregating in the crevice of every ninety degree angle in this building

The woodgrain in the floor invites me to melt into its stream down the hallway through the cracks into the grimy kitchen below

There are ghosts cooking there

Ghosts pacing the hallway where their corporeal form bade them farewell

Ghosts outside lifting weights and running calisthenic circuits

As though there were any merit in the shape of their supernatural form

As though the taste of chicken tenders and french fries still satiated their desire for self destruction

As though the world was still waiting for them, hand outstretched to

Wakeupeatgotoworkeatbacktoworkeat

Pay your bills

Sleep

This is no life for us ghosts -- we soon-will-have-beens -- we memories-waiting-to-fade -- we destined-to-be-soon-to-be-forgottens -- we clinging-to-what-is-nows

All who will not have ears one day had better listen.

And there we sat
Strained against the woodgrain
Eyes, limbs
And I can't remember the words that left your lips
But everything in me wanted to stay forever and never have met you all at once
And I slammed our story shut quicker than I could slam the door to that tiny apartment

I'm sorry we couldn't be what we thought we could be

I'm sorry I refuse to open that door ever again